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The authors describe the Renzulli Learning System (RLS), a way that teachers can use technology to differentiate effectively for a broad range of individual differences and diverse student needs, and increased pressures to improve student achievement. The main goal of the RLS is simultaneously to increase achievement and the enjoyment of learning by making available an easy-to-use, research-based system that promotes student engagement. Research on the role of student engagement is clear and unequivocal: high engagement results in higher achievement, improved self-concept and self-efficacy, and more favorable attitudes toward school and learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: create)

(This chapter takes the form of an interview with Carol Dweck about her and her graduate and post-doctoral students' current work, especially as this relates to the field of giftedness. Conducted by Susan Veronikas and Michael F. Shaughnessy, the interview was first published in Gifted Education International 19, 2004, 27-33 and has been updated by Carol Dweck for this volume.) The author describes her research on the malleability of intelligence, and the important effect that mindsets can have on intellectual and academic functioning and success, demonstrating that intelligence, creativity, and giftedness are not the fixed traits that much historical work in the field assumes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

In France, educational practices concerning gifted and talented young people have long been the object of discussion. These discussions can be traced back to work carried out by Binet (1911), whose name is usually associated with studying pupils with learning difficulties, but whose research also led to pedagogy for young people with high results in his intelligence test. There is a real contrast when we compare the attitude of the educational authorities in France toward the gifted on one hand, and the talented on the other. Conclusions in this chapter include the need for teacher education concerning giftedness, and for providing the same kind of support to intellectual and academic development as is provided for athletic and artistic development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: create)

The Routledge international companion to gifted education is a ground-breaking collection of fully-referenced chapters written by many of the most highly-respected authorities on the subject from around the world. These 50 contributors include distinguished scholars who have produced many of the most significant advances to the field over the past few decades, alongside authorities who ask questions about the very concepts and terminology embodied in the field. This multi-faceted volume: highlights strategies to support giftedness in children, providing ideas that work and weeding out those that don't; is written in jargon-free language in an easy-to use themed format; is an authoritative collection of future-focused views, ideas and reflections, practices and evaluations; and includes chapters dealing with the major controversies and concerns in the field today, from the problems of identification to changing understandings of giftedness and creativity. The international aspect of the Companion, and its juxtaposition of points of view—whereby chapters are deliberately positioned and accompanied by editorial commentary to highlight the contrasts with each other—ensures that different views are addressed and allows the reader to absorb and reflect upon the many perspectives of each issue. The Companion is a guide to the new ideas and controversies that are informing gifted education discussion and policy-making around the world. It is a first class resource for students and researchers alike. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: cover)

This chapter is written from the stance of a practitioner researching his own practice as an educator in the field of giftedness. I describe how a model of gift-creation has emerged through critical responsiveness to my own practice, and I offer a parallel description of the conditions under which gifts can be grown, rather than identified. These descriptions underlie an argument for shifting professional focus from dominant twentieth-century Western rationalist approaches to the field of gifted and talented education, with their deterministic, dualistic, individualistic, pragmatic, tool-for-result, and knowing-centered associations, towards a concept of giftedness which is co-constructed (not identified) in a social, relationally respectful, activity-oriented, dialectical, tool-and-result manner and context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter the current empirical research on morality and giftedness is reviewed with an emphasis on ethical sensitivity. The component of moral judgment has been the most studied aspect in morality. Although high ability students have been shown to be superior in moral judgment when compared to average ability students, morality includes other components as well, such as sensitivity, motivation, and character. In this chapter the component of ethical sensitivity is introduced with both quantitative and qualitative empirical results regarding gifted students. Recommendations for the moral education of gifted students are made based on the research findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The focus of this chapter concerns the introduction of a set of assessment tools for both teachers and students to use in conjunction with their workload, which reflects and raises awareness of real creative effort taking place. It is my contention also that decisions about the value of creative effort should initially be made more to inform the creator than for the purposes of identifying the gifted. This primary focus may stimulate further excellence and identify areas of future learning over which the creator or facilitator has some control. Bringing students explicitly into assessment priorities can be highly productive in this process. The secondary aspect of such feedback is to facilitate the identification of giftedness, providing information that helps identify those students who are so advanced relative to their age peers such that they require adaptations to instruction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

