GBRS, Work sample and overall level 4 portfolio

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But the other part is that I think some kids may need *some* instruction on how to go a little deeper. What I mean by that is that if you teach my daughter the basics - she learns and demonstrates the basics. If you give her some direction on how to think more deeply - she will. But by herself, it may not occur to her.

Different state with a PG child, gifted meeting, our child's teacher complained she never went beyond the rubric. Was our child ever asked? The answer was no. They won't do it automatically, most especially with boring work. And the ask was ridiculous. The instructions say write 4 sentences. My kid would absolutely die to violate an instruction. Speaking of, DC also has issues with poorly written instructions that lead to illogical results. Unfortunately the teachers just aren't capable of writing using clear and logical language.

Teachers look for that classical ideal of a high achieving learner. Something they can relate to. They don't care and it doesn't seem to matter to the program about max capabilities.

Really? Because I know plenty of kids who complete the work assigned and then use the extra time to read up on the subject or write their own math problems or do work that is beyond the required work. Say what you will about the kids who are not in-pool for test scores but who complete their work and then go and do the additional work but they are showing an interest in deeper learning even if their test scores are not as high. Those are the kids who are going to end up in AAP. They are curious and motivated to do more then what is asked.

Your child might be uber smart but they are not showing an internal drive to learn more, ie they are not curious or motivated to learn. They probably are bored, ES work is not difficult for most kids who are smart and learn in a traditional method but they are not showing a drive to do anything about being bored.

DS is smart. He completes his work and does the extra work that is assigned. He reads the books his Teachers have available on the subjects that they are working on. He does the extra worksheets. He asks to do more in math. Part of that is his curiosity and part of it is that we have always commented on effort scores and not grades because that is what matters to us. His GBRS included comments about his willingness to pick up an extra book and read more on his own and how he would work that information into his school work and conversations. His GBRS included comments about material he had learned at home and was able to relate to his classwork. If you don't think Teachers notice these things then you are missing the bigger picture.

And my kid is not an extrovert who raises his hand. His Teachers from preschool through second grade consistently told us that they were working on encouraging him to participate more. He was quiet and would not volunteer answers in class. He would not want to present to the rest of the class. He was one of 30 kids in his class in K-2. All of his Teachers ended up telling us that they were specifically calling on him in order to get him comfortable with participating. Something finally clicked at the end of 2nd grade and he started voluntarily participating and this is no longer an issue.

Maybe he had phenomenal Teachers but he was very much the quiet, smart kid who did his work and then did more because he had time and he was interested in learning. His Teachers saw him and his GBRSs reflected what they saw.

It is not surprising to me that a child who is scoring high on tests and doing the bare minimum is not getting into AAP, they are not showing the curiosity and independent drive that the schools are looking for

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But the other part is that I think some kids may need *some* instruction on how to go a little deeper. What I mean by that is that if you teach my daughter the basics - she learns and demonstrates the basics. If you give her some direction on how to think more deeply - she will. But by herself, it may not occur to her.

Different state with a PG child, gifted meeting, our child's teacher complained she never went beyond the rubric. Was our child ever asked? The answer was no. They won't do it automatically, most especially with boring work. And the ask was ridiculous. The instructions say write 4 sentences. My kid would absolutely die to violate an instruction. Speaking of, DC also has issues with poorly written instructions that lead to illogical results. Unfortunately the teachers just aren't capable of writing using clear and logical language.

Teachers look for that classical ideal of a high achieving learner. Something they can relate to. They don't care and it doesn't seem to matter to the program about max capabilities.

Really? Because I know plenty of kids who complete the work assigned and then use the extra time to read up on the subject or write their own math problems or do work that is beyond the required work. Say what you will about the kids who are not in-pool for test scores but who complete their work and then go and do the additional work but they are showing an interest in deeper learning even if their test scores are not as high. Those are the kids who are going to end up in AAP. They are curious and motivated to do more then what is asked.

