Using Online Professional Development for Teachers of Gifted Students

Gifted education is tricky and many teachers don’t know how to deal with such students. It isn’t often cost effective to implement programs in schools that may host a single or a few gifted children. Little and Housand (2011) discuss the ability to use online education to facilitate learning through multiple school systems in order to raise professional teaching standards and help such students in their precocious development. 

In higher education technology lags behind other industries. The reasons are many but often tradition, skill level, and perception are important considerations. With proper technology professional development in the educational fields has new opportunities. More important, it can help teachers understand their rare students even when such skills are not currently available. There are a few tips when trying to consider the potential success of such programs.

Coherence: The training should match both the goals of the organization, student needs, and teacher needs. The purpose of the training programs should be readily apparent and fit within the national context of gifted learning education. 

Acknowledging Beliefs and Practices: Teachers will need to find relevance with their daily practice and an opportunity to reflect on their beliefs. They need to relate the information to their own work environments. 

Active Engagement and Collaboration: Working with other teachers on professional learning and actively staying engaged with course materials is important. 

Sustained Attention: Single shot education with no follow-up will not likely be remembered. Ensure that attention is supported over time to help in the retaining of information. 

Support from School Administration: School administrators will need to encourage professional development of teachers who work with gifted students.  Time and resources should be allocated appropriately.

Ensuring Quality: Quality professional development is necessary for successful programs. Quality measurements, relevancy, and higher care are needed to make such programs work well. 

The paper highlights the concept that gifted students are relatively rare in the educational market despite a general understanding in the industry. Few teachers actually deal with such students and many schools do not have the resources or support to foster the highest levels of development. Cost can be prohibitive. By helping teachers connect for training from many districts a pool of teachers that have gifted students can work together, lower costs, and provide sound education to this unique population. 

Little, C. & Housand, B. (2011). Avenues to professional learning online: technology tips and tolls for professional development in gifted education. Gifted Child Today, 34 (4).

Oasis Enrichment Models in Gifted Education

Some nations are seeking to develop their brightest and most talented for a stronger tomorrow.  Evaluating successful and unsuccessful gifted education programs help decision makers understand what works and what doesn’t work in progressive programs. Research by Aljughaiman & Ayoub (2013) evaluated an Oasis Enrichment Model in Saudi Arabia to determine whether or not it produced successes in fostering greater talent.

An Oasis Enrichment Model rests on three premises in gifted development. It seeks to enhance their cognitive, emotional, and social needs to create higher performing students. To determine success they conducted a meta-analysis of 35 other programs. It helped compare, summarize, and correct findings to determine better estimates of variable relationships.

There are many different types of enrichment programs that include excelled classes, full schools, pull-out programs, weekend programs, afternoon programs, boarding schools, summer camps and enhance in-class programs. Each has their benefit. Primarily nations pick a particular program based upon their national philosophies and available resources. In-class enrichment is cheaper but boarding school options may be more impactful in the social aspects. Each has their own merits.

Those who enter such programs were evaluated for intensities and abilities. Such individuals were deemed as more likely to excel in one or more fields of study. They may have inherited innate skills, cognitive advancements, personal and social traits, cultural knowledge, and experiential abilities to learn from experience. At a basic level these abilities include memory, exploratory behavior, creating meaning, planning long-term, inference, imagination, idea development, problem solving, decision-making, leadership, logic, and higher forms of energy.

The goal of any enrichment program is to enhance and embolden. It is to teach gifted students the ability to be masters of their own fate and excel in areas that interest them and can have the greatest benefit for society. They need an uncritical environment that allows them to ask questions, explore their environment, and delve deeply into concepts without the pressures of others.  It can take considerable time and effort to create appropriate mental pathways to higher performance. 

Oasis Enrichment Programs rest on three major concepts that include 1.) Research and Thinking Skills, 2.) Academic Content, and 3.) Affective Traits.  The programs select a main topic of interest to the student and then use that as an umbrella for other learning. They use the three stages of Exploration, Perfection and Creativity. Exploration consumes 15% of their time, Perfection another 60%, and Creativity 25%. Students learn to explore, perfect their abilities and then create new knowledge. 