There are many controversies, conflicting research findings and widely-held misconceptions about psychosocial development as it intersects with giftedness. The author argues here that although advanced academic ability may be correlated with higher scores on tests of moral reasoning, it does not necessarily lead to more moral behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

Human beings usually live a long time. During their lifetime, certain attributes will follow them from birth to death. The question that has preoccupied me for more than 30 years is where giftedness falls along this dimension. Is giftedness confined to childhood and perhaps adolescence? Or can it be like gender—something that we possess from the moment of conception and which remains with us until the day we die? The attribution of giftedness appears to be a curvilinear inverted-U function of the person's age since conception, with the peak in childhood. Yet I would argue that the actual distribution should be more egalitarian. A gifted child was probably a gifted infant, even zygote, and may later become a gifted adolescent and adult, and may even die being gifted. The only difference across the life span is changes may take place in the nature of the gift or in the degree of its manifestation. To make this case I will offer a brief review of what we know about giftedness from a lifespan developmental perspective. The review starts with conception to birth, turns to childhood through adolescence, and ends with adulthood and maturity. The overview will stress giftedness of the highest order, giftedness that leads to exceptional achievement. In order words, the gift that the individual received eventually creates gifts that are given to others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The author describes how she uses the inclusive, cross-curricular model called Thinking Actively in a Social Context (TASC; see record 2008-17742-035), among other tools, in her work to support children in developing their own giftedness, and schools in providing inclusive and inclusional gifted education provisions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

What will be the turning points in the education of gifted and talented students in the next several decades? As we complete the first decade of the new century, it is appropriate to reflect on the extraordinary changes and advances that have occurred in the last several decades in our field. Consensus on the turning points of the past century may be difficult to reach and admittedly, this perspective is filtered through the lens of one American woman who has spent the majority of her professional life in this area. The turning points suggested as a focus for the next several decades include the following: (1) expanding conceptions of the multidimensionality of giftedness and talent development, (2) eradicating the continued absence of challenge for gifted and talented students, (3) making a difference for underserved populations, (4) changing our focus from ways to identify gifted students to the ways we develop gifts and talents, and finally, (5) applying 'gifted' education pedagogy to talent development, with a focus on strengths, not deficits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

This chapter surveys the Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT), a talent development theory whereby outstanding natural abilities, or gifts, are progressively transformed into outstanding systematically developed skills and knowledge, which define expertise or talent in a specific occupational field. The text briefly describes complex interactions among the six components that help or hinder that process, and succinctly answers a fundamental question: 'What factor(s) differentiate(s), on average, between those who emerge among the talented and those who remain average?' The field of gifted education defines its special population around two key concepts: giftedness and talent. For the vast majority of scholars, these two terms are considered synonyms. Yet, these same scholars keep mentioning one particular idea in almost every discussion of the giftedness construct, namely a distinction—implicit or explicit—between early emerging forms of giftedness, to some extent innate and usually manifested in childhood, and fully developed, adult forms of 'giftedness'. The distinction will be expressed with terms like potential versus achievement, aptitude versus realization, promise versus fulfillment. But it will rarely, if ever, systematically be operationalized. I believe it can be done. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

One of the controversies in the field with a history of conflicting findings concerns whether or not giftedness leads to a preference for independent study. The authors provide a comprehensive review of the literature on this topic, describing a study they have recently completed, and reporting on their nuanced findings. They conclude that it is really a question of 'match': when exceptionally capable learners do not feel supported, they prefer to learn alone, but when they are in situations that facilitate their learning goals, they can thrive in mixed groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

