UC Irvine Offers “Gifted and Talented Education” Seminars At No Cost

As Education Resources Decrease, University Offers Complimentary Curriculum for Educators and Administrators

IRVINE, Calif. – July 7, 2009 – The University of California, Irvine today announced the availability of its “Gifted and Talented Education” (GATE) seminars on its OpenCourseWare (OCW) Web site. UC Irvine’s OCW initiative promotes the open sharing of knowledge by enabling learners—anywhere in the world, no matter who or where they are—to view and use university-level course materials and resources through the Web. With a series of UC Irvine Extension’s GATE Webinars offered completely free of charge, teachers, administrators, and parents nationwide will have the opportunity to advance their education.

“As teachers and administrators face diminishing resources and staggering layoffs, we felt this was the time to provide this free service,” says Gary W. Matkin, Ph.D., dean of continuing education at UC Irvine. “The GATE seminars give participants practical knowledge that can immediately be used, or can assist them in securing a new teaching job. These are also great tools to help parents identify and address the needs of their gifted children.”

UC Irvine Extension is known for its exceptional GATE programming. Its programs provide new educational options for K-12 teachers through focused professional development sessions and individual courses, as well as entire certificate programs aligned with the California Association for the Gifted (CAG), the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), and state standards for excellence. Free online seminars include:

How to Relate Successfully with Gifted Youngsters - This seminar will explore the five most common behaviors of gifted students and explain how these behaviors manifest differently in the school and home setting. Strategies for effectively responding to these behaviors will also be presented.

What Differentiation Should Look Like - Designed to clarify the need for core curriculum differentiation as defined by GATE program standards, grade-level examples of what differentiation might look like in a classroom will be provided.

Building the Parent/Teacher Connection - Providing tips for both parents and educators on how to effectively communicate with one another about differentiated assignments for gifted students, this seminar will also provide invaluable resources for educators and parents.

Understanding IQ Testing & Special Programming for Advanced and Gifted Learners - This seminar will outline the benefits and limitations of IQ testing, compare various score profiles, and demonstrate how to use testing data in educational planning. Both in-school and outside gifted programming options will be considered.

“The Gifted and Talented Education seminars provide an excellent forum for learning new tools and learning how to communicate with and understand these students,” said Angela Jeantet, education program director at UC Irvine Extension. “We are very excited that we can share our well-developed programs with educators nationwide—and at no cost.”

Please visit http://ocw.uci.edu/ to utilize these free GATE seminars. For more information about UC Irvine Extension’s GATE Certificate Program, please contact the Education Programs Department at 949-824-9304.

About UC Irvine’s OpenCourseWare Initiative

The University of California, Irvine was the first University of California campus—and West Coast University—to join the OCW Consortium. UC Irvine’s membership in the OCW Consortium is consistent with its public- and land-grant missions and its desire to play a significant role in contributing to the social welfare of the state, the nation and the world. Open educational resources (OER) showcase the University’s high quality education and makes courses and course materials free for everyone in the world. UC Irvine’s OCW is a large-scale, Web-based resource that houses educational assets that are discoverable, searchable, modifiable, and, best of all, free and easily available. Through the OCW movement, UC Irvine provides University-quality courses and learning assets to populations of self-learners that are underserved and in many cases, unable to participate in formal education at a university. This site also offers access to UC Irvine’s online continuing education offerings. For more information about UC Irvine’s OCW initiative, visit http://ocw.uci.edu/ or e-mail ocw@unx.uci.edu.

About the University of California, Irvine

The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.3 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.