Academic-Capital

Gifted education is tricky and many teachers don’t know how to deal with such students. It isn’t often cost effective to implement programs in schools that may host a single or a few gifted children. Little and Housand (2011) discuss the ability to use online education to facilitate learning through multiple school systems in order to raise professional teaching standards and help such students in their precocious development.  In higher education technology lags behind other industries. The reasons are many but often tradition, skill level, and perception are important considerations. With proper technology professional development in the educational fields has new opportunities. More important, it can help teachers understand their rare students even when such skills are not currently available. There are a few tips when trying to consider the potential success of such programs. Coherence: The training should match both the goals of the organization, student needs, and

Some nations are seeking to develop their brightest and most talented for a stronger tomorrow.   Evaluating successful and unsuccessful gifted education programs help decision makers understand what works and what doesn’t work in progressive programs. Research by Aljughaiman & Ayoub (2013) evaluated an Oasis Enrichment Model in Saudi Arabia to determine whether or not it produced successes in fostering greater talent. An Oasis Enrichment Model rests on three premises in gifted development. It seeks to enhance their cognitive, emotional, and social needs to create higher performing students. To determine success they conducted a meta-analysis of 35 other programs. It helped compare, summarize, and correct findings to determine better estimates of variable relationships. There are many different types of enrichment programs that include excelled classes, full schools, pull-out programs, weekend programs, afternoon programs, boarding schools, summer camps and enhance in-

Academic potential, creativity and specific areas of strength generally characterize gifted abilities. However, those areas of excelling outside of the academic arena are also part of gifted traits. A paper by Lister and Roberts (2011), discusses the self-concept of giftedness and how this often lacks a proper perspective of physical abilities and attractiveness. Their meta-analysis includes 40 studies  conducted between 1978 and 2004 to come to their conclusions on how gifted individuals view themselves. Self-concepts are an important aspect of performance. Self-conception can be defined as “ the image we hold of ourselves (Hoge and Renzulli, 1993) while self-conception refers to, “ our attitudes, feelings and knowledge about our abilities, skills, appearance, and social acceptability ” (Byrne, 1984, p. 429). Self-concept and self-conception develop over a person’s lifetime based upon the cues from the environment, others, and themselves.  It is a process of comparing oneself

College students are trying to determine an identity in life and a path forward in their careers. Gifted college students don’t fit well into narrow stereotypes and maintain identities that are deep and complex. Research by Miller, et. al. (2009) on gifted gender roles indicate that gifted excitability and higher potential have androgynous identities that accept a more complex set of male and female personality traits. Gender identity and personality are associated into an intertwined relationship. Incorrectly people assume that males are supposed to be instrumental while females are supposed to be expressive. There is an assumption that the sex is related in some way to the personality and behavior of the individual. Societal influence appears to be the most profound definition of how boys and girls should act.  Males and females are considered opposite ends of the spectrum. Generally, people adhere to one or the other.   When doing so they prescribe tightly to social n

Gifted college students are sometimes difficult for administrators to understand and develop proper programs. Many gifted students are simply not recognized and move through their careers, lives, and academic work unchallenged.  The authors Gentry & Lackey (2012) discuss the concept of gifted mismatch and how this is even more difficult for misunderstood minorities that already struggling with their own identity.  People with the highest capacity of development are often left unchallenged in academic programs. The authors discuss a concept called “Eagle Eye” to help explain giftedness. The Eagle has a wider range of perception and six times more focus. Their world is so rich that according to Gardner they can see things, based upon their perceptual strength, others cannot. Matched with their cognitive abilities the world is fundamentally a different place and many of these students are left to their own devices to make meaning out of it.  Early literature focuses on the