Serving Gifted Learners Beyond the Traditional Classroom: A Guide to Alternative Programs and Services

Serving Gifted Learners Beyond the Traditional Classroom: A Guide to Alternative Programs and Services provides a concise and thorough introduction to the various types of out-of-school programming recommended and appropriate for gifted and advanced learners. Including overviews of mentoring programs, residential schools, summer opportunities, and distance learning, top scholars in the field of gifted education combine research and experience in this guide to alternative services for teachers, parents, and gifted education program directors.

Other programs and services covered include service learning, university-based programs, and competitions. In addition, a much-needed review of the issues concerning programming for diverse youth, options for students from low-income backgrounds, and counseling gifted students to make good out-of-school choices, along with an insightful, insider s look at the culture and lives of gifted students at residential schools, make this handy guide to alternative programs and services a necessity for anyone serving and working with gifted students.

Joyce VanTassel-Baska is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Education at the College of William and Mary, where she initiated and serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education. Formerly she initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. VanTassel-Baska also has served as the state director of gifted programs in Illinois, a regional director, a local coordinator of gifted programs, and a teacher of gifted high school students. Her major research interests are in the talent development process and effective curricular interventions with the gifted.

She is the author of 22 books and has written more than 500 other publications on gifted education. She was the editor of Gifted and Talented International for several years and received the Distinguished Scholar Award in 1997 from the National Association for Gifted Children and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia in 1993. She received the Distinguished Alumna Achievement Award from the University of Toledo in 2003, the President’s Award from the World Council on Gifted and Talented in 2005, and the Collaboration and Diversity Service Award from CEC-TAG in 2007.

She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and Ed.D. degrees from the University of Toledo.