Recognizing Students’ Strengths

Visible evidence of highly able learners’ strengths appear in their behaviour, some more obvious or pleasant than others.  Some of those behaviours, those called the Brilliant Behaviours here (see list below), can play an important role in plans to differentiate their curriculum.  Ways to stimulate, observe and assess Brilliant Behaviours are provided after describing how the list of Brilliant Behaviours was developed and why.  They are ready for you to use in a variety of formats to suit different purposes and involve different observers (students observing themselves, being observed by their teacher, referred by classmates, etc.).

Students’ greatest academic strengths and passions are the areas in which their need for curriculum differentiation is also greatest.  As a result, students should be observed for signs of the Brilliant Behaviours while they are engaged in the subjects they care about most, their passions and strongest subject(s).

The Brilliant Behaviours

Humour:  Exceptionally keen sense of the comical, the bizarre, or absurd.
Imagination and Creativity:  Extraordinary ability to use ideas, processes, materials or anything else in ingenious, flexible or surprising ways.
Inquiry:  Probes deeply while exploring ideas & topics; asks deep questions; experiments with events, ideas, feelings, sounds, symbols, movement, etc.
Memory and Processing:  Tremendous capacity for dealing with large amounts of information and skills.
Sensitivity:  Unusually aware of or responsive to her/his own experiences and feelings and/or those of others.
Expressiveness:  Extraordinary ability to communicate meaning or emotion through words, actions, symbols, sounds, or media.
Reasoning: Loves to think; thinks things through, considers implications or alternatives; rich, flexible, highly conscious, analytical or logical thought. Thinking is not necessarily directed toward a goal or solution.
Problem-solving:  Outstanding ability to find systematic solutions to problems; is able to invent and monitor many paths to a goal; seeks out challenging problems.
Intuition:  Suddenly discovers connections or deeper meanings without conscious awareness of reasoning or thought.
Learning:  Extremely able to grasp and use sophisticated new understandings quickly and easily.
Interests:  Advanced, intensely focused curiousity; passionate; may focus on unusual topics; interest is sometimes fleeting but always intense.
Moral and ethical concerns: Extreme need for fairness and justice; will take action to resolve injustices; deeply concerned with the consequences of her or his actions.
Motivation:  Persistent, intense need to know, do, feel, create, or understand.

The purpose of this collection of Brilliant Behaviours is to assess behaviours that have implications for optimizing their learning.  They are based on a list developed by Kanevsky, Maker, Nielson and Rogers (1994) which first appeared in Maker & Nielson’s Curriculum Development and Teaching Strategies for Gifted Learners[1]. That list was based on the traits, aptitudes and behaviours Frasier and Passow[113] felt contributed to giftedness.  All wanted to be able to find students with high potential in many cultures, in girls as well as boys of all ages, in students with strengths in any subject area or type of intelligence, and in “meek or macho” students. In other words, the list is intended to be sensitive to brilliance in students of different cultural backgrounds, genders, ages, disciplines and temperaments.

The Brilliant Behaviours may contribute to efforts to identify gifted students (see below) but that isn’t their primary role.  Many other, longer lists characteristics have been developed for use in identification procedures (example include, Clark[115], Martinson[116], Renzulli, Smith, White, Callahan, & Hartman[117]). This succinct list of Brilliant Behaviours includes only those behaviour characteristics which will be the keys to determining the curriculum differentiation strategies most appropriate for each student. See the section Aligning Strategies to Strengths for the forms to do this (the Guides).

Alternate Formats

The Brilliant Behaviours are provided in eight different formats. Some are available in French and Spanish as well as English.  Each collects similar information but in different contexts and by different observers (teachers, or parents, or student self-observations). Offering different observers the same lenses (the behaviours) to view students in different settings and activities provides consistency in the observations and makes them easier to summarize later.  It also simplifies subsequent conversations among observers and decision-makers when everyone is looking for the same things.

Three individual forms can be used in observation activities. They include the basic Brilliant Behaviours form,  a set of descriptors to supplement any of the other forms, and a version with a frequency rating scale.  The self-assessment checklist asks students to rate themselves on the behaviours.  The group observation form is for whole class or group observations and looks like a class list.  Each of the two referral forms are to be completed either by either peers or teachers when determining who should be offered opportunities to participate in special programs.  The portfolio conferencing checklist is completed by teachers following a discussion with a student regarding the contents of her or his portfolio.  Each version of the Brilliant Behaviours is provided with directions for its use and interpretation.

Using the Brilliant Behaviours to Identify Gifted Students

The data from these Tools can complement tests scores or avoid the need for them depending upon the decision to be made. If no official “gifted” designation is needed, just transfer information collected from the Brilliant Behaviours to the Guide for Selecting Differentiation Strategies to continue with the curriculum differentiation process without labeling.  There is no cutoff score or minimum number of behaviours that must be found; one is sufficient to move on with the process of differentiating curriculum.

Although the Brilliant Behaviours can be used for referral, nomination or assessment, they are not intended to be the sole means of identifying or labeling gifted students.  If official designation is necessary for access to alternative services and placements, one or more versions of the Brilliant Behaviours can be used to collect data to use in the identification process.  For that task, other information must be collected and considered (student products and portfolios, test scores, etc.).   The individuals involved in making this determination should meet prior to collecting data to make some crucial decisions:

  • What services and placements are available?
  • What sorts of students will benefit most from these opportunities?
  • How many students can be accommodated?

The answers to these questions will shape the answer to efforts to find students with high ability.  Their answer simplifies the big challenge: How can these students be found?  Finding them will involve Brilliant Behaviours forms, the data they collect, and a process to apply criteria for selection to these data so decisions and placements can be made.

Before undertaking data collection, the individuals involved should understand the role each kind of information will play in the final decision. Individuals involved in the process also need a clear understanding of their roles in data collection, decision-making and program planning. Timelines for data collection, meetings and decision-making should also be clear to all participants in the process including students, parents and teachers.

The forms, data and decisions must locate the students best suited to the types of programming to be offered. Possibilities include self-paced individual projects, creative problem solving groups, or differentiated curricular experiences in the regular classroom, mentoring–the options are infinite. One or more of these options would be appropriate for some students and inappropriate for others.

General Directions for Using the Brilliant Behaviours

Brilliant Behaviours forms available (with directions)