Author Archives: Gifted Manager

By Marija Saric Drnas and Stasa Kukulj University of Zagreb

Early educational experiences form the foundation for establishing future academic success (Barnett, 2008). However, preschool upbringing and education of the gifted is the most neglected area in the field of education (Kokkalia et al., 2016). Spotting gifted children in the preschool period and implementing the necessary early interventions are important for preventing difficulties such as academic failure and social-emotional problems that may arise in the future (Dereli & Deli, 2022). Gifted children are developmentally different from average children in the physical, cognitive, linguistic and socioemotional areas (Bildiren, 2018). Koshy and Robinson (2006) have specified a list of traits and behaviors presented in gifted preschoolers including impressive memory, advanced development in attention, language, abstract reasoning, complex play patterns, curiosity, vivid imagination, maturation and socioemotional development. Therefore, it is important that early childhood educators react appropriately to the characteristics of these children. Preschool teachers are expected to take role in recognizing gifted children, restructuring their curriculum, and helping them in reaching their potential. Although teachers are familiar with general information about the characteristics of gifted children, they are not sufficiently prepared to recognize and provide various services for gifted preschoolers (Zhurat et al., 2021). In many cases, there is a lack of teacher training in gifted education (Vreys et al., 2017). In the identification of children, teachers mostly rely on professional assessment.However, teacher observations offer valuable information for the assessment of giftedness. They can observe mathematical thinking, language skills and learning ability in the giftedness assessment process (Bildiren et al., 2020). Teachers generally prefer observation because they do not feel efficient in applying other methods (Bildiren et all, 2020). Therefore, it is important to provide teachers professional competencies in recognizing, identifying, and educating gifted children. Studies show that training programs enhance theachers’ knowledge and understanding of the gifted childrens’ characteristics and needs, and help them in development of  the self-confidence and skills required to effectively teach the gifted in regular groups (Vreys et al., 2018). In recent years, common educational method used with gifted children has been associated with new technologies. As educational games have a great potential to comprise the teaching content and methodologies necessary for preschool children, they can be used to upgrade existing educational methods. In this way, using online learning games, teachers may improve learning mechanisms since many gifted children like stimulating activities (Kokkalia et al., 2016).

 

 

References

Koshy, V. & Robinson, N. M. (2006) Too long neglected: Gifted young children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 14(2), 113-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/13502930285209951

Barnett, W. S. (2008). Preschool education and its lasting effects: Research and policy implications. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/preschool-education

Bildiren, A. (2018). Developmental characteristics of gifted children aged 0–6 years: parental observations. Early Child Development and Care, 188(8), 997-1011. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1389919

Dereli, E. & Deli, H. (2022). Pre-school teachers’ knowledge and needs related to noticing gifted children and the enrichment model. Participatory Educational Research, 9(2), 219-239. http://dx.doi.org/10.17275/per.22.37.9.2

Kokkalia, G. K., Drigas, A. S. & Economou, A. (2016). The role of games in special preschool education. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 11(12), 30-35.

Vreys, V., Ndungbogun, N. G., Kieboom, T. & Venderickx, K. (2018) Training effects on

Belgian preschool and primary school teachers’ attitudes towards the best practices for gifted

children. High Ability Studies, 29(1), 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13598139.2017.1312295

 

Zhurat, Y., Holyk, B. & Polishchuk, O. (2021). An Overview on the Pre-School Teachers’ Psychological Readiness while Working with Gifted and Talented Children. In M. Oliinyk, O. Clipa, & M. Stawiak-Ososinska (Eds.), Trends and prospects of the education system and educator’s professional training development (pp. 399-410). Lumen.

Dr. Myra Garces Bacsal is a clinical psychologist by training specializing in the social and emotional functioning of gifted and talented students. In recent years you have worked as a lecturer for teachers: for 11 years in Singapore and for four years in the United Arab Emirates. She has worked as a Program Leader for the Master of Education in High Ability Studies in Singapore, and as a Professional Development Leader and Pedagogical Development and Innovations Leader in her former academic group, Early Childhood and Special Needs Education at the National Institute of Education in Singapore.

Currently, she works as Assistant Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Education at the University of the UAE, and is developing an International Masters in Gifted and Talented Education.

