Bright Now

How can you take your child’s creative spark and make it burn even brighter? Matthew Worwood, Associate Director of the Digital Media & Design Program and Assistant-Professor-of-Practice at the University of Connecticut joins host Jonathan Plucker to discuss the strategies that parents can employ in order to help encourage, foster, and increase creativity in their children.

Can the relentless pursuit of perfection hinder a child’s academic development? Dr. Michelle Muratori, research psychologist and counselor at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins and CTY’s Jonathan Plucker explore what parents of gifted children can do to balance striving for greatness with the social and emotional pitfalls of maladaptive perfectionism.

In this special bonus episode, Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at Ohio State University Dr. James Moore III extends and expands his Episode 09 discussion with host Jonathan Plucker on the barriers and biases faced by diverse students, and offers additional suggestions on effective interventions and strategies families can use to advocate for them.

In this special bonus episode of Bright Now, we dive into a fascinating discussion of historical conceptions of time and its measurement with John Hopkins East Asian Science Professor Dr. Yulia Frumer, and explore classical Japanese time based on seasons, the importance of creativity and technological innovation in disseminating ideas about time across cultures, and the bizarre tale of how a shipwreck lead to one 19th c. astronomer becoming a mummy defendant.

Dr. Steve Fredericks, a former NYC school teacher and the Executive Director of New York Edge, talks with host Jonathan Plucker about identifying academic potential in struggling urban schools, and the systemic issues that have made NYC selective schools less diverse and more racially homogenous since the 1970s.

In the concluding episode of our three part series on college, we chat with CTY alumni and their families about their college search experience and find out which resources, tips, and strategies helped them most during their college admissions odyssey.

Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at Ohio State University Dr. James Moore III talks with host Jonathan Plucker about the unique barriers faced by disadvantaged students, the impact of implicit bias and stereotyping on developing their talents, and what strategies families can use to effectively advocate for diverse students.

In part two of our three episode series on college we hear directly from two senior admissions officers at elite private and public schools—Ellen Kim, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Johns Hopkins University, and Sacha Thieme, Executive Director of the Office of Admissions at the University of Indiana Bloomington—and delve into the college admissions process, how admissions decisions are made, the common mistakes bright students make when applying to schools, and more!

Are you born creative, or can you learn to be creative? Is there a relationship between creativity and intelligence? This week we sit down with Kristen Lamb, Research Associate for the Robinson Center for Young Scholars at the University of Washington - Seattle, to talk about what creativity is, what it isn't, and what we know about creativity across the lifespan.

In the first part of this three part series we talk with Dr. Linda Brody, Director of the Study of Exceptional Talent (SET) at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, about common misconceptions academically advanced students and their families have about the college search and admissions process, how the college search experience is (and isn't) different for bright students, and whether college is the right path for every bright student.