Center for Gifted Education hosts Korean Nobel Project recipients
The College of William and Mary’s Center for Gifted Education hosted 34 visitors from Korea Jan. 5-11.
Administrators, educators, and students from Korea came to Williamsburg to exchange ideas about teaching and learning through a variety of scientific and mathematical curricular concepts. The visit was part of the Korean Nobel Project, a project helping to stimulate the minds and develop the skills of Korea’s future global leaders.
Visiting students went through a rigorous selection process to participate in the Nobel Project of Korea. The top 0.01 percent of all students from the Chungcheongnamdo Province were selected to participate in the visit to the College. In addition, the teachers and administrators who participated have built successful mentor relationships with these students over time.
The Korean students engaged in authentic learning experiences through high-level and interactive mathematical and scientific curriculum. The students learned about spatial reasoning, fractals, genetics, force and acceleration, and the chemistry behind crime scene investigation in conjunction with the William and Mary gifted education curricular and instructional models.
The teachers received professional development on best practices to teach high-ability and gifted students using the William and Mary teaching and learning modules. The Korean teachers learned and practiced multiple teaching strategies that combine high-level content with problem-based learning and the development of conceptual understanding.
These topics were presented in conjunction with William and Mary curricular units of study and the Integrated Curriculum Model. Teaching and learning took place at the new School of Education building on the William and Mary campus as well as the science and computer laboratories of Small and Millington Halls. The groups also interacted with classes of students and teachers at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies in Richmond for a day. Finally, the Korean visitors toured Jamestown Settlement, downtown Richmond, and Colonial Williamsburg, enjoying part of the rich history that Virginia has to offer.
The William and Mary curricular units for gifted and high-ability students are models of best practices and are known and implemented around the world. The units are grounded in the Integrated Curriculum Model, which is designed to respond to gifted learners' characteristics of precocity, intensity, and complexity through its three dimensions of advanced content, higher level processes and product development, and interdisciplinary concepts, issues, and themes.