Her area of interest has to do with building a diverse library for exceptional and diverse students, with an intent to facilitate social and emotional learning and inclusive practices. Her recent publications examine the value of using diverse biographies presented in picture books with different students (including gifted and talented students), and teachers’ pedagogical practices in relation to the use of diverse literature in the classroom.

The goal is to build the capacity of educators, professionals and parents to select and use authentic, multilayered and complex narratives to challenge gifted readers, and critically introduce concepts such as social justice, equity and global awareness into the classroom.

 Diverse Picturebooks for Diverse Gifted Students

Rhoda Myra Garces-Bacsal and Najla Mohamed AlOwais

We live in an incredibly diverse world. This is mirrored in today’s classrooms filled with biracial, multi-ethnic, transnational, culturally and linguistically diverse, neuroatypical, gifted / high ability, students with hybrid and multi-hued identities from all parts of the globe. Educators need to go beyond a cursory awareness of this multiculturalism, but to be more attuned to subtle permutations of self-identification of these clear-eyed, critical, and inquisitive students who are navigating their own place in the world, as they find meaning in what they do inside and outside of school. This requires a deeper connection and engagement with the heterogenous gifted learners we, as educators, are privileged to interact with – and what better way to learn more about one another than through narratives; diverse stories that bring to light our shared vulnerabilities as human beings.

 

Empirical research has already long established how effective diverse picturebooks are in making diverse gifted students feel less invisible in the classroom (Garces-Bacsal et al., 2022a) as they identify with outstanding individuals from around the world and learn that they are not alone in their journey. Reading about a gifted individual’s life challenges: confronting racism, overcoming adversity and societal/cultural expectations, and working through one’s internal struggles and imperfections – can be validating, soul-affirming, and life-changing to gifted students (Garces-Bacsal et al., 2022b) who typically have heightened multifaceted sensitivities, rendering them more emotionally vulnerable and prone to philosophical ideations (Mendaglio, 2021). Yet, despite the significant amount of research pointing to the significance of using diverse narratives among our increasingly diverse students in the classroom, teachers remain largely unaware of, and lack the capacity to select and find exceptional diverse picturebooks as part of culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 2021), responsive (Gay, 2018) and sustaining (Alim & Paris, 2017) pedagogies to authentically address the needs of the culturally and linguistically diverse gifted in our classroom (Garces-Bacsal & Elhoweris, 2022).

 

In our recent research work, we have published a list of diverse picturebook titles from around the world to increase the repertoire of reading materials that committed teachers can use in the classroom (Garces-Bacsal et al., 2022a; Garces-Bacsal et al., 2022b, Garces-Bacsal, 2021; Garces-Bacsal & Tupas, 2021; Garces-Bacsal, 2020). As educators, we need to “read both the word and the world in relation to power, identity, difference” (Janks, 2013, p. 227; emphasis in original) along with our gifted students so that we can effectively guide them to be all they are meant to become.

 

References

Alim, H. S. & Paris, D. (2017). What is culturally sustaining pedagogy and why does it matter? In D. Paris & H. S. Alim (Eds.) Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world (pp. 1-24). Teachers College Press.

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. & Elhoweris, H. (2022). Decentering whiteness in gifted education: Addressing the needs of the gifted ‘others’ through social justice and culturally responsive pedagogies. Gifted Child Quarterly, 66(2), 121-123. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00169862211037713

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Ghufli, H. T., AlOwais, N. J., Baja, E. S., & Tupas, R. (2022a). Using diverse picturebooks for inclusive practices and transformative pedagogies. In M. Efstratopoulou’s (Ed.) Rethinking inclusion and transformation in special education (pp. 72-92). IGI Global.

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Tupas, R. (2022b, in press). A diverse social and emotional learning booklist for gifted learners and advanced readers. Roeper Review.

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., & Tupas, R. (2021). Diverse picturebooks for diverse children: The Others in Singapore teachers’ discourse and pedagogy. Literacy Research and Instruction, 60(4), 372-390. https://doi.org/10.1080/19388071.2021.1878313

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2021). Of grit and gumption, sass and verve: What gifted students can learn from multicultural picture book biographies. In S. R. Smith’s (Ed.) Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 431-453). Springer International Handbooks of Education.

