Successful inclusion of gifted children in our regular classesPaper
This paper aims to help teachers become aware of what giftedness in children involves and offer them tips to facilitate the successful inclusion of gifted learners. For many years, through action research techniques, I have been developing different strategies for the inclusion of gifted children. In that process, I have noticed some key elements that may effectively facilitate these learners' performance. Those elements include:
- The application of active pedagogies and project based learning strategies and techniques, which allow differentiation, interdisciplinary work and collaborative learning to happen.
- Desing academic work to facilitate that all learners discover the world around them and construct learning by themselves, with the guidance of the teacher.
- Understand that giftedness does not necessarily mean excelling in the academic world;
- Notice the emotional needs of gifted children, and develop strategies to cater for all learners' social and emotional wellbeing as they grow and progress in their construction of knowledge and their progress in their development as critical citizens.
Therefore, in this paper, teachers will find examples for each of the elements mentioned above. Those examples will be framed in Primary School, which is a stage were gifted learners and their families might be discovering their giftedness. Many times, receiving the diagnose of giftedness is a bit confusing at the beginning for the children and their families, however, I might say that teachers generally have an idea of the profile of the learners even before they have been properly diagnosed by an educational psychologist. As a consequence, it is essential that teachers learn some about key aspects of gifted children, so they are capable to promote the growth of all learners, in the most inspiring way possible.