This chapter comprises three sections: (a) commentary on the Colombo, Shaddy, Blaga, Anderson, and Kannass chapter titled "High Cognitive Ability in Infancy and Early Childhood" (chap. 2, this volume; see record 2009-00231-002); (b) consideration of issues concerning early prediction of gifted intelligence; and (c) discussion of implications regarding early identification of intellectual giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Although my own research program was not intentionally designed to study gifted and talented developmental processes or outcomes, it nevertheless offers some relevant data and perhaps insights. The work discussed here concerns children's developing competencies in understanding and producing spatial-graphic representations. These may be defined as stand-for symbols (the representational aspect) that involve marks of some kind (the graphic aspect), whose representational components are distributed over the surface in a way that corresponds to the distribution of components of the referent (the spatial aspect). This chapter is organized as follows. First, I expand on what I mean by spatial-graphic representations (in the section entitled "Defining Spatial-Graphic Representations"). Second, I sample from work that my colleagues and I have conducted to study children's developing spatial-graphic competencies. In doing so, I highlight performance that might well be classified as gifted ("Illustrative Empirical Work"). Finally, I offer some speculations about implications this work has for research, public policy, and education ("Implications for Research and Practice"). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

I was asked to respond to chapter 7 of this volume by Sandra Graham on giftedness in adolescence (see record 2009-00231-007). When I read the chapter, I found, as expected, that Graham's social-psychological perspective and my psychosocial perspective have much in common, including a focus on the interaction of motivation and social context. Therefore, I have endeavored to expand on some of the issues that Graham addresses in her chapter, in the hope of stimulating discussion among researchers and practitioners concerned with giftedness in adolescence. In this chapter, I discuss identification practices in some detail, as I believe that there are some fundamental misunderstandings in this area. I highlight some of the more recent research on teachers and the messages that they send. I also address the potential role played by identity variables such as stereotype threat. In addition, I discuss the concept of oppositional identity, which relates to Graham's notion of "I can, but do I want to?" Finally, I briefly discuss the idea of cultural learning styles. Although much of what I discuss is applicable to adolescents of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, the implications may be different for youth who are traditionally underrepresented in gifted and talented education (e.g., African Americans, Latinos). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The purpose of this chapter is to expand the perspective of psychology to include the dynamics of the later years of life. I describe the stages of late life that have been proposed and the diversity of the older population as revealed by longitudinal studies. The abilities of older adults are described in terms of social intelligence, self-regulation, creativity, and wisdom. Unique contributions by elderly persons are described as the products of late-life bloomers, or individuals who express latent talents late in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Although there is considerable overlap in the scientific study of giftedness and of child development in terms of research traditions as well as participating investigators, it is important to recognize that there are substantial differences in the history of each research tradition. The historical divergence in the core conceptual frameworks guiding each field has led to conflicting positions at least as often as to a productive connection between them. At the risk of overemphasizing the conflict between these conceptual frameworks, it is important to draw out the distinctions because they illuminate many important issues, particularly with relevance to the goal of this volume, an integration of developmental science and the study of giftedness. I thus first provide a brief history of those two approaches, recognizing of course that there is a personal filter through which such a historical analysis must proceed. I take up the implications for a life-span integrative framework in the final section. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Chief among the attributes of giftedness is the expression of exceptionality in one or more domains of talent or ability, and most commonly this exceptionality is expressed in the domain of cognition. In this chapter, we address issues pertaining to the concept of such high ability within the period of infancy and early childhood, and we do so from both the empirical and theoretical realms. In the empirical realm, we present new data on the prediction of high cognitive ability (HCA) from infancy and early childhood. In the theoretical realm, we outline a recent significant advance in the field of early cognition and its implications for how intelligence is thought about. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Giftedness, a dynamic construct, develops over time. During the transition from adolescence into adulthood, gifted individuals move first from broad educational experiences to more narrowly focused efforts in universities, colleges, institutes, or conservatories, followed by the pursuit of scholarly productivity, innovation, or artistry. The focus of this chapter is on the catalysts for these transitions. I take the view of talent development as the transformation of abilities into competencies, competencies into expertise, and expertise into outstanding performance or seminal ideas. Finally, I explore the stages of talent development experienced by gifted adolescents as they move into scholarly productivity or artistry in adulthood, focusing on the increasingly important role played by psychosocial variables in the fulfillment of their potential. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)