Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you want your local public elementary school to perform free psychologist-led IQ tests on all children? (If it was an option, that is.) Ostensibly for the purposes of putting children into different groups and offering those with IQs of above a certain amount (let's say 130) to take part in special small group instruction?

This is already happening. No IQ test needed. In fact IQ is irrelevant to the differentiated instruction - actual performance and ability are the measure; and since those are variable, the groups can/do change with the needs and development of the child.

Differentiation becomes near impossible when you have kids in the same class who are academic years and sometimes decades apart in ability. Kids with greater academic abilities will be left to their devices for the most part as teachers focus their efforts on struggling students. Also, by dividing a class into groups, it effectively means students get less direct instructional time with the teacher than when students are grouped by ability into different classrooms. Any teacher worth their mettle knows this.

People keep telling me that, but I guess we've just been really lucky with the 9 teachers DCs have had so far.

Differentiation can work really well as long as teachers balance time between different groups of students.However most posters on DCUM are convinced the only way their kid can be properly challenged is if their speshull snowflake is in a special snowflake classroom with a moat around it to keep the dumb kids out. Or pull outs so they can at least go off in another room for part of the day. I'm not sure if it's an ego thing (getting to brag your kid is in a gifted class, or because most people on DCUM have really incorrect notions on gifted/talented education (ie testing kids at 5, or worse using the CAS as proof of being gifted)

Differentiation in practice in DCPS is bullshit and everyone knows it. They throw the term around, and pat themselves on the back thinking they address all needs when the sad, actual reality is that they teach to the middle and ignore the high achievers and the kids that are struggling. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deceiving themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The title of your post made me LOL (laugh out loud).

I see what you did there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they would give IQ tests to adults so that only those with an IQ over 130 had the best jobs. The rest could be our worker bees. No reason not to start it in elementary school. That way there's no deceiving one another that "you can do anything when you grow up."

"You can do anything when you grow up" is a big fat lie. I am 5 feet tall, I could never be a great basketball player, no matter how hard I tried.
Same with IQ, whether we like it or not.

IQ can change. Adult height does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you want your local public elementary school to perform free psychologist-led IQ tests on all children? (If it was an option, that is.) Ostensibly for the purposes of putting children into different groups and offering those with IQs of above a certain amount (let's say 130) to take part in special small group instruction?

This is already happening. No IQ test needed. In fact IQ is irrelevant to the differentiated instruction - actual performance and ability are the measure; and since those are variable, the groups can/do change with the needs and development of the child.

Differentiation becomes near impossible when you have kids in the same class who are academic years and sometimes decades apart in ability. Kids with greater academic abilities will be left to their devices for the most part as teachers focus their efforts on struggling students. Also, by dividing a class into groups, it effectively means students get less direct instructional time with the teacher than when students are grouped by ability into different classrooms. Any teacher worth their mettle knows this.

People keep telling me that, but I guess we've just been really lucky with the 9 teachers DCs have had so far.

Differentiation can work really well as long as teachers balance time between different groups of students.However most posters on DCUM are convinced the only way their kid can be properly challenged is if their speshull snowflake is in a special snowflake classroom with a moat around it to keep the dumb kids out. Or pull outs so they can at least go off in another room for part of the day. I'm not sure if it's an ego thing (getting to brag your kid is in a gifted class, or because most people on DCUM have really incorrect notions on gifted/talented education (ie testing kids at 5, or worse using the CAS as proof of being gifted)

Differentiation in practice in DCPS is bullshit and everyone knows it. They throw the term around, and pat themselves on the back thinking they address all needs when the sad, actual reality is that they teach to the middle and ignore the high achievers and the kids that are struggling. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deceiving themselves.

I respectfully disagree. Differentiation done well is hard but it is happening at some schools. You may not be aware of them but that does not make them nonexistent. I say this as a parent of an advanced studen whose needs are well addressed in her dcps. It takes serious commitment and resources but it can be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they would give IQ tests to adults so that only those with an IQ over 130 had the best jobs. The rest could be our worker bees. No reason not to start it in elementary school. That way there's no deceiving one another that "you can do anything when you grow up."

"You can do anything when you grow up" is a big fat lie. I am 5 feet tall, I could never be a great basketball player, no matter how hard I tried.
Same with IQ, whether we like it or not.

IQ can change. Adult height does not.

Not really. Outside of early stages of development, IQ typically doesn't change in any great leaps and bounds after that, it only tends to vary by a few percentage points. And likewise, no amount of coaching or test prep will ever give an average person genius IQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they would give IQ tests to adults so that only those with an IQ over 130 had the best jobs. The rest could be our worker bees. No reason not to start it in elementary school. That way there's no deceiving one another that "you can do anything when you grow up."

"You can do anything when you grow up" is a big fat lie. I am 5 feet tall, I could never be a great basketball player, no matter how hard I tried.
Same with IQ, whether we like it or not.