The results found that such programs do enhance student’s ability to think critically, scientifically and freely. One of the advantages of the program is that students pick their own interests and this fits within their higher levels of independence. If the teacher picks the topic, a number of students begin to underperform.  The other important aspect is to ensure that the students are in an uncritical environment that allows them to choose their own path without forced adherence to the teacher’s wishes. 

Comment: The success of gifted programs are based in their ability to socialize with others who have a gifted nature and hold similar interests. Likewise, the students like to control their own learning and this creates higher levels of motivation. Teachers are used as support in this learning process and provide curriculum that enhances the student’s abilities without forcing them down an improper path. If the student feels they are in a critical environment they will simply demotivate and develop apathy toward the educational process. 

Aljughairman, A. & Ayoub, A. (2013). Evaluating the effects of oasis enrichment model on gifted education: a meta-analysis study. Talent Development & Excellence, 5 (1)

Self-Perceptions of Gifted Students

Academic potential, creativity and specific areas of strength generally characterize gifted abilities. However, those areas of excelling outside of the academic arena are also part of gifted traits. A paper by Lister and Roberts (2011), discusses the self-concept of giftedness and how this often lacks a proper perspective of physical abilities and attractiveness. Their meta-analysis includes 40 studies  conducted between 1978 and 2004 to come to their conclusions on how gifted individuals view themselves.

Self-concepts are an important aspect of performance. Self-conception can be defined as “the image we hold of ourselves (Hoge and Renzulli, 1993) while self-conception refers to, “our attitudes, feelings and knowledge about our abilities, skills, appearance, and social acceptability” (Byrne, 1984, p. 429). Self-concept and self-conception develop over a person’s lifetime based upon the cues from the environment, others, and themselves.  It is a process of comparing oneself to others and coming to conclusions.

Most research on giftedness has focused exclusively on intelligence. One of the reasons is that having giftedness if often defined as the top 1% of intellectual ability measured on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Terman, 1926).  Despite this narrow definition, the general definition that has gained popularity which includes IQ, artistic abilities, athletic skill, or leadership. Defining it as intellectual ability, creativity and task commitment incorporates more traits than intelligence alone (Renzulli, 1978).

Having high ability changes one’s perception of self. Being more intelligent or having skill in certain areas does not always bring benefits. At times, it can bring difficulties dealing with others who lack the same level of understanding or those who desire to show their own worth at the expense of others. As comparison is a natural occurrence, the gifted often get the bulk of the comparison comments or actions.

The researchers found that gifted students perceive their abilities as higher than non-gifted peers do. This growth in perception rises throughout one’s life as they learn about themselves and others. They also rated higher in intelligence, behavioral, and global perceptions. They ranked themselves lower on physical appearance and athletic abilities. The authors contend that the ratings are based within those activities the gifted student engages and how they compared their abilities to others. As they master certain fields, their rating and self-concept go up but believe they suffer in physical prowess even though this is also a gifted trait not often recognized by others.

Byrne, B. M. (1984) ‘The general/academic self-concept nomological network: a review of construct validation research.’ Review of Educational Research, 54, pp. 427–56.

Hoge, R. D. & Renzulli, J. S. (1993) ‘Exploring the link between giftedness and self-concept.’ Review of Educational Research, 63, pp. 449–65.

Lister, K. & Roberts. J. (2011) The self-concepts and perceived competencies of gifted and non-gifted students: a meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs , 11 (2).  

Renzulli, J. S. (1978) ‘What makes giftedness? Reexamining a definition.’  Phi Delta Kappan, 60, pp. 180–4.

Terman, L. (1926) Genius Studies of Genius: Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand Gifted Children. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Gifted College Students and Androgynous Identities

College students are trying to determine an identity in life and a path forward in their careers. Gifted college students don’t fit well into narrow stereotypes and maintain identities that are deep and complex. Research by Miller, et. al. (2009) on gifted gender roles indicate that gifted excitability and higher potential have androgynous identities that accept a more complex set of male and female personality traits.

Gender identity and personality are associated into an intertwined relationship. Incorrectly people assume that males are supposed to be instrumental while females are supposed to be expressive. There is an assumption that the sex is related in some way to the personality and behavior of the individual. Societal influence appears to be the most profound definition of how boys and girls should act. 

