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TEACHING GIFTED AND TALANTED
CHILDREN
How does one create a learning environment that stretches the ablest without excluding or
alienating the least able – and vice versa? What are the core educational principles or values for
it? Hymer (2002, p. 3) list some of them:
All children have a right to a high quality education.
The primary aim of education is to excite in children and young people a passion for
learning, and to facilitate the acquisition of skills and dispositions which will permit this
passion for learning to be satisfied.
The primary role of the school is to maximize opportunities for all children to reach their
educational goals.
Children educational goals will differ.
No-one-not even the person him or himself – is ever fully aware of an individual’s
potential for learning.
A fixed concept of “ability” is an unhelpful descriptor or predictor of performance.
Children’s educational goals are best reached by the setting and answering of questions.
These questions are best set by the children themselves.
Deep learning takes place collaboratively rather than competitively.
The most affective form of assessment form of assessment is formative (assessment for
learning) rather than summative or normative (assessment for showing or comparing).
Relatedly, promoting learning orientations more likely to lead to effective learning than
promoting performance orientation (concern for grade success).
An inclusive policy for gifted and talented education is the only model consistent with
these principles (gifted and talented students have right to something qualitatively, and
so do their peers, just in case they are gifted and talented too but don't yet know it).
As for research evidence regarding high quality teaching for gifted and talented Joan Freeman
(1998, p.52 cited in Hymer, 2002, p. 60) summarizes this evidence as follows:
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: