Looking Toward the Future: Applying Lessons from the Pandemic to Improve Virtual Instruction for the Gifted

Paper

The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption to education environments across the globe. Initially, school buildings closed to stop the spread of the disease, and educators were thrust into teaching in a new, virtual environment with little or no preparation. Specialized services for students who are gifted were reduced, eliminated, or temporarily paused in many places. Gifted students with unique social and emotional characteristics may have been at risk during the pandemic as they attempted to make sense of the crisis and handle their fear of the unknown while working in isolation at home. This mixed methods exploratory study attempted to understand the lived experiences of gifted primary students and teachers of the gifted during the first year of the pandemic. A concurrent triangulation design was selected to investigate pandemic experiences using qualitative data from focus groups and survey data that included both open and closed-ended items. In the spring of 2021, focus groups were held using Zoom and surveys were conducted online using Qualtrics. Participants included a national purposive sample of 300 gifted students in grades three through six in the United States and 310 teachers of the gifted across 36 states. The overarching research question was, “What were the lived experiences of gifted students and teachers of the gifted during the pandemic?” The purpose of the study was to investigate practices that worked well to support gifted students’ cognitive and affective needs. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze focus group transcripts and open-ended survey responses. Descriptive statistics were calculated for quantitative survey responses. Results revealed both positive and negative implications of online learning for the gifted, including student satisfaction with opportunities to accelerate their learning and pursue topics of personal interest, along with feelings of isolation, depression, and anxiety. Results from teacher survey and focus group data revealed educators felt stressed and unprepared to teach online; however, with time they developed a new vision for the gifted education classroom and a deeper understanding of how to leverage technology for differentiated instruction. Through the voices of teachers and gifted learners, results of this study may be used to guide recommendations for future virtual or hybrid instruction for gifted students.