Identifying and Supporting Students with High Abilities
Informal Testing and Identifying Students with High Abilities
Teachers within the educational system play a crucial role in identifying students with high abilities. They can provide valuable information on their students’ capabilities and performance.
Parents can also contribute to the identification process by informing schools of their child’s abilities and advocating for appropriate educational provision.
Classroom peers offer a unique perspective, as they often recognize classmates who excel in the teaching-learning process.
When schools are not proactive in recognizing and supporting students with high abilities, those from disadvantaged backgrounds may be disproportionately affected.
Information from teachers, parents, and peers can be gathered through observation scales (for teachers and parents) and peer nominations.
Encouraging Intellectual Curiosity and Motivation (IM)
This framework for supporting students with high abilities consists of four stages:
1. Identifying Strengths in Different Areas
Structured observation helps assess a child’s knowledge, skills, and learning styles, which stem from various environmental and educational experiences.
2. Introducing Children to Different Areas of Learning
Connecting a child’s curiosity to the regular curriculum is key. It’s important to consider their strengths alongside the intellectual demands of the school environment, both inside and outside the classroom.
Teaching and learning are achieved through a cognitive and engaging curriculum that serves as a tool to facilitate meaningful learning experiences.
3. Promoting Strengths and Respecting Diversity
Teachers should recognize and celebrate individual differences, fostering an environment where diversity is seen as an asset. They should provide the necessary support to enhance and develop each student’s strengths.
This support can take the form of “scaffolding” learning by presenting challenging, novel, and enriched learning experiences that “pull” the child’s development forward.
4. Capitalizing on Strengths to Develop Other Areas: Transfer
Teaching children to apply their knowledge and skills across different domains is essential. This can be achieved through various methods:
- Utilizing discovery learning.
- Assessing the child’s learning style in their area of strength.
- Identifying the child’s preferred area and incorporating activities from other areas.
Enrichment Programs for Cognitive Development
These programs aim to enhance specific thinking skills and provide support and guidance to students facing various learning challenges. Some widely used programs include:
- Covington’s Productive Thinking Program (1974)
- Dansereau’s MURDER System (1979)
- Edward de Bono’s CoRT Thinking Program (1968)
- Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment Program (PEI) (1980)
- Sternberg’s Applied Intelligence program (1986)
- Harvard’s Odyssey Intelligence Project
Instrumental Enrichment Program (EIP)
Based on the theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability and Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning Experience (MLE), the EIP aims to improve cognitive functioning by developing core information processing skills and providing metacognitive strategy training. Teachers encourage students to reflect on their problem-solving processes, making their thinking explicit.
Odyssey Intelligence Project (Harvard)
This program focuses on training basic and higher-order thinking processes, enabling individuals to transfer these skills to academic and everyday life. It emphasizes observation, classification, precise language use, analogical reasoning, hypothesis generation, problem-solving strategies, decision-making, and active participation in discussions.
Applied Intelligence Program
Grounded in Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, this program utilizes activities and problems that require strategic thinking, processes, and knowledge application. Designed for secondary and early college levels, it emphasizes analytical, synthetic, and practical intelligence.
The Importance of Learning Strategies and Metacognition
The effectiveness of these programs highlights the significance of learning strategies and metacognition. Explicit instruction in these areas is crucial, as some children may not develop effective strategies independently.
For successful implementation and meaningful learning, students need to be equipped with appropriate strategies, understand how to select and apply them effectively, and develop self-regulation and evaluation skills throughout the learning process.