Males and females are considered opposite ends of the spectrum. Generally, people adhere to one or the other.  When doing so they prescribe tightly to social norms regardless of internal processes.  When individuals have androgyny they are capable of accepting both male and female aspects of their personality within the same individual construct. Undifferentiated individuals do not adhere to either male or female roles nor have they integrated varying aspects of gender behavior. 

Androgynous individuals are considered psychologically the healthiest. They can understand their personal characteristics as existing on a plane of traditional male to female aspects and accept the varying degrees of their personality that fits within these modes. They are not rigidly defined by sex norms and are situational in their actions and behaviors. One aspect of their personality may be more masculine (i.e. sports) while another could be more feminine (i.e. empathy) in traditional sex roles.

According to Dabrowski’s theory of high gifted development with over excitability, their success lays in developmental potential, social environment, and internal decision-making.  Those with over-excitabilities that impact the central nervous system develop to higher levels because they have stronger experiences of emotional, intellectual, imaginational, sensual, and psychomotor stimuli. When an individual contains all of the potentials they have the highest capabilities for development.

The authors study of 562 gifted college students found that those with androgynous identities have intense over-excitabilities. Such individuals have the highest potential for advanced personality development. Of all the excitabilities emotional, intellectual, and imaginational seems to have the greatest influence on personality development.  Colleges and teachers should not rigidly define sex and stereotypes for this group so as to ensure the most comfortable learning environment.

We can draw some inferences from this study. Gifted college students do not fit rigidly into male and female social roles. Those with the highest excitabilities and potential incorporate aspects of both male and female traits within their personality. This is part of advanced development. When people rigidly define their behaviors by their sex they lack a sense of awareness and genuiness about themselves which can create tension. Professors should avoid pushing less developed stereotypes about sex roles on gifted college students who have higher potentials in multiple facets of their personalities.

Miller, et. al. (2009). Gender identity and the overexcitability profiles of gifted college students. Roeper Reivew, 31 (3).

The "Eagle Eye" of Perception in Gifted Students

Gifted college students are sometimes difficult for administrators to understand and develop proper programs. Many gifted students are simply not recognized and move through their careers, lives, and academic work unchallenged.  The authors Gentry & Lackey (2012) discuss the concept of gifted mismatch and how this is even more difficult for misunderstood minorities that already struggling with their own identity.  People with the highest capacity of development are often left unchallenged in academic programs.

The authors discuss a concept called “Eagle Eye” to help explain giftedness. The Eagle has a wider range of perception and six times more focus. Their world is so rich that according to Gardner they can see things, based upon their perceptual strength, others cannot. Matched with their cognitive abilities the world is fundamentally a different place and many of these students are left to their own devices to make meaning out of it. 

Early literature focuses on the description of gifted students as fluent, flexible, elaborate, and original. They are curious about life, sensitive to their environment, have deep values, and can readily see multiple relationships between things. When including Gardner’s Theory of Multiple intelligence we can see that they use multiple intelligences across different spectrums to navigate their environment.  In other words, where the average person may find moderate success in one genre the gifted student may master multiple planes of human development. 

Accordingly, giftedness can be described as the following: 

Cognition: Vivid and rich imagination, learn new things rapidly, fast thinker;

 Perception: Passionate/intense feelings, childlike sense of wonder, open minded;

 Motivation: Very independent/autonomous, curious/desire to know, high drive;

 Activity: Lot of energy, sustained concentration on things of interest, spontaneous; and

 Social Relations: Questions rules or authority, very compassionate (Heylighen, n.d.).

The author contends that it is a failure of our education system to not recognize giftedness in students. When this occurs on a wide scale the country fails to capitalize on its most important resource-the human mind. This phenomenon becomes even more apparent with minority members who are not often viewed with the same academic potential as others. Our bias, false beliefs, and rigid definitions often leave this group out in the cold even though they have abilities that far exceed the average.

Gentry, R. & Lackey, T. (2011). Simply gifted: Their attributes through the eyes of college students. Paper presented at the International Conference "Peace through Understanding" (Jackson, MS, Apr 4-8, 2011). 2011 16 pp. (ED529168)

Heylighen, F. (n.d.). Gifted people and their problems. Retrieved from http://talentdevelop.com/articles/GPATP1.html