2008 GAGC CONVENTION

KEYNOTE SPEAKER - Monday, March 17, 2008

Jean Sunde Peterson, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Coordinator of School Counselor Preparation at Purdue University.

Keynote Address: Social and Emotional Concerns Essential to Gifted Education Advocacy

Jean was involved in K-12 education, including in gifted education, for many years prior to being a counselor educator. A licensed mental health counselor, she has worked with gifted children and adolescents and their families and conducts workshops in the areas of social and emotional development of high-ability students, underachievement, prevention-oriented small-group work, and listening skills for teachers, most of these areas related to her practitioner-oriented research. She has received three national research awards from Mensa and one from NAGC, a national group-work award, and teaching, research, and service awards at Purdue. Pertinent to working with gifted students, she is author of the group-oriented The Essential Guide to Talking with Gifted Teens and co-editor of Models of Counseling Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults, among her 80 publications.

FEATURED SPEAKER - Tuesday, March 18, 2008

C. June Maker, Professor, Special Education Department, University of Arizona, will address the development of creativity.

Torrance Lecture: Integrating Creativity and Intelligence through Problem Solving: The DISCOVER Project

C. June Maker is Professor of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and School Psychology at the University of Arizona where she coordinates doctoral degree programs in education of the gifted and early childhood education. She is principal investigator for the DISCOVER Projects, research and development programs designed to identify and nurture the development of creative problem solving in children of all ages, cultures, and languages. Her interests include curriculum design and problem based learning in science education. Her most recent research is on development of creativity, assessment of gifts and talents in children from underserved groups, assessment and development of creative problem solving in all students, and identification of important themes in children’s drawings and stories. She is well-known internationally as a keynote speaker and consultant.