Gifted students, like students with learning disabilites or students with physical disabilities have special learning needs that require a special education. Giftedness has to do with people who have special gifts which are in some way superior to others of the same age. In science education, gifted education has been known variously as "gifted in science," or "science talented," or "science prone," or "students with high ability in science." The Westinghouse Talent Search, science fairs, Advanced Placement courses in science are examples of the emphasis on giftedness in science education.
There are a lot of myths, as well as a low level of tolerance for giftedness in society. These myths and problems are similar to the kinds of myths and problems surrounding students with disabilities. First, lets examine what is giftedness, and the myths surrounding giftedness, then move on to characteristics of giftedness in science, and some examples of ways of working with gifted students in science education.
Definition of Giftedness.
There are a number of definitions that focus on the notion of performance. One of the earliest definitions states that gifted and talented students are those identified by professionally qualified persons who are capable of high performance. Students capable of high performance include those with demonstrated achievement and/or potential ability in any of the following areas:
1. General intellectual ability2. Specific academic aptitutde
3. Creative or productive thinking
4. Leadership ability
5. Visual and performing arts
A more recent definition of giftedness (by Renzulli, Reis, and Smith), and one that is widely accepted, suggests that gifted students are those who have demonstrated or shown potential for:
1. High ability (including high intelligence)2. High creativity (the ability to formulate new ideas and apply them to the solution of problems)
3. High task committment (a high level of motivation and the ability to see a project through to its conclusion.
One of the strenghts of using a multiple criterion definition is that it expands the potential pool of gifted students, and multiple abilities seem to be characteristics of gifted people in practice. Hallaman and Kaufman point out that if one were only to use I.Q. then most "gifted" would come from high socioeconomic families, those with fewer siblings, and better educated parents. Furthermore, the notion of intelligence has changed dramatically in recent years. Work by Gardner at Harvard has suggested evidence of multiple intelligences rather than a single general intelligence. Gardner suggests eight intelligences including:
1. Logical-mathematical2. Linguistic
3. Musical
4. Spatial
5. Bodily-kinesthetic
6. Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal
8. Ecological
The point of recent work in intelligence, and reformulation of the definition of giftedness suggests that giftedness is identifiable only in terms of an interaction among ability, creativity, and task committment (Figure 11.21).
Two additional aspects of the definition of giftedness needs to be considered. The first is gifted minority, and the second gifted handicapped.
Gifted minortiy students have been typically left out of gifted programs, although some strides have been made in recent years. Selecting students for gifted programs needs to take into consideration cultural diversity, language, and parental involvement. Recent suggestions for expanding the talent pool for gifted students includes the following practices:
1. seeking nominations from a variety of of persons, professional and nonprofessional, inside and outside school;2. applying knowledge of the behavioral indicators by which children from different cultures dynamically exhibit giftedness in the development of nomination forms;
3. collecting data from multiple sources, objective and subjective, including performances and products;
4. delaying decision making until all pertinent data can be collected in a case study.
As Hallahan and Kaufman point out, "different cultural and ethnic groups place different values on academic achievement and areas of perforamnce. Stereotypes can easily lead us to overlook intellectual giftedness or to over- or underrate children on any characteristic because they do not conform to our expectations based on their identity or socioeconomic status."
It is estimated that two-three percent of disabled students are gifted, and it should be a goal to identify these students and make a gifted education available to them. One only needs to look to the field of science to identify a number of eminent scientists who had a severe disability (Charles Steinmetz, Stephen Hawking). Phyllis Stearner has described the lives of scientists who were disabled, but pursued careers in science and engineering. These vignettes provide role models and support for the science teacher who encourages the identification of gifted handicapped students.
Characteristics of Gifted Students.
There are many characteristics of gifted student, and it is this constellation of characteristics that helps describe gifted young in the broadest sense. Myths such as gifted persons are physically weak, socially inept, narrow in interests, and prone to emotional instability and early decline need to be offset with more accurate characterizations of gifted students.
Gifted students show the following characteristics:
Science Learning Environments for the Gifted.
Schools have developed a variety of programs for the gifted student. Generally the programs are designed to provide enrichment (providing additional experiences without moving the student to higher grades) or acceleration (moving students ahead of their age-peers). The following represent the range of program opportunities for gifted students:
1. Enrichment in the regular classroom2. Consultation teacher program in which a differentiated program is provided in the regular classroom with the advice of a specialty teacher.
3. Resource room/pullout program
4. Community mentor program
5. Independent study programs
6. Special class
7. Special school
In the NSTA publication, Gifted Young in Science: Potential Through Performance, Passow says this about learning environments for gifted in science:
"Those students who manifest the special interest, motivation, creativity, critical judgement, high intelligence, and other indicators of potential for becoming productive, practicing scientists need opportunities to develop their areas of specialized talent. These opportunities should go beyond the science-technology education experiences provided all gifted students. Students with special talents in science---some latent and some manifest---need differentiated, appropraite experiences in particular contexts or settings."
Passow's suggestion raises the question of special environments for the "gifted in science," versus working with the gifted student in the regular science classroom. For the gifted in science, there are specialty schools within school districts, called "magnets" for science prone students. Students in these schools are still involved in a general education, but special emphasis is placed on their high ability and interest in science. Some districts and states have created science high schools. For example, a curriculum for students in such as school would involve indepth study in mathematics, science, seminars, and computer science (Figure 2).
There are a number of strategies that the science teacher can use to work with gifted students in science classes. Both individual and cooperative learning strategies are recommended, as well as an opportunity for the gifted student to engage in science inquiry and problem solving activities.
1. Self-directed learning---providing the student the opportunity to assume responsbility for defining and choosing the direction for solving problems and studying topics.2. Cooperative learning---Although there is controversy surrounding placing gifted students in cooperative teams with "normal" students, Johnson and Johnson provide evidence to support teachers engaging gifted students in cooperative learning activities in the regular classroom.
3. Engage the students in high level, problem solving activities.
4. Encourage students to get involved in science fair and olympiad projects.
5. Modify the curriculum (curriculum compaction) for the gifted student so that they may pursue some topics in more depth, or seek a breadth of topics.
6. Use learning contracts (either individually or in pairs) enabling the gifted students to break away from the regular content of the course. Students can be encouraged to report back to entire class.