IQ can change. Adult height does not.

Not really. Outside of early stages of development, IQ typically doesn't change in any great leaps and bounds after that, it only tends to vary by a few percentage points. And likewise, no amount of coaching or test prep will ever give an average person genius IQ.

Average IQ to genius level is a big jump, and I don't think anybody believe you can coach someone from average to genius. I do have a child who has taken multiple cognitive abilities tests, partly required by the school system, and partly due to need for neuropsych eval. The cog test scores varied considerably. Therefore I am forced to conclude that these tests are not totally accurate. Furthermore, if a child is average IQ but a high achiever by every measure, should we let them know they have average IQ and that their performance is therefore impossible, and buy them a hair net? After we mandate IQ tests, let's lobby the US to get another eugenics program going. It worked really well in the early 20th century. The IQ obsession on these boards is creepy.

[Anonymous]

DCPS does a great job with differentiation if they want to and they try.

[Anonymous]

They don't vary "considerably" - unless someone is doing something very very wrong when they administer the test, or the person being tested is having a very, very off day. The variation that one would normally see would be something like 125, 127, 122 from one year to the next... I wouldn't expect to see a change of 10 points no matter what - that would be a red flag that something is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you want your local public elementary school to perform free psychologist-led IQ tests on all children? (If it was an option, that is.) Ostensibly for the purposes of putting children into different groups and offering those with IQs of above a certain amount (let's say 130) to take part in special small group instruction?

This is already happening. No IQ test needed. In fact IQ is irrelevant to the differentiated instruction - actual performance and ability are the measure; and since those are variable, the groups can/do change with the needs and development of the child.

Differentiation becomes near impossible when you have kids in the same class who are academic years and sometimes decades apart in ability. Kids with greater academic abilities will be left to their devices for the most part as teachers focus their efforts on struggling students. Also, by dividing a class into groups, it effectively means students get less direct instructional time with the teacher than when students are grouped by ability into different classrooms. Any teacher worth their mettle knows this.

People keep telling me that, but I guess we've just been really lucky with the 9 teachers DCs have had so far.

Differentiation can work really well as long as teachers balance time between different groups of students.However most posters on DCUM are convinced the only way their kid can be properly challenged is if their speshull snowflake is in a special snowflake classroom with a moat around it to keep the dumb kids out. Or pull outs so they can at least go off in another room for part of the day. I'm not sure if it's an ego thing (getting to brag your kid is in a gifted class, or because most people on DCUM have really incorrect notions on gifted/talented education (ie testing kids at 5, or worse using the CAS as proof of being gifted)

Differentiation in practice in DCPS is bullshit and everyone knows it. They throw the term around, and pat themselves on the back thinking they address all needs when the sad, actual reality is that they teach to the middle and ignore the high achievers and the kids that are struggling. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deceiving themselves.

Your experience with your school is clearly very different from our experience with our school. If our school ignored my children and taught to the middle of the road, we'd make a change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They don't vary "considerably" - unless someone is doing something very very wrong when they administer the test, or the person being tested is having a very, very off day. The variation that one would normally see would be something like 125, 127, 122 from one year to the next... I wouldn't expect to see a change of 10 points no matter what - that would be a red flag that something is wrong.

I don't know if you can compare the different cog abilities tests directly, but trust me there was variation from high average to low gifted and the percentile change ranged over 15% from one test to the other. I don't have reason to believe the test administration was flawed. There is a wide percentile range from high average to low gifted potentially if you're coming out on the low end of high average on one test. Anyway, I don't think these things are the be all and end all. Furthermore, if you look on DCUM you'll see whole threads devoted to discussions of prepping for the WISC-IV so there are too many tested who've been exposed to the material. That skews the results.

[Anonymous]

Yet one more reason why IQ is an out-dated concept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don't vary "considerably" - unless someone is doing something very very wrong when they administer the test, or the person being tested is having a very, very off day. The variation that one would normally see would be something like 125, 127, 122 from one year to the next... I wouldn't expect to see a change of 10 points no matter what - that would be a red flag that something is wrong.

I don't know if you can compare the different cog abilities tests directly, but trust me there was variation from high average to low gifted and the percentile change ranged over 15% from one test to the other. I don't have reason to believe the test administration was flawed. There is a wide percentile range from high average to low gifted potentially if you're coming out on the low end of high average on one test. Anyway, I don't think these things are the be all and end all. Furthermore, if you look on DCUM you'll see whole threads devoted to discussions of prepping for the WISC-IV so there are too many tested who've been exposed to the material. That skews the results.

Now you are talking about something entirely different: different tests. Trying to compare different tests is like trying to compare apples and oranges. On the SAME testing, you will see very little variation.

[Anonymous]

Yawn.

[Anonymous]

My 2 DC both scored 148 and 143 respectively on the WISC - is this same as IQ?

[Anonymous]

No. Outliers are apparent to others. No tests are needed.