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2020). Diverse books for diverse children: Building an early childhood diverse booklist for social and emotional learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(1), 66-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420901856

Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press.

Janks, H. (2013). Critical literacy in teaching and research. Education Inquiry, 4(2), 225-242. https://doi.org/10.3402/edui.v4i2.22071

Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Asking a different question. Teachers College Press.

Mendaglio, S. S. (2021). Overexcitability and giftedness research: Whose constructs are being investigated and how? In S. R. Smith’s (Ed.) Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 359-376). Springer International Handbooks of Education.

 

by Anabela Caetano Santos, Celeste Simões, Paula Lebre, Margarida Santos e Eunice Freitas

Social and emotional competencies (SECs) include, but are not necessarily limited to, effectively recognising and regulating our emotions, solving problems, making ethical and responsible decisions, setting and attaining goals, and establishing caring and positive relationships with others while avoiding maladaptive behaviours (Weissberg et al., 2015).

The concept of social and emotional needs in gifted and talented children is highly associated with asynchronous development, meaning a discrepancy between gifted individuals’ cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. An example could be a gifted child that can be academically developed, operating in the 9^th grade but being ten years old and having to deal with the frustration of their physical development being underdeveloped, for instance, having difficulties riding a bike. Another possibility could be an adolescent with high body-kinesthetic intelligence (higly talented in sports) that has difficulties in reading. Despite asynchronous development being prevalent in gifted individuals, the simplistic idea of highly cognitively developed students manifesting great difficulties in terms of social, emotional and physical areas of their development might not be accurate. Research has shown contradictory findings, showing that gifted students’ development is neither simplistic nor homogeneous (Rinn & Majority, 2018).

The social and emotional development of gifted children and adolescents is a field of research where great inconsistencies are found, as stated in previous systematic reviews about the association between social, emotional and behavioural disorders and giftedness found great heterogeneity between findings (Francis et al., 2015; Tasca et al., 2022). And according to Francis et al. (2015) gifted children demonstrate superior socio-emotional adjustment and fewer behavioural difficulties than their typically developing peers. Specifically, gifted children appear to be less prone to anxiety with fewer or equal behavioural difficulties.

However, despite the most recent research pointing out that a considerable percentage of gifted students have a level of social and emotional skills appropriate for their age level and do not manifest behaviour problems or relevant social adjustment, a part of these students may have great difficulties in these domains, requiring the attention and awareness of teachers in this regard. A variable associated with more social and emotional difficulties has been the IQ level, with highly intelligent gifted students expressing more difficulties than mildly gifted students. Other relevant variables that can increase the possibility of gifted and talented children expressing social and emotional difficulties are:

·      the presence of learning difficulties (do not forget that the talent/gift can be in a particular topic) or other comorbidities (i.e., the most frequent being attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD))

·      being underachievers,

·      belonging to a minority group or socio-economic disadvantaged family.

The relevance of Social and emotional learning (SEL) to gifted and talented students is no different from the purpose of SEL for those not gifted. Though, as Freeman (2018) suggests, gifted and talented children might face specific challenges, such as:

i)               the expectation to excel in all domains, even though they might be gifted or talented in only one area can increase perfectionism

ii)              the expectation (from others) of being natural leaders,

iii)            boredom, disengagement and underachievement as a result of working continuously at either a very demanding level or not challenging enough, or

iv)            difficulties in finding peers with the same interests.

For instance, in a qualitative study with seven participants in grades 6 to 8, students reported feeling that parents and teachers did not know about their social and emotional difficulties, that parents had perfectionist expectations about their results, and were afraid of social exclusion by peers (Yilmaz, 2015). Also, social or emotional difficulties might increase with the level of giftedness, with increased difficulties in finding interested peers or adequate fit at school or in the community (Peterson, 2009).

References

Francis, R., Hawes, D. J., & Abbott, M. (2015). Intellectual Giftedness and Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents. Exceptional Children, 82(3), 279–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402915598779

Freeman, J. (2018). The Emotional Development of the Gifted and Talented. In The SAGE Handbook of Gifted and Talented Education (pp. 169–183). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526463074.n16

Peterson, J. S. (2009). Myth 17: Gifted and talented individuals do not have unique social and emotional needs. Gifted Child Quarterly, 53(4), 280–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986209346946

Tasca, I., Guidi, M., Turriziani, P., Mento, G., & Tarantino, V. (2022). Behavioral and Socio-Emotional Disorders in Intellectual Giftedness: A Systematic Review. Child Psychiatry and Human Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-022-01420-w

Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Domitrovich, C. E., & Gullotta, T. P. (2015). Social and emotional learning: Past, present, and future. In J. A. Durlak, C. E. Domitrovich, R. P. Weissberg, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning: Research and Practice (pp. 3–19). The Guilford Press.

