engleski

Acceleration in gifted education as teacher's role: Acting, no drama.

REFERENCE TO CONFERENCE TOPIC: In order to match the instruction with the educational needs of the gifted children, and to avoid having unguided, uncounseled, and unchallanged gifted students, numerous methods and didactics of teaching gifted students are devised, used daily, or prescribed as accessible provisions. For example, acceleration and enrichment, when other (out-of-school) educational opportunities are absent as they are for many gifted students, remain entirely up to teachers. When teachers choose not to take on their role of providing for the gifted, it puts a lid on valuing, identifying or cultivating giftedness. ABSTRACT The goal of this research was to provide answer to the question how teachers assessed different methods of teaching and educational provisions regarding gifted and gifted education. This research is theoretically grounded in the existing empirical research findings on the effectiveness of the acceleration and the enrichment in order to match the instruction with the educational needs of the gifted. Giftedness in this research, as well as assessed prescribed educational provisions for the gifted, were defined according to the state education act and regulations. In other words and in the accordance with the regulations, what is currently done at primary schools. Ten provisions were assessed by 60 primary school teachers (96.7% women) of higher vocational status (mentors and advisors ; educational experts) of age-range 34–61 years (M = 47.12, SD = 6.79), and 10–37 years of work experience, including work with the gifted. Individualized programs, group and individual work, work with mentors, acceleration, extracurricular activities, contacts with domain experts, and access to specialized knowledge, for example, were the assessed teaching methods and provisions accessible to teachers and aimed at the gifted. All provisions were independently assessed by the practicing teachers for their perceived feasibility in the regular daily education (not at all feasible, to completely feasible without organizational difficulties), and followed by the group discussion. The key results point to the differences in how teachers assess acceleration, enrichment and general teaching methods regarding gifted, as well as to the conclusion of present mismatch between perceived feasibility of the different educational provisions, due to the organizational and other difficulties, and their proven effectiveness in the existing research on gifted education. In conclusion, organization of educational provisions for the gifted, when taken as the teacher's role, may be perceived by some teachers as one of no drama, metaphorically speaking, while others may need support, as well as guidance regarding their general didactics and how they approach the teaching of the gifted.

teaching gifted students; acceleration; school provisions for the gifted

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