The Possibilities and Limitations of Gifted Education in Korea: A Look at the ISEP Science- Gifted Education Center

Education for gifted children is currently one of the hottest educational issues in Korea. Much money and effort are being invested in this area of education. Recent announcements by the Korean Ministry of Education state that all children should be educated to the level of which they are capable, and the current program for gifted students should be and will be extended. However, there is little attention paid to the actual substance of gifted education in Korea. What is happening in the name of gifted education? What is the meaning of giftedness and gifted education? How and in what respects can the gifted program be differentiated from general programs? What are the problems and concerns in serving gifted students? What are the effects of gifted programs? These are the main questions of the present qualitative study. For the purposes of this ethnographic study, the ISEP science gifted education center in Korea was observed for a six-month period, and 10 professors and 50 students at the ISEP were interviewed in depth. The results of the study are as follows. First of all, the ISEP science gifted education center provides differentiated learning environments and teaching methods. Second, through these differentiated learning experiences, students improve their thinking skills and creative problem solving abilities, as well as developing positive self-esteem. In addition, the formation of human net works, the special meaning of the ‘gifted’ label, and the acquisition of personal knowledge were seen to be some of the major educative possibilities on offer at the ISEP gifted education center. However, some professors’ low levels of motivation, the absence of individualized educational plans, bureaucratic management, weak student commitment to set tasks, and a lack of opportunity for students’ social activities were clearly limitations of the ISEP gifted education center. The results of this study will contribute to, specifically, the search for new ideas to improve the operation of gifted education as well as helping to surmount the hidden problems lurking beneath the surface of the current gifted education practices in Korea, and, more generally, to enhance our understanding of the diverse gifted educational practices in operation worldwide.     

Leading Differentiated Learning for the Gifted

This study examined similarities and differences in the perceptions of principals and teachers about the use of differentiated strategies for gifted learners and studied principals’ perceptions about schoolwide differentiation. Comparisons of these perceptions have been undoc-umented to date. Participants included 867 teachers and 120 principals from government schools in Sydney, Australia. A mixed methods approach was used, including online questionnaires and case studies of principals. Results revealed significant differences between the perceptions of principals and teachers about differentiated practices. The case studies demonstrate that exemplary principals continually enhance their understanding of differentiated learning and build their teachers’ collective capacity for educating gifted learners. The findings indicate the need for stronger pedagogical congruence between principals and teachers in educating the gifted, ongoing professional education of principals and teachers in gifted education, and effective leadership actions for schoolwide differentiated learning.     

Exploring Specialized Schools for the Gifted and Talented

Consultation is a collaborative problem‐solving process with the ultimate goal of providing better services to students. Collaboration between specialists in gifted education and general education school personnel is a way to assist teachers meet the special needs of gifted students in the classroom and improve the general education program. A model for consultation to better serve students in gifted education is presented that encourages shared responsibility among school personnel. Implementation of the model is discussed including implications for training of administrators, specialists in gifted education, and general educators.     

Associations of newly qualified teachers’ beliefs with classroom management practices and approaches to instruction over one school year

We focus on assessing whether newly qualified teachers’ professional outcome expectations and their beliefs about students’ intellectual potential are associated with teachers’ self-reported classroom management and instructional practices. One hundred and eighteen novice teachers participating in the induction year programme were studied during their first years as full-time teachers. Results attest to a salient association between teachers’ more optimistic views of the malleability of students’ intellectual potential and teachers’ confidence in themselves as positive change agents in student outcomes. Also, teachers’ belief-set in the beginning of their career was shown to be associated with significant differences in the level of using instructional practices promoting mastery goal orientation in the classroom as well as offering students emotional support during the learning process. In the light of the significant belief–behaviour links demonstrated, more explicit attention to the sophistication of teachers’ ability beliefs in teacher education programmes is recommended.     

Attitudes Toward Computers of Gifted Students and their Teachers

One of the prerequisites for acceptance and implementation of computers in an educational system is a positive attitude of both teachers and students toward their use. This research, therefore, focuses on differences in attitudes toward computers between male and female teachers, female and male gifted students, and teachers and gifted students. Samples consisted of 217 gifted students (115 males and 102 females) and 125 teachers (30 males and 95 females) in the Amman Educational District, Jordan. Computer attitudes were measured by means of the Attitudes of Both Teachers and Students Toward Computers Questionnaire, and compared statistically to variables such as performance in mathematics, IQ, gender, teachers’ experience in teaching and computing, and teachers’ training. Results showed that participants are generally positive towards computers, and there were no significant differences in attitude between gifted students and teachers or between males and females. Attitudes towards computers, however, may be predicted by performance in mathematics and by IQ scores.     