Yilmaz, D. (2015). A qualitative study to understand the social and emotional needs of the gifted adolescents, who attend the science and arts centers in Turkey. Educational Research and Reviews, 10(8), 1109–1120. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5897/ERR2015.2134

By Radu Ana Maria – Phd. Student  – West University of Timișoara, Romania Research assistant/ Clinical Psychologist – The Collective of Scientific Research in Neurosciences, “Doctor Gheorghe Preda” Psychiatric Hospital – Sibiu, Romania

Gifted students are not necessarily only characterised by impressive academic performances. While giftedness is regularly associated with educational accomplishments, it is important to keep in mind that it represents something more complex than this. There are specific cognitive, creative, affective and behavioural traits of giftedness, but each individual can exhibit a unique pattern (Callahan 2017). For this reason, teaching gifted students requires quite a creative and flexible approach.

Research shows that creativity is an essential factor in the educational environment that boosts students’ academic performance, motivation, focus abilities, class engagement, excitement and interest. Besides, creative learning surroundings can contribute to the development of pupils’ creative thinking, encourage them to be original, to think out of the box and increase their emotional growth (Davies et al. 2013).  Furthermore, creative learning environments offer students more meaningful experiences and a sense of belonging because it allows and encourages pupils to express themselves, be more involved in classroom activities and have initiatives (Jeffrey 2006). Various studies bring evidence regarding the ways in which teachers can promote creativity. For example, Sharp et al. (2008) cited in Davies et al. 2013, suggest that teachers should have the ability to understand their students’ needs, the different learning styles and intelligence types and Braund and Campbell (2010) state that creativity could be encouraged if teachers would develop less rigid, prescriptive lesson plans. In order to create this creative learning environment and benefit from all its advantages, teachers should be as creative and open as possible.

Furthermore, a systematic review regarding creative learning identifies five studies that characterise a creative teacher as someone who understands that a student’s potential can be discovered in time; that students need more opportunities to develop skills and abilities to demonstrate their capacities. Besides, creative teachers should have a positive attitude to facilitate class engagement and students’ expression of their personal stances on different topics (Davies et al. 2013).

Moreover, having a creative environment and a teacher in teaching gifted students could be even more important. Gifted children require a teacher that adopts a multifaceted approach in the classroom to be able to keep them engaged, to allow them to grow both academically and personally. This special category of students could be surprisingly mature, could show advanced creative problem-solving abilities, and emotional depth and be highly curious. For teachers to be able to respond to all the needs of the students, especially the gifted students who might have unique needs and could bring a certain amount of challenge to the teaching process, they should have innovative abilities and a creative mind (Callahan 2017).

To conclude, giftedness could bring a lot of excitement in a classroom but also a certain amount of challenge. Gifted students are individuals who demonstrate great academic abilities and/or highly artistic or physical abilities. They are complex minds who require a creative and able teacher to integrate, stimulate, and support them in their educational journey in a creative learning environment.

References

Burgess, L., & Addison, N. (2007). Conditions for Learning: Partnerships for Engaging Secondary Pupils with Contemporary Art. International Journal of Art <html_ent Glyph=”@amp;” Ascii=”&amp;”/> Design Education, 26(2), 185–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2007.00528.x

Callahan, C. M. (2017). The characteristics of gifted and talented students. In C. M. Callahan & H. L. Hertberg-Davis (Eds.), Fundamentals of gifted education: considering multiple perspectives (pp. 153–166). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315639987-15

Davies, D., Jindal-Snape, D., Collier, C., Digby, R., Hay, P., & Howe, A. (2013). Creative learning environments in education—A systematic literature review. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 8, 80–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.07.004

Jeffrey, B. (2006). Creative teaching and learning: towards a common discourse and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36(3), 399–414. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057640600866015