Extending the Scholar Baller Model to Support and Cultivate the Development of Academically Gifted Black Male Student-Athletes

Professional athletes and entertainers are often identified as the source of emulation for young males, especially Black males. With far less romanticized career representations than those in the athletic arena, many Black families foster, knowingly and unknowingly, a polarized path to elusive goals of a professional athletic career. Explicitly focusing on academically gifted Black males who are also athletically talented, gifted education teachers have an opportunity to support and cultivate dual identity development complement both athletic and scholar identities, acknowledging the cultural significance sport and athletics play. This article seