Parallel Session Proceedings »
2.5.5 Acknowledging, Nurturing, and Celebrating Giftedness for Heightened Engagement, Achievement, and Self-Aawareness in Gifted Students
Some current practices in gifted education have shown to stifle creativity, narrow student self-awareness, limit achievement and result in behavioral issues and poor mental health in gifted students (D.Wilson and M. Conyers 2014, M. Neihardt, S. I. Pfeiffer and T. L. Cross 2016). This presentation will describe a framework of key factors that are guiding school and system improvement in the identification of, and differentiation for gifted students exemplified by an all domain inclusive differentiated program of learning. The framework of integrated factors describes practices in acknowledging student giftedness, nurturing thinking skills and creativity, and celebrating achievement. It has been found that this leads to expansive self-awareness, heightened engagement and higher levels of achievement.
An ongoing focus in the program of differentiated units of learning is to support students to engage in, and develop thinking skills. These skills, integral to the General Capabilities and a key dimension of the Australian Curriculum, can be generically used and applied across all curriculum areas, and are vitally important in preparing and challenging gifted students to live in a world with a continually expanding and readily available sources of communication and knowledge. Reflective, critical, and creative thinking abilities are required to deal with this reality, to help students align and apply their values with which they are confronted, and bring meaning and purpose to their lives (R. Paul and L. Elder 2014). The diverse range of gifted students involved in our differentiated programs of learning have heightened levels of creative energy, extended perseverance and concentration spans when provided with these challenging opportunities to make sense of themselves and the world. To sustain this thinking skills focus we have found our student workshops’ design and classroom differentiation needs to be disciplined, inclusive, equitable, creative, flexible, concept-based, respectful and conducted in an authentic atmosphere of a sanctuary where both student and teacher are free to celebrate each others unique gifts and talents.
Illustrating each factor with practical examples from the program this presentation has significance for teacher professional development, program design for gifted students and selection of strategies for supporting the diverse range of student giftedness.