Training effects on Belgian preschool and primary school teachers’ attitudes towards the best practices for gifted children

Lack of knowledge of effective educational interventions for gifted children is a pressing problem in Belgian schools. Most preschool and primary school teachers enter the profession without any training in the best practices for gifted children. This results in many misconceptions about giftedness and gifted education and a diversity of well-intentioned but ineffective interventions in the classroom. In response to the request for help from many schools, the Belgian expertise center “Exentra” designed a professional training program for in-service teachers with the aim to increase teachers’ understanding of the characteristics and needs of gifted pupils, and help teachers develop the necessary confidence and skills to effectively teach the gifted in regular, mixed-ability classes. This study shows that the Exentra training is effective in changing teachers’ beliefs about gifted education and enhancing teachers’ knowledge, abilities, and self-esteem to effectively modify the curriculum for the more capable pupils in the classroom.     

Elementary teachers’ beliefs about multicultural education practices

As the diversity of American schools is increasing, teachers should understand the role culture plays in the classroom and employ teaching practices that accommodate students from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, while more is known about pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multicultural education, less is known about what practices in-service teachers endorse and what factors influence those beliefs about practices. Specifically, the aims of the study were to determine (a) how teachers define culture, (b) what multicultural practices they endorse, and (c) what school-level factors (i.e. racial/ethnic demographics of the school) and teacher-level factors (i.e. multicultural professional development/coursework, grade level taught, comfort level facilitating multicultural discussions, and definitions of culture) are associated with teachers’ endorsement of multicultural practices. A sample of 45 elementary teachers (grades kindergarten to fifth) in three elementary schools completed a custom-developed survey. Findings indicated that teachers defined culture broadly with infrequent mention of specific identities and did not show strong endorsement of recommended multicultural practices. Teachers’ definitions of culture and their school of employment were associated with teachers’ beliefs about practices. Directions for future and implications for targeted professional development will be discussed.     

Preparing Community-Engaged Teachers

The goals of teacher education must evolve beyond the teaching of strategies and methods toward a process for beginning teachers' critical interrogation of their social locations and the ways they engage with the realities of teaching and learning. One way that this is accomplished is by incorporating opportunities for community engagement beyond classroom walls in ways that employ teaching practicum experiences in K–12 classrooms. This article describes one teacher educator's experiences preparing secondary English and literacy preservice teachers enrolled in a Teaching Writing Course where students participate in the coordination and facilitation of a community writing event for local middle and high school students. Preservice teachers witnessed writing instruction and youth writing practices that thrived in an educational partnership among multiple stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, administrators, university professors, and community youth liaisons. Then I share examples of students' reflections post-Writing Our Lives experiences to demonstrate their emerging understanding of the role of community engagement in their development of teacher identities.     

Teachers’ views on effective classroom management: a mixed-methods investigation in Western Australian high schools

Teachers’ views about teaching, learning and school experiences are important considerations in education. As the central participants in classroom interactions, students and teachers naturally have strong views about what it takes to manage learning and surrounding behaviours effectively. With this in mind and because we believe that ignoring the thinking of either of these stakeholders would be to the detriment of teaching and teacher education, we focused on hearing and understanding teachers’ voices about teaching, learning and classroom management. Our aim was to further clarify teachers’ perspectives on how educators create quality learning environments as well as gathering their views of various disciplinary interventions, their perceptions of challenging students and their sense of efficacy for classroom management in order to inform both policy and practice in teacher education. A survey was conducted with 50 secondary school teachers to capture their views on their classroom experiences. Follow up interviews with teachers identified by students as effective in their classroom management provided consistent reports that effective classroom managers build positive relationships with their students, manage their classrooms by establishing clear boundaries and high expectations, and engage students in their learning.

     

Metaphors and Sense of Teaching: How these constructs influence novice teachers

The purpose of this study was to identify the root metaphors of secondary classroom teachers and to observe ways in which these constructs influence teachers’ work with their students and their environments. Specifically, five case studies of novice teachers were presented. Results indicated that the metaphor of life as a tree was the most common view and that all five participants held a similar childhood metaphor in which they tended to idealize childhood. Overall, the data showed the persistence of ideas that beginning teachers bring to their university preparation and those beliefs extend into actual classroom practice. Teacher development seemed to be more influenced by the schooling environment rather than the pre‐service preparation the teachers received. Furthermore, these novice teachers felt conflict between their held beliefs and the reality of teaching and schooling. Implications for teacher educators and future research are included.     

The dynamics of learning engagement and its relationship with teachers’ classroom practices in primary school

The current study was part of a larger project which examined teachers’ classroom practices and relationships with students’ learning engagement in primary-school education in Estonia. The focus was the role of autonomy supportive and structured teaching on learning engagement. Two primary-school teachers and their 46 students were selected for this study. The aim of the study was to explore how teachers’ classroom practices influence students’ learning engagement over two years during grade two and grade four of the educational system. Three trained observers rated classroom practices and students self-reported learning engagement. The results highlight primary students’ high-learning engagement, and did not confirm an expectation that low-autonomy-supportive teaching results in low-learning engagement in primary school.     

