About YouTalent Spotter
To start working with the YouTalent Spotter Tools, we recommend to first get familiar with the terms spotting and selecting and talent.
What defines a talented student?
As a result of a review of the literature on talent in higher education, the following definition of talented students was agreed upon in the frame of CoTalent Project:
Talented students from HEIs demonstrate extraordinary special innovative skills and initiative, desire and willingness to make intensive effort for doing more than the regular curricular programs and to be involved in collaborative projects.
If their potential is nurtured in the right way within HEI communities/ experiences/ curriculum, such a student
has the ability to be one of the best.
We advise you to discuss the views on talent with colleagues.
Spotting and Selecting
Please be aware that it is helpful to discuss the reasons for spotting talented students with your colleagues or department. In addition, we recommend being clear about the differences between spotting and selecting. This video can help you sort out these differences and hopefully be a starting point for discussion
SPOTTING
- Acknowledging & recognizing different potentials of students
- Acknowledge students in a setting (classroom, lecture, …)
- Multi-dimensional approach
- Opportunities to show a student’s (hidden) talent in a regular setting
- Task of the teacher who should encourage a student to apply for a program
SELECTING
- Based on clear criteria (e.g. grade point average)
- Choose students for a specially designed program offering more than the regular curriculum
- Focus on a special trait of a talent
- Opportunity to join a program & develop their talent
- Task of a program manager or administrator
The YouTalent Spotter Toolbox
The YouTalent Spotter Toolbox offers you four different toolkits that can be used to spot talented students in your class.
The TSL helps you in getting an overview over all the students in your class who might be suitable for a talent development program at your university. You will find different characteristics of students with examples of their behavior, based upon a literature review on typical characteristics of students who are already enrolled in Honors Programs compared to regular students.
The ETT focusses on entrepreneurial characteristics shown by talented and motivated students. There are four parts of the ETT aiming on self- and peer-evaluation as well as evaluation by a teacher.
The Poster tool asks students in your class to voluntarily prepare a poster on a question connected to personal development and one’s own talent(s). It allows students to express themselves in a creative format and can be combined with a presentation of the posters to see the verbal and communicative skills of a student. The PAT also offers you an evaluation form.
The writing tool allows the student to show his or her writing skills by offering different topics to write about. Some of the questions can also be found with the poster tool. The writing tool offers you different tasks around the topics Solve Dilemmas, Develop Personally, and Use your Talent. It comes along with an evaluation hint and further information about how to incorporate the answers given into your course or how to adjust and develop own tasks.