Journal for the Education of the Young Scientist and Giftedness

13-20

Authors: Feyzullah SAHİN

ABSTRACT: Gifted students differ from their peers in terms of motivations, learning, social and emotional needs. Because of these differences, it is indispensible that their teachers have to have a number of different characteristics. Because, teachers’ personality tratis and professional qualifications affects gifted students’ academic, cognitive and affective development. The main aim of this study is to examine that whether gifted students’ preferences of characteristics that teachers should have, differs according to type of educational institution, student's gender and level of meeting their educational needs or not. The study was designed as descriptive, one of the survey models. The study group consists of 1077 gifted students who are enrolled at five Science High School state schools, a private gifted school and three Science and Art Centers in Thracia Region in Turkey. As a means of data collection, Gifted Students’ Teacher Preferences Scale (GSTPS) developed by Sahin & Tortop (2013) was used. In the calculation of internal consistency reliability of research data, Cronbach's α value was calculated. Cronbach alfa realibity cofficients were found to be .92 for Personality Traits sub-scale, .89 Professional Qualification sub-scale and .94 GSTPS, respectively. Besides, it was seen that based on the gender of participants, there was no difference in the characteristics they want to see in teachers and the opinions of students in High Schools and at SACs differed from the ones who were in the private school. Moreover, it was determined that the scores of the ones who thought the schools met their educational needs fully and the ones who thought the schools met their educational needs partially varied significantly. Key words: Giftedness, teacher preferences, personality traits, professional qualifications

32-39

Authors: Ayse ASLAN

ABSTRACT: Development of academically gifted students‟ empathy, research skills and creativity are quite important in terms of their education. In the process of the development of these skills of gifted students, the life‟s of scientists who are important in the history of science could be used. That the gifted students know these scientists more closely could also be presented as significant models in terms of their moral development. In this activity, a gifted student was asked to write a diary by examining Blaise Pascal, his period of life and his contribution to science. At the end he was asked to write an essay "If I Were Pascal, I'd do …”. It is seen that this activity lasted for 5 weeks contributed to the development of gifted students‟ scientific creativity, empathy and research skills Key words: The young scientist, empathy, scientific creativity, history of science

53-57

Authors: Engin KARADUMAN

ABSTRACT: According to research, while moderately gifted students can often fit in the regular classrooms with differentiated instructions, pull-out programs, or acceleration options, highly gifted students do better when they are grouped with other intellectually-advanced peers in accordance with their strengths, interests, and background knowledge of a topic. Each of these students requires special attention and management strategies to develop better cognitive, social, emotional, and physical skills. Thanks to the grouping strategy, highly gifted students can study concepts at the appropriate pace, depth, and complexity so that these students feel valued and normal (Neville, 2007; Rogers, 2007). In order to fully meet these students’ needs, creating a school for highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted students would be a more beneficial plan compared to requiring them to stay within the regular classroom, accelerating, or grade skipping. Rogers (2002) pointed out that these students showed more academic growth by studying with other intellectual peers in separate classrooms. According to VanTassel-Baska (2006), identification, curriculum, program design, staff development, parental involvement assessment, and evaluation areas were essential for gifted program development. In accordance with the program development guidelines noted above, in this presentation, the process of developing and implementing a program for highly gifted students in Science, Math, Reading, and Social Studies will be provided based on an interview with Lynette Breedlove, Ph.D. who is the director of Advanced Academic Studies & Secondary Counseling at Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston, TX. Key words: Highly gifted students, identification. developing highly gifted school, differentiation, enrichment, acceleration.