Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research I found it! Rate of learning for gifted kids

onthegomom,

It doesn't make sense to me, but I'm not a math expert. You would think that they could go onto the next step if they showed mastery in the facts.
My DS9 in 4th grade (self contained 3rd/4th grade gifted classroom in my local public school district)has had the timed math drill pages for addition, subtraction, and just started the multiplication ones. I was told that they would just do the addition and subtraction ones in the first marking period and just had to meet a certain percentage then move on. However it is now the third marking period and they are still drilling the same things. He is no longer making the percentage he needs to and I'm finding it very frustrating. I did inquire about the timed facts tests in the beginning of the year and really didn't get much of an answer...just that the district requires it.
Sorry if this isn't much help....you are not alone and I feel your pain.

Gifted students are decontextualists in their processing, rather than constructivists; therefore it is difficult to reconstruct "how" they came to an answer.

That is my DS in a nutshell! Now I just have to commit that phrase to memory and beat people with it!

I always wondered what that meant - still do!

Mel caught what I was going to post, that is frightening. Does anyone know anything in particular about this researcher?

Great Potential Press has this:
http://www.giftedbooks.com/authors.asp?id=52

Proofrock Press has this:
http://www.prufrock.com/contributorinfo.cfm?ContribID=386

[email]http://gerric.arts.unsw.edu.au/abut_stff_karen.html[/email]

I would like to know what this means. Anybody want to explain?

Here's a quote from a summary of Dr. Rogers' work (which was a summary itself; I'm going to try to get the original paper tomorrow).

Summary of her work in PDF form


These statements are pretty big generalizations.

One of the ideas that comes up repeatedly on this board is that gifted kids have many different learning styles. So the apparent claim that all gifted kids learn by taking in a whole gulp and then extracting details seems flawed to me. And I expect that individual gifted kids can take some things in as a gulp but have to go stepwise through other things. I presume that it all depends on the kid and the subject.

And the statements are also contradictory: the top one says that it's difficult for gifted kids to reconstruct how they get an answer. The bottom one implies that they can break a whole concept into details through analysis. It seems reasonable that sometimes they should be able toapply the same process to how they got an answer, especially if given a bit of time. I also expect that some non-gifted kids just figure stuff out sometimes without knowing why.

Overall, I'd say that IT DEPENDS.

(I'm not wild about unsupported generalizations.)

One thing I really don't like about the paper (or whatever it is) is the complete lack of references. How were the studies designed? How many kids were involved? Were they at different schools, and if so, where and how many? What were the controls? How did she analyze the data?

Research that's unsupported by even a single other published paper is always suspect. I'll try to get the original tomorrow; maybe it's better.

Val

I can say I always had more trouble explaining how I did something that just doing it. Even with vocabulary I was able to use words correctly and have images and ideas of what they meant but it was really hard for me to put the meaning into words. The same thing happened with math. I could solve equations and sometimes give a very quick estimate of what I thought the answer was, but it was hard for me to work a problem step by step. I actually make better grades when I am not required to work out a problem. I have come up with very interesting ideas in science, health, and psychology, but I am having to work backwards to attempt to prove anything. I can't tell someone how I have come to a conclusion...I just have a strong feeling it is right. I am also very intuitive. People have accused me of being psychic. But I think I just see patterns and so I know how things are likely to turn out. I used to cry when I was little to my parents that there were no surprises in life. To this day I am very seldom surprised. I think that is why many gifted children and adults have a difficult time living a normal life. It is hard to explain what you know and the gifted are a lot of times very sensitive to their surroundings. It can be somewhat painful at times... but I think only because society makes it that way.

The decontextualist thing is about making cognitive and intuitive leaps, which is very common in gifted individuals. My most dreaded words in school (after "review") were "show your work" - because it took more effort to figure out how I got to an answer than it did to come up with the answer in the first place.