Jennifer Lease Butts - Assistant Vice Provost for Enrichment Programs and Director of the Honors Program at the University of Connecticut, the United States and Jaclyn M. Chancey  - Assistant Director for Curriculum, Assessment, and Planning for the University of Connecticut Honors Program,  United States

In fall 2016, the University of Connecticut (UConn) Honors Program adopted a new theoretical framework to inform practice and assessment. This framework, grounded in gifted education research by Joseph Renzulli and colleagues, differentiates an Honors experience from the excellent education students already receive at UConn. Renzulli’s research promotes enrichment through broad exposure to new ideas, the development of expertise in a field, the sharing of work in meaningful settings, and attention to both social good and personal fulfillment. Over the next two years, UConn Honors faculty, staff, and students translated the theoretical framework into a new, more comprehensive model with curricular and co-curricular components. 

In this session, we will first provide a brief overview of the different schools of thought within gifted education. This section will conclude with Renzulli’s foundational theories and why this approach to promoting creative productivity was the best fit for the UConn Honors theoretical framework. We will then move on to discuss how UConn Honors has turned this framework into a set of clearly articulated requirements, transforming our old checklist of (perceived) hurdles into a developmental process promoting students’ growth from consumer to a producer of knowledge. Finally, we will discuss lessons learned during the past two years and look ahead over the next two years, at which time our first cohort of scholars is scheduled to graduate under the new requirements.

Jennifer Lease Butts’, Ph.D., research interests include Honors education, Honors pedagogy, Honors students and giftedness, and the psychosocial development of Honors students.

                                                                                                                                                     

Jaclyn M. Chancey earned her Ph.D. in gifted education and counseling psychology at UConn, and her current work focuses on the application of gifted education theory and pedagogy in the honors context.