Primary Teachers' Conceptions of Giftedness

Abstract

This article focuses on the first phase of a recent National Research Center on Giftedness and Talented (NRC/GT) project, which used survey research to target a disproportionate nationally stratified random sample of primary grade teachers about their beliefs and practices related to talent development in young children and their responses to case studies describing four different types of students—one easily identified as gifted from a traditional paradigm; the others manifested talents masked by some other factor—poverty, language status, or concurrent social/emotional needs. The mixed-method survey design facilitated triangulation of findings to better understand the contextual factors that influence primary grade teachers' perceptions and behaviors. Findings indicate that primary grade teachers continue to hold traditional conceptions of talent that shapes how they view cultural minority students, nonnative English speakers, and children with other exceptionalities. These beliefs influence the types of academic, social, and programmatic interventions they believe diverse primary grade learners need, often seeing the deficits before identifying the talents.

Teachers’ Conceptions of Giftedness and Special Needs of Gifted Students

“…Fakat öğretmenler bu tanılamada öğrencilerin motivasyonlarını, sınıf içi davranışlarını (Moon ve Brighton, 2008;Neumeister, Adams, Pierce, Cassady ve Dixon, 2007) ve aile ortamlarını (Rohrer, 1995) da göz önünde bulundurmaktadırlar. Bu durum da öğretmenlerin üstün zekâlı azınlık öğrencileri tanılamada yanılgı yaşamalarına sebep olabilmektedir.…”

'Missing out'? The potential consequences of inaccurate teacher expectations on young gifted readers' achievement outcomes

“…One teacher noted that a student was a new enrolment, while another reported a student as bilingual, and 2 further comments specifically identified students with English as their second language (ESOL). Moon and Brighton (2008) suggest that teachers often "hold a deficit-oriented framework when considering the characteristics of young learners" (p.274). It is plausible that the intervention (and control teachers) in the current study were more focused on the perceived learning needs of their non-gifted readers in the first few weeks of the school year.…”

“…These findings highlight the potential for teachers' conscious or unconscious biases to influence the accuracy of their expectations, and consequently impact significantly on opportunities for young gifted students to develop their talents (Moon & Brighton, 2008). Students who had participated in preschool learning opportunities would often demonstrate advanced work habits, vocabulary and reading skills, and would be more readily identified as gifted.…”

“…In an American study of 434 teachers from public schools serving a range of diverse students, Moon and Brighton (2008) investigated teacher beliefs about giftedness. Findings indicated that the vast majority of primary-grade teachers held traditional conceptions of the constructs related to gifted and talented students.…”

Self-perception of preschool teachers competences for children potentially gifted in mathematics recognition

“…Упркос свим проблемима који прате рад на препознавању и идентификацији деце потенцијално даровите за математику, морамо имати у виду да је рана идентификација даровите деца кључна за њи-хов развој (Pfeiffer & Petscher, 2008;Rotigel, 2003) и да постоје све ма-њи изгледи да се та деца касније препознају (Moon & Brighton, 2008). Зато су све израженије тежње да се васпитачи учине осетљивим да пре-познају карактеристике и особености даровите деце, да развију способ-ности уочавања и почетног идентификовања даровитог детета у вас-питним групама (Tannenbaum, 1980; Према Cvetković-Lay, 1998).…”