Focus: Low Income Learners with Promising Potential

Later this month, I will participate in a Research Summit on 'Low Income, High Ability Learners' hosted by the National Association for Gifted Children in Washington, DC. In a recent communication to me, NAGC President Dr. Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, noted that the purpose of the Summit:

"Our overall goal with this summit is to distill and collect recent research as well as successful program and service models for low-income, promising learners so as to craft a future research agenda and recommendations that will further facilitate the development of best practices for the talent development of these learners.  This event and its outcomes will culminate in a white paper for wide distribution"

My role during the day and a half summit will be to serve on a panel and respond to two 'issue framers': Dr. Angela Duckworth and Dr. Frank Worrell on the topic of: "Building a Psychological Identity that Supports Commitment to High Achievement/Psycho-social Skill and Issues with Promising Learners from Poverty." The goal of this panel is to help our audience understand the psycho-social issues that affect the development, learning, and achievement of low-income children.

I am very pleased to have been invited and look forward to engaging with nation's top researchers, scholars and practitioners with a vested interest in the intellectual, academic and psycho-social development of high ability & gifted low income learners.

Among the lead presenters and participants are: Dr. Donna Y. Ford; Dr. Joyce Van Tassel-Baska; Dr. Tracy Cross; Dr. Rena Subnotik, Dr. Carol Horn, Dr. Jonathan Plucker, Dr. Chester Finn, Tiombe Bisa-Kendrick, Dr. Jaime Castellano, Dr. Tamra Stambaugh, Josh Wyner, reps from Duke & Johns Hopkins Talent Search programs, and a host of scholars whose research and programming have been devoted to enhancing educational opportunities for these learners.

I will post a blog in early June to share some of my experiences!! Please continue to share this blogsite! It is generating a great deal of interest and thus, more advocacy for the needs of culturally & linguistically gifted learners.

The Research Summit is being sponsored by a generous grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. For more information about the JKC Foundation and the great work they do for a wide diversity of gifted learners and programs, go to: http://www.jkcf.org/ . The Scholars who are sponsored by the Foundation are exemplary students who represent cultures from across the nation. PLEASE READ their profiles. You will be impressed!!