About Creativity,Giftedness, and Teaching the Creatively Gifted in the Classroom

In this case study the author explored a teacher's beliefs about creativity and gifted‐ness and investigated the classroom practices of this teacher of gifted students for 20 years. Seven semi‐structured and 2 open observations were carried out in her classroom, and 2 prefigured interviews were conducted with her. She believed that creative children are those who are “free thinkers” and have “imaginative intelligence.” The thin line between an academically gifted child and a creatively gifted child is built by “imagination,” “emotional intensity,” and “curiosity.” In creative writing, she tried to implement activities such as learning to write poetry, personal narratives, research reports and essays posing solutions to real world problems, and mystery stories decorated with similes, metaphors and imaginative expressions. In reading, students analyzed characters, problems, places and times in stories and novels, and then rewrote stories.     

Self-Efficacy Beliefs,Classroom Management,and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline

In this article, we focus on connections between and among teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, classroom management practices, and the cradle to prison pipeline. Drawing from Bandura’s (1986) theorization of self-efficacy, we discuss how teachers’ beliefs shape their classroom management practices and how these beliefs and practices can be essential sites to understanding and decreasing disparate outcomes in disciplinary referral patterns among practicing teachers. We emphasize the importance of building teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and sense of efficacy to inform their classroom management practices/decisions. In particular, we focus on three sites of learning that, we argue, are essential to building teachers’ sense of efficacy in the classroom: learning about and building powerful and sustainable relationships with students; learning about and developing an understanding of outside of school contexts that students experience; and recognizing and appropriately responding to traumatic experiences of students.     

Mothers’ trust toward teachers in relation to teaching practices

This study examined the extent to which mothers’ trust toward the classroom teacher of their child in first grade is related to observed teaching practices in Finland and Estonia. Sixty-six teachers (32 in Finland, 34 in Estonia) were observed using the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure (ECCOM; Stipek & Byler, 2004). Mothers in Finland (n = 266) and in Estonia (n = 348) filled in questionnaires measuring their trust in their child's first grade teacher. The connection between mothers’ education, child gender, and classroom size in relation to mothers’ trust was also investigated. The results of multilevel modeling showed that mothers in both countries trusted more in teachers who were characterized by a higher level of child-centered teaching practices than teacher-directed teaching practices. Furthermore, Estonian mothers showed greater trust in more experienced teachers. The results emphasize the importance of teaching practices in promoting mothers’ trust in their child's teacher.     

Finnish Elementary School Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Gifted Education

This study examined Finnish elementary school teachers’ (N = 212) attitudes toward the gifted and their education. On a general level, teachers’ attitudes toward gifted education were slightly positive. Teachers saw that gifted students have social value and that they need special services. The results of teachers’ attitudes toward specific gifted education options were in line with earlier Finnish research, because teachers supported differentiated teaching but were more negative toward acceleration or separating the gifted into their own groups. However, despite the strong support for differentiated teaching for the gifted, teachers’ positions toward practice were more skeptical.     

When Magic Becomes Art: Educating Teachers

Metaphors representing the practice of teacher educators were the data for this collaborative self-study by a small group of teacher educators from across the USA. Seventy-five pre-service teachers and practicing teachers enrolled in teacher education courses were asked to create metaphors to represent the teaching practices of the authors, who were their professors at the time. Qualitative analysis of these data revealed that many of these students believed that effective teaching springs from a kind of teacher magic – a mysterious force arising from the personal characteristics of the teacher rather than from any purposeful selection from a repertoire of instructional strategies – developed over time. For the researchers, these results posed a challenge for reworking their teaching to make the art of teaching more visible and accessible.     

Congruence of student teachers' pedagogical images and actual classroom practices

An understanding of student teachers' pedagogical images plays an important role in helping teacher educators plan learning experiences. The purposes of this study were to obtain a profile of pedagogical images of a group of student teachers, and to assess whether there is congruence between their pedagogical images and classroom practices. Applying the conception of teaching model proposed by Pratt, Chan developed a questionnaire to evaluate teachers' views about teaching, which was modified here and administered to 59 first-year student teachers before and after their teaching practicum in physical education for secondary schools. Results indicated that the student teachers possess a Nurturing image, whereas in actual classroom practices, their approach was a mix between the Apprenticeship and the Transmission approaches. In other words, whereas student teachers conceive themselves as having a more child-centred approach to teaching, in reality, their practices constituted more a teacher-centred approach. The investigators considered that this type of information would be helpful for teacher educators when planning learning experiences.