Gifted Education International

The field of giftedness—including educators, theorists, and researchers--needs to show more cognizance of a phenomenon that is rearing its ugly head in more and more visible ways, namely, dark giftedness. Dark giftedness is giftedness used for bad and even toxic ends. Being gifted provides little, if any protection against the dark deployment of the abilities, talents, and skills that lead one to be viewed as gifted. The field of giftedness needs to take responsibility for identifying dark giftedness and mitigating its effects, to the extent possible. It needs also to teach gifted young people to use their gifts for positive rather than negative ends. The field of giftedness cannot assume that this will happen automatically, or that by ignoring the world-pervasive problem of dark giftedness, the problem will somehow not, nevertheless, be part of its responsibility to understand and assuage.

This study assessed the impact of Mawhiba-IAU (an innovative gifted summer program in Saudi Arabia to prepare gifted students to thrive in an innovation-based economy) on students’ achievement, soft skills, and satisfaction. The convenience sample consisted of three datasets of gifted students for the various research questions. A quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-assessments with no control group and a cross-sectional design was used to assess the impact of Mawhiba-IAU on students’ holistic development. Achievement tests, scales, and surveys were used for the assessment. In the series of t-tests, the difference between the pre- and post-assessments showed significant effects on students’ achievement, soft skills development, and satisfaction. Although there were several limitations, including the lack of a control group, the results showed that Mawhiba-IAU was highly effective for students’ holistic development. In 2018, Mawhiba-IAU became the only program to win Mawhiba’s first award.

This study explores South Korean pre-service primary teachers’ attitudes towards gifted students and gifted education. Qualitative focus group interviews were conducted with 13 South Korean undergraduates who were in their final year of a primary education. Analysis of the interviews revealed that culture was a major factor that had affected the pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards gifted education. Even though the participants agreed with the necessity of gifted education to meet gifted students’ distinctive intellectual and emotional needs, they tended to have negative attitudes towards the gifted education in South Korea because of the highly competitive educational atmosphere. The South Korean pre-service teachers admitted that taking a gifted education course could be somewhat helpful but not enough. They suggested that there should be more elective gifted education course offerings and that the current compulsory special education courses should devote more time and space to gifted education.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between mathematical modelling and reflective thinking and to examine the effects of employing mathematical modelling processes on perception of mathematical modelling competencies and reflective thinking skills for real-life problem solving of gifted students participating in Project Production and Management Program at Turkish Science and Art Centers. Correlational path analysis of 300 students data revealed that Mathematical modelling is a significant predictor of reflective thinking skills, and the constructed model was found to be of a good fit with excellent path coefficients. Experimental design with pre-post-maintenance-tests with comparison group was employed with 60 students purposefully selected chosen from the above regression study. Reflective thinking and mathematical modelling levels of experimental group students who employed mathematical modelling processes for Project Production and Management increased significantly more from pre- to post-tests, and the significant difference was found to be maintained.

Gifted education policies vary across the United States. Previous studies have demonstrated a disconnect between these policies at state and district levels, but alignment of school-level practices with state and/or district policies is unknown. To further examine these relationships, we examined via qualitative document analysis state and district-level gifted policies and district and school-level reported practices in two states’ gifted services. Although state and district policies reflected fairly close alignment with recommended practices, district and school reported practices reflected only partial alignment. We discuss implications of these findings for gifted programs and policy at the state and local levels.

The number of students with ASD also identified as academically talented has been increasing over the last few decades. Unfortunately, little empirical research exists about this population of students. In this qualitative study, 40 college and university students with ASD who were identified as academically advanced and talented and enrolled in competitive colleges and universities were interviewed about academic experiences and teaching strategies that contributed to their success. Several findings related to specific strength-based teaching and support strategies perceived by participants as contributing to their academic success. These included identifying their academic talents; interest-based extracurricular activities based; specific challenge based honors and advanced classes in areas of interest and strength; opportunities for advanced, interest-based academic experiences; participation in residential programs during high school; strong and positive relationships with teachers and counselors; developing compensation strategies that can be applied to all of these areas; and overcoming anxiety while building social connections.

The current study conducted an online survey to understand the challenges and needs teachers face for identifying and nurturing students with twice exception. Among 896 respondent schools, 179 schools were reported to have 277 identified 2E students. The results indicated that schools with both gifted and disability classes/programs or services identified more 2E students than did schools without a special education program. Although increasing the awareness and knowledge of general education teachers is beneficial for the identification of 2E students, most of the respondents reported that they need gifted education teachers to get involved in developing students’ talents. Obvious opportunity gaps existed between schools with only disability education and with gifted and disability education. An effective support system with manpower and financial assistance from governments is also essential for closing opportunity gaps and meeting the needs of both learners and teachers.

Gifted students should be taught not only for knowledge and for intelligence-enhancing techniques, but also for wisdom. What the world needs most, but also most lacks, is wisdom in the gifted individuals who become leaders. Teaching for wisdom means helping students to look toward a common good; by balancing their own with others’, and with larger interests; over the long-as well as the short-term; through the infusion of positive ethical values; in order to adapt to, shape, and select environments. This essay deals with how wisdom might be entered into the curriculum for gifted students.

Teacher concerns influence how teachers respond to education reform. The 12-Year Basic Education is a curriculum reform focusing on a competency-based curriculum and instruction in Taiwan. The aim of the current study was to investigate the stages and types of gifted education teachers’ concerns about competency-based instruction based on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model. A survey was administered to 274 gifted education teachers. The findings indicated that the gifted education teachers’ concern profiles were very similar. Teacher concerns fell into three relatively well-defined stages: the Information concern (stage 1), Refocusing (stage 6), and Personal (stage 2). In addition, teacher concerns were clustered into three types: (a) pursuing change agency with dialectical thinking; (b) looking for efficiency by managing resources; and (c) awareness of current situations but working individually. Each type consisted of its own characteristics and the developmental stages of concern. Recommendations for practice and future studies are also provided.

The purpose of the present case study was to conduct a detailed analysis of the developmental characteristics of a gifted child. WISC-R intelligence test was administered to a 7-year-old participant. The test result was 140 IQ. The early developmental characteristics of the participant were evaluated using parent-recorded videos over a 3-year period, from birth to 3 years of age. First, all video recordings were transcribed by the research team, then the accuracy and completeness of the transcriptions were verified. The results showed that the participant displayed early gifted developmental characteristics in fine motor skills, cognitive, language, social, and personal developmental domains.