Literature Review

What is gifted education?

Gifted education in this study means, education that meets students diverse needs, enrich the classroom atmosphere, acceleration of the curriculum, develop students’ personal ability which most skilled or talented in a specific area (Kerr, 2009). Gifted education is different from general education, it considers individual’s need, all the settings are based on student’s aptitude.

why does gifted education matters?

There is a lot of research showing the great positive influences of gifted programming for students and their future (Why Are Gifted Programs Needed?, n.d.). What is more, there are some disadvantages if we do not consider the needs of gifted students in the general classroom. Little (2012) mentioned that students get fed up with the curriculum because the content is not meaningful and does not any challenge to them. If students do not derive satisfaction about learning from the general classroom, they may seek other educational institutions such as private schools (Steenbergen-Hu, 2016). It would be a pity if the general classroom teacher is not able to retain the gifted student. Mooij (2017) defined gifted children as children who perform in the top 10% in any field, and that their abilities easily to stand out. In addition, Mooij (2017) pointed out that underachievement may appear in gifted students because their abilities were not identified and reinforced in learning. However, the general classroom setting is mainly concerned with the majority’s needs and standards, for gifted students, the grade level is so easy it does not challenge some students who always finish assignments fast (Little, 2012). Gifted education is not only beneficial for gifted students but also all the students in the class because it considers each individual’s need. What is more, in Mhlolo’s (2017) study, it showed that gifted students lack the opportunity to develop their creative potential in the general classroom, additionally, gifted students’ creative ideas were also considered disruptive or ignored because those do not relate to the standards and goals of lesson.

how to improve student motivation?

Student motivation contains two parts: intrinsic motivation and external motivation. The intrinsic motivation is about personal interests, hobbies, social factors, and self-achievement, which Garn and Jolly (2013) classified as the Fun Factor. They emphasized the external motivation in the paper as being tied to reward systems. All students enjoyed getting rewards from teachers and parents such as food, allowance, toys or good grades with praise. Another thing that needs to be noticed is that appropriate pressure improves external motivation. Coleman and Cuo (2013) in their study found six domains that most children are passionate about acting, math, reading, preaching, filmmaking, and spelling. These are factors that hold students attention in the classroom. Students will spend time and energy on what they are interested in, the content will be developed by connecting with student’s passion. Netz (2014) pointed that unlimited discussion without range can helps students improve their interesting and raise their intrinsic motivation. In other words, less limitation means more creativeness in classroom.

general classroom settings

How to develop a gifted program in general classroom is a big topic. Karp (2017 ) emphasized the teacher's behavior in the classroom and the importance of posing new questions about/on students to tickle their imagination and relates to their personal interesting and focus. In this study, presented as an assignment was encouraged for teachers to assign in class, this helps students generalize their inner logical thinking and better know what they want to build that connects with their interests. Little (2012 ) mentioned that the crucial impact of connecting curriculum with motivation are challenges, and these two factors interact with each other. Nolte and Pamperien (2017 ) found that the feature of problem-solving processes in the gifted program feature benefits all levels of students, the teacher generates the problem based on the content and also support the content to better develop and meets students ' interests. There is also a highly recommended suggestion is to extend the extra section as a long-term goal, which not only helps the student's interest grow but also deeper the knowledge gradually.

References

Coleman, L. J., & Guo, A. (2013). Exploring children's passion for learning in six domains. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 36, 155.

Garn, A. C., & Jolly, J. L. (2014). High ability students’ voice on learning motivation. Journal of Advanced Academics, 25, 7-24.

Karp, A. (2017). Some thoughts on gifted education and creativity. Zdm, 49, 159-168.

Kerr, B. (Ed.) (2009). Encyclopedia of giftedness, creativity, and talent Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781412971959

Little, C. A. (2012). Curriculum as motivation for gifted students. Psychology in the Schools, 49, 695-705.

Mhlolo, M. K. (2017). Regular classroom teachers’ recognition and support of the creative potential of mildly gifted mathematics learners. Zdm, 49, 81-94.

Mooij, T. (2013). Designing instruction and learning for cognitively gifted pupils in preschool and primary school. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17, 597-613.

Netz, H. (2014). Gifted conversations: Discursive patterns in gifted classes. Gifted Child Quarterly, 58, 149-163.

Nolte, M., & Pamperien, K. (2017). Challenging problems in a regular classroom setting and in a special foster programme. Zdm, 49, 121-136.

Schick, H., & Phillipson, S. N. (2009). Learning motivation and performance excellence in adolescents with high intellectual potential: What really matters? High Ability Studies, 20, 15-37.

Steenbergen-Hu, S., & Olszewski-Kubilius, P. (2016). Gifted identification and the role of gifted education: A commentary on "evaluating the gifted program of an urban school district using a modified regression discontinuity design". Journal of Advanced Academics, 27, 99-108.

Why Are Gifted Programs Needed?. (n.d.). In National Association for gifted children. Retrieved from: https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/gifted-education-practices/why-are-gifted-programs-needed.

Zhang, H., Small, M., Yang, H., & Wang, B. (2010). Adjusting learning motivation to promote cooperation. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 389, 4734-4739.