Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development

The Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development is a center of the University of Iowa College of Education, but is housed in the Blank Honors Center on the campus of the University of Iowa. It is a comprehensive center for nurturing potential and inspiring excellence in gifted education. The center provides services for all aspects of gifted education. Educators can earn their gifted education endorsement. Students can participate in various programs that will be academically challenging. In addition, the Belin-Blank Center involves a clinic for assessment and counseling services and an institute for academic acceleration.^[1]

Student Programs

There are many opportunities for students to engage with the Belin-Blank Center.

• Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy is an online service organized through Belin-Blank to make advanced placement courses available online to all students within the state of Iowa, regardless of if they are in an urban or rural school district.^[2] In 2014, 355 students utilized this program.
• Challenge Saturdays are courses that are taught on campus at the University of Iowa on Saturdays in the fall. These classes are meant to advance and challenge grade school and middle school students.^[3]
• Invent Iowa is a contest which highlights elementary inventors. It is Iowa’s oldest STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) outreach initiative, connecting K-12 students from across Iowa and beyond. Twenty “state inventors” are selected to participate in the state convention held on the University of Iowa campus. Over the past two decades, approximately half a million students have participated in this exciting program, some even going on to receive national notoriety.^[4]
• The Belin-Blank Exceptional Student Talent Search (BESTS) provides above-level testing to elementary and junior high students. BESTS identifies students who need further educational challenge to fully realize their academic talent. Above level testing is an educational procedure in which a test developed for older students is administered to younger students.^[5]
• Blast! is an academic commuter program in the summer for members of the program, BESTS. Blast! provides week-long classes on a variety of topics on the campus of the University of Iowa for half-days and in Ankeny for full-days.^[6]
• The Weekend Institute for Gifted Students (WINGS) is a program that offers half-day classes ranging from the arts to the sciences from gifted second through eighth graders.^[7]
• The Secondary Student Training Program is a five-week residential program on the campus of the University of Iowa. High school sophomores and juniors may nominate themselves to live on campus in the summer and conduct scientific research with a faculty mentor, and ultimately write a research project or paper.^[8]
• The Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) is a scientific research symposium for high school students. It is sponsored by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the winner of the national symposium receives a scholarship. The regional symposium is hosted by the Belin-Blank Center.^[9]
• China and Hong Kong Scholars Program This program is for Chinese and Hong Kong students the summer before their senior year of high school. These high-ability students are invited to live on campus at the University of Iowa and participate in classes, social activity, and other aspects of university life.^[10]

Professional Development

The Belin-Blank Center is home to many professional development opportunities for teachers of gifted education that can be taken advantage of both in person and online.The center offers a Talented and Gifted (TAG) Endorsement and an Advanced Placement Teacher Training Institute, among other programs.^[11]

Assessment and Counseling Clinic

The Assessment and Counseling Clinic (ACC) serves gifted and twice-exceptional (gifted with a disability) students by identifying ability levels and educational needs, determining psychological diagnoses, and assisting with psychosocial difficulties related to the students’ giftedness and/or twice-exceptionality. Services provided include assessment, counseling, and consultation.^[12]

References