The purpose of this longitudinal case study was to investigate the relationship between participation in professional development in Renzulli’s Enrichment Triad Model and one gifted education teacher’s knowledge and practice, with particular attention to differentiated instruction. Findings indicated that professional development increased the participating teacher’s knowledge of gifted education, her attitude toward change, and her repertoire of instructional strategies; however, it did not alter her underlying beliefs or subsequent approach to gifted education. Time span and provider support were noted as promoters of effective professional development. Conceptual blocks, teacher characteristics, and lack of time were identified as barriers that inhibited professional development–related change with regard to differentiated instruction for learners who have high academic ability.

Youth with writing talent display distinguishing characteristics and those characteristics can be supported and enhanced using Web 2.0 tools. Online writing communities can help students with writing talent connect with other avid writers and can offer motivational challenges such as contests and publication opportunities. Resources are available for writers of varying ages and interests; features include moderated discussions and commenting, online and hard-copy publication options, peer models, multimedia integration, as well as collaboration.

This comparative study identified the differences between gifted children's offline and online peer feedback within a summer talented writer's workshop. Researchers analyzed ten students' writings for degrees of critical thinking evident in their feedback. Online feedback included students' writings in social writing sites Storybird.com and KidBlog. Offline feedback was submitted on a teacher designed rubric, and then incorporated into a revised manuscript using Microsoft Word. Critical thinking was defined as the three upper tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy: analysis, and evaluation, and synthesis. Each comment in students' online and offline feedback was coded according to one of the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. In addition, interpretative summaries were written describing how students used feedback within each category. Results indicated that critical thinking (specifically analysis and evaluation) was more evident in the responses that were structured opposed to those that were in the social media contexts. There was also evidence of an increased amount of informal dialogue in the online feedback opposed to the structured feedback. Online writing technologies are seen to be most successful when teachers' expectations for critical thinking and students' desire for informal positive feedback are combined; this success depends on the presence of a skilled teacher and supportive peers, rather than on the presence of a specific technology tool.

The literature on rural gifted programs is growing, but understandings of programmatic features and the teachers within the gifted programs in rural Appalachia are still largely underdeveloped. Through an exploratory case study of three rural Appalachian gifted programs, this study provides a glimpse into their organizational structures and the teachers’ experiences and perceptions. The illustrative findings indicate that teachers utilized their resources and knowledge to manufacture their gifted curricula and expressed competing narratives of place and globality. Also, misassumptions and unsupported practices in this rural place negatively influenced teacher retention. Implications and future steps are addressed.

No abstract