Your child might be uber smart but they are not showing an internal drive to learn more, ie they are not curious or motivated to learn. They probably are bored, ES work is not difficult for most kids who are smart and learn in a traditional method but they are not showing a drive to do anything about being bored.

DS is smart. He completes his work and does the extra work that is assigned. He reads the books his Teachers have available on the subjects that they are working on. He does the extra worksheets. He asks to do more in math. Part of that is his curiosity and part of it is that we have always commented on effort scores and not grades because that is what matters to us. His GBRS included comments about his willingness to pick up an extra book and read more on his own and how he would work that information into his school work and conversations. His GBRS included comments about material he had learned at home and was able to relate to his classwork. If you don't think Teachers notice these things then you are missing the bigger picture.

And my kid is not an extrovert who raises his hand. His Teachers from preschool through second grade consistently told us that they were working on encouraging him to participate more. He was quiet and would not volunteer answers in class. He would not want to present to the rest of the class. He was one of 30 kids in his class in K-2. All of his Teachers ended up telling us that they were specifically calling on him in order to get him comfortable with participating. Something finally clicked at the end of 2nd grade and he started voluntarily participating and this is no longer an issue.

Maybe he had phenomenal Teachers but he was very much the quiet, smart kid who did his work and then did more because he had time and he was interested in learning. His Teachers saw him and his GBRSs reflected what they saw.

It is not surprising to me that a child who is scoring high on tests and doing the bare minimum is not getting into AAP, they are not showing the curiosity and independent drive that the schools are looking for

DP. Nah, those kids are getting into AAP too. Getting a low Motivation to Succeed score on the GBRS doesn't keep a kid out of AAP, it's just another data point in the packet.

There are a handful of kids with high test scores and/or high WISC scores who are not admitted and they all post on DCUM. But the vast majority of those kids are admitted and don't post here. The system only looks inscrutable if you take DCUM as your sole data source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But the other part is that I think some kids may need *some* instruction on how to go a little deeper. What I mean by that is that if you teach my daughter the basics - she learns and demonstrates the basics. If you give her some direction on how to think more deeply - she will. But by herself, it may not occur to her.

Different state with a PG child, gifted meeting, our child's teacher complained she never went beyond the rubric. Was our child ever asked? The answer was no. They won't do it automatically, most especially with boring work. And the ask was ridiculous. The instructions say write 4 sentences. My kid would absolutely die to violate an instruction. Speaking of, DC also has issues with poorly written instructions that lead to illogical results. Unfortunately the teachers just aren't capable of writing using clear and logical language.

Teachers look for that classical ideal of a high achieving learner. Something they can relate to. They don't care and it doesn't seem to matter to the program about max capabilities.

Really? Because I know plenty of kids who complete the work assigned and then use the extra time to read up on the subject or write their own math problems or do work that is beyond the required work. Say what you will about the kids who are not in-pool for test scores but who complete their work and then go and do the additional work but they are showing an interest in deeper learning even if their test scores are not as high. Those are the kids who are going to end up in AAP. They are curious and motivated to do more then what is asked.

Your child might be uber smart but they are not showing an internal drive to learn more, ie they are not curious or motivated to learn. They probably are bored, ES work is not difficult for most kids who are smart and learn in a traditional method but they are not showing a drive to do anything about being bored.

DS is smart. He completes his work and does the extra work that is assigned. He reads the books his Teachers have available on the subjects that they are working on. He does the extra worksheets. He asks to do more in math. Part of that is his curiosity and part of it is that we have always commented on effort scores and not grades because that is what matters to us. His GBRS included comments about his willingness to pick up an extra book and read more on his own and how he would work that information into his school work and conversations. His GBRS included comments about material he had learned at home and was able to relate to his classwork. If you don't think Teachers notice these things then you are missing the bigger picture.

And my kid is not an extrovert who raises his hand. His Teachers from preschool through second grade consistently told us that they were working on encouraging him to participate more. He was quiet and would not volunteer answers in class. He would not want to present to the rest of the class. He was one of 30 kids in his class in K-2. All of his Teachers ended up telling us that they were specifically calling on him in order to get him comfortable with participating. Something finally clicked at the end of 2nd grade and he started voluntarily participating and this is no longer an issue.

