ERIC EC Digest #E483
Author: Geoffrey Jones
1990
Since the early 1970's, schools across the nation have been adding computers and instruction in computing to programs for students of all ages and abilities. Gifted and talented students in most schools now have access to computers in their classrooms, and an increasingly large percentage of these students have home computers. As the goals for technology education and the promises of educational change have grown, the hardware and the software used in both schools and homes have improved steadily. Educators, business and industry, the government, and the general public believe our most able students must be computer literate for our nation to be competitive in the next generation. Only recently, with the gulf between promises and achievements widening, have voices of concern been raised (Holden, 1989).
The disparity between theory and practice is attributed to many causes, ranging from a lack of educational focus to a shortage of funding. But even those reporting problems have found evidence of students working "smarter," whether they are learning and using more information, understanding key concepts and relationships better, or developing higher level thinking skills. Gifted students are benefitting from increased use of computers because their special needs are being met through informed use of technology.
The Needs of Gifted and Talented Students
The identification of gifted and/or talented individuals and the determination of their specific needs is made complex by the widely different opinions of what giftedness is and how it is manifested. Basic research is as varied as Howard Gardner's (1983) theory of multiple intelligences and Joseph Renzulli's (1977) dependence on congruence between ability, commitment, and creativity. Most agree, however, that the talents of gifted youngsters are dynamic rather than static or fixed, and that the youngsters and their talents must be nurtured.
How schools nurture and the effects of various practices are the focus of much research. June Cox (Cox, Daniel, & Boston, 1985), with the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, conducted a national study of current programming for able learners. Donald Treffinger (1986) has written prolifically on gifted programs. Others have explored the relationship of specific processes such as problem finding to nurturing specific talents such as creativity (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976).
Combined with practice and experience, the research suggests the following tenets are essential to good programming for gifted and talented students:
- Instruction recognizes students' unique learning styles.
- Students are supported as they grow in self-confidence and self-awareness of their strengths and weaknesses.
- Students progress at a rate most appropriate for them.
- Structured opportunities are provided for individual and small group investigations of real problems.
- Students are encouraged to develop and practice higher level thinking skills.
- Opportunities are provided for students to establish goals and determine objectives.
- Students learn with and from each other.
- A wide range and variety of materials and resources are available.
- Student interests are used as a basis for learning
The computer has evolved well beyond the ancestral calculator that did amazing computations. It has become an idea engine - a tool for discovery, exploration, and collaboration. Computers are designed to process information, and the results they furnish are as limitless as the humans using them and the problems and applications for which they are employed.
Computers can manage data whether the information they store is organized as numbers, names, words, dates, or any combination of facts. Computers can produce graphics in charts, pictures, animation, color, and three dimensions if the necessary peripherals and programming devices are available. They can be used to manipulate text, correct spelling, critique grammar, and speak several languages.
When connected with telephone lines or other cabling, they can share information. Instructed properly, computers can make "intelligent" decisions. They do all of this accurately with speed and increasing flexibility.