Maybe he had phenomenal Teachers but he was very much the quiet, smart kid who did his work and then did more because he had time and he was interested in learning. His Teachers saw him and his GBRSs reflected what they saw.

It is not surprising to me that a child who is scoring high on tests and doing the bare minimum is not getting into AAP, they are not showing the curiosity and independent drive that the schools are looking for

DP, but it really depends on the teacher and school. Some teachers view wanting to do even more busywork worksheets and doing a neater job with your coloring as motivation. My kid in 2nd decided to teach himself the rules for adding numbers in binary. He opted to do this instead of a word search. Rather than being amazed that a 2nd grader even knew what base 2 was or had the understanding to figure out addition rules (which he wrote out quite clearly), the teacher was annoyed that he didn't do her word search. She also had no clue what binary even was, so had no way to appreciate it. Likewise, he was hardcore into Percy Jackson and spent a ton of time reading that in class. The teacher viewed him as unmotivated because he would rather read Percy Jackson than do extra pretty coloring work on the coloring sheet she gave the class.

Mine was a 140+ CogAT, 140+ WISC, iready math 3+ years above, iready reading 2 years above, 10 GBRS type of kid, largely because the 2nd grade teacher was a moron. He still got accepted to AAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But the other part is that I think some kids may need *some* instruction on how to go a little deeper. What I mean by that is that if you teach my daughter the basics - she learns and demonstrates the basics. If you give her some direction on how to think more deeply - she will. But by herself, it may not occur to her.

Different state with a PG child, gifted meeting, our child's teacher complained she never went beyond the rubric. Was our child ever asked? The answer was no. They won't do it automatically, most especially with boring work. And the ask was ridiculous. The instructions say write 4 sentences. My kid would absolutely die to violate an instruction. Speaking of, DC also has issues with poorly written instructions that lead to illogical results. Unfortunately the teachers just aren't capable of writing using clear and logical language.

Teachers look for that classical ideal of a high achieving learner. Something they can relate to. They don't care and it doesn't seem to matter to the program about max capabilities.

Really? Because I know plenty of kids who complete the work assigned and then use the extra time to read up on the subject or write their own math problems or do work that is beyond the required work. Say what you will about the kids who are not in-pool for test scores but who complete their work and then go and do the additional work but they are showing an interest in deeper learning even if their test scores are not as high. Those are the kids who are going to end up in AAP. They are curious and motivated to do more then what is asked.

Your child might be uber smart but they are not showing an internal drive to learn more, ie they are not curious or motivated to learn. They probably are bored, ES work is not difficult for most kids who are smart and learn in a traditional method but they are not showing a drive to do anything about being bored.

DS is smart. He completes his work and does the extra work that is assigned. He reads the books his Teachers have available on the subjects that they are working on. He does the extra worksheets. He asks to do more in math. Part of that is his curiosity and part of it is that we have always commented on effort scores and not grades because that is what matters to us. His GBRS included comments about his willingness to pick up an extra book and read more on his own and how he would work that information into his school work and conversations. His GBRS included comments about material he had learned at home and was able to relate to his classwork. If you don't think Teachers notice these things then you are missing the bigger picture.

And my kid is not an extrovert who raises his hand. His Teachers from preschool through second grade consistently told us that they were working on encouraging him to participate more. He was quiet and would not volunteer answers in class. He would not want to present to the rest of the class. He was one of 30 kids in his class in K-2. All of his Teachers ended up telling us that they were specifically calling on him in order to get him comfortable with participating. Something finally clicked at the end of 2nd grade and he started voluntarily participating and this is no longer an issue.

Maybe he had phenomenal Teachers but he was very much the quiet, smart kid who did his work and then did more because he had time and he was interested in learning. His Teachers saw him and his GBRSs reflected what they saw.

It is not surprising to me that a child who is scoring high on tests and doing the bare minimum is not getting into AAP, they are not showing the curiosity and independent drive that the schools are looking for

DP, but it really depends on the teacher and school. Some teachers view wanting to do even more busywork worksheets and doing a neater job with your coloring as motivation. My kid in 2nd decided to teach himself the rules for adding numbers in binary. He opted to do this instead of a word search. Rather than being amazed that a 2nd grader even knew what base 2 was or had the understanding to figure out addition rules (which he wrote out quite clearly), the teacher was annoyed that he didn't do her word search. She also had no clue what binary even was, so had no way to appreciate it. Likewise, he was hardcore into Percy Jackson and spent a ton of time reading that in class. The teacher viewed him as unmotivated because he would rather read Percy Jackson than do extra pretty coloring work on the coloring sheet she gave the class.

Mine was a 140+ CogAT, 140+ WISC, iready math 3+ years above, iready reading 2 years above, 10 GBRS type of kid, largely because the 2nd grade teacher was a moron. He still got accepted to AAP.

So the system worked for your kid. The committee ignored the GBRS and looked at the other elements of the packet. The committee saw the discrepancies and ignored the outlier in the GBRSs. I would guess that your kids teacher was an outlier. I hope your kids teacher was an outlier.

The Worksheets and extra work my kids classroom has had has not been coloring sheets and word searches but more difficult worksheets and then options for reading or creative writing or coloring quietly at your desk. DS used to bring home pages of a story that he was writing and illustrating after he finished his LA work and math worksheets that included using negative numbers and logic problems. The busy work didn't suck, maybe that made it more palatable to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school work samples are crap. But you can't do anything about it. So just focus on what you can control. Get good work samples for yourself to submit and fill out the parent info sheet with a lot of good, thoughtful detail. You're right, the school and the teacher don't know your kid like you know your kid so give as much good info as you can.

In our situation, we had a first year teacher who knew nothing about my child. The comments on the GBRS made that very clear. They were either very generic or they rehashed comments I had put on my parent info form. The work samples were atrocious. We reapplied in third grade with new CogAT scores and work samples of our own (we could submit up to four I believe at the time) and she got in.

However, if you're thinking you'll get more homework in AAP, that is not always the case. My AAP 6th grader has none.

Probably a dumb question, but what do you consider a "good" work sample? A short story? A book report? A sheet full of long division?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school work samples are crap. But you can't do anything about it. So just focus on what you can control. Get good work samples for yourself to submit and fill out the parent info sheet with a lot of good, thoughtful detail. You're right, the school and the teacher don't know your kid like you know your kid so give as much good info as you can.

In our situation, we had a first year teacher who knew nothing about my child. The comments on the GBRS made that very clear. They were either very generic or they rehashed comments I had put on my parent info form. The work samples were atrocious. We reapplied in third grade with new CogAT scores and work samples of our own (we could submit up to four I believe at the time) and she got in.

However, if you're thinking you'll get more homework in AAP, that is not always the case. My AAP 6th grader has none.

Probably a dumb question, but what do you consider a "good" work sample? A short story? A book report? A sheet full of long division?

A short story? Yes, if it shows creativity and is written at a higher level than what you would expect from a 2nd grader. We submitted a short two or three sentence journal entry because we thought it showed creativity of thought and a different viewpoint. I honestly don't remember what it said specifically because it's been a few years but something about Christmas lights really being elves for Santa and they catch kids being good. I can't remember.

A book report? Probably not unless it showed amazing insight into the book that would be atypical for a 2nd grader.

A sheet full of long division? Nope.

You're looking for samples that show deeper thinking and creative thought. A board game that your kid made and wrote out directions too, a presentation they did to share info they learned on their own (yes, I have a kid who does this....she researches stuff and then makes google slide shows that we all have to sit through), a real life math problem that they figured out (like...they wanted a ping pong table in their basement but mom said it wouldn't fit so kid went and did some measuring and researched ping pong tables and figured out it would fit if you put it a certain way or moved furniture)... stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school work samples are crap. But you can't do anything about it. So just focus on what you can control. Get good work samples for yourself to submit and fill out the parent info sheet with a lot of good, thoughtful detail. You're right, the school and the teacher don't know your kid like you know your kid so give as much good info as you can.

In our situation, we had a first year teacher who knew nothing about my child. The comments on the GBRS made that very clear. They were either very generic or they rehashed comments I had put on my parent info form. The work samples were atrocious. We reapplied in third grade with new CogAT scores and work samples of our own (we could submit up to four I believe at the time) and she got in.

However, if you're thinking you'll get more homework in AAP, that is not always the case. My AAP 6th grader has none.

Probably a dumb question, but what do you consider a "good" work sample? A short story? A book report? A sheet full of long division?

Worksheets are not a good work sample, they don't show anything special. The math problems that tend to be solid samples are ones that show logic and how a problem was solved. Written samples should show that the child is ahead. I actually think creative writing is harder to show because there is always a concern that the work has been corrected by a parent or co-written or something.

Our home work samples were pictures of various contraptions that our child built using various toys at his disposal. We thought they showed creativity, engineering skills, and the like. Who knows if they helped or not. His school work samples seemed to be good. The print out that we got was photocopied in black and white so we actually couldn't read his creative writing one because it had something to do with a picture and it did not photocopy well. The math worksheets were logic problems with his explaining his answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But the other part is that I think some kids may need *some* instruction on how to go a little deeper. What I mean by that is that if you teach my daughter the basics - she learns and demonstrates the basics. If you give her some direction on how to think more deeply - she will. But by herself, it may not occur to her.

Different state with a PG child, gifted meeting, our child's teacher complained she never went beyond the rubric. Was our child ever asked? The answer was no. They won't do it automatically, most especially with boring work. And the ask was ridiculous. The instructions say write 4 sentences. My kid would absolutely die to violate an instruction.[i][u] Speaking of, DC also has issues with poorly written instructions that lead to illogical results. Unfortunately the teachers just aren't capable of writing using clear and logical language.

Teachers look for that classical ideal of a high achieving learner. Something they can relate to. They don't care and it doesn't seem to matter to the program about max capabilities.

I think this is a really important point. Some kids are SO focused on following directions, and really anxious of going against a teacher's directions, that they will simply do what is asked because that is how they interpret the direction. Of course, a good teacher will leave plenty of open-ended assignments and questions so that the brightest kids have an opportunity to go deeper *within* the scope of the assignment, but penalizing a kid because they followed the directions is a disservice to those kids.

[Anonymous]

This might be a silly question. But where on the various AAP Level IV referral forms does it say that parents can submit work samples? The referral form says that attachments may not be submitted.

The AART at my child’s school doesn’t provide helpful answers about process questions. So, it feels like we are navigating this blind.

[Anonymous]

https://www.fcps.edu/registration/advanced-academics-identification-and-placement/current-fcps-students

Step 2

Optional – submit additional information to the Advanced Academic Resource Teacher (AART) at your local elementary school or the Director of Student Services (DSS) at the middle school by the deadline. Learn more about the requirements for additional information by visiting the Full-Time Level IV Services Identification Procedures page.

Parent/Guardian Questionnaire
Student Work Samples - limit 2 pages
Achievement Test Scores (SOL Scores Already Included)
Private Ability Test Results

It looks like 2 pages for samples from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.fcps.edu/registration/advanced-academics-identification-and-placement/current-fcps-students

Step 2

Optional – submit additional information to the Advanced Academic Resource Teacher (AART) at your local elementary school or the Director of Student Services (DSS) at the middle school by the deadline. Learn more about the requirements for additional information by visiting the Full-Time Level IV Services Identification Procedures page.

Parent/Guardian Questionnaire
Student Work Samples - limit 2 pages
Achievement Test Scores (SOL Scores Already Included)
Private Ability Test Results

It looks like 2 pages for samples from home.

Thank you! This is helpful. I must have overlooked this when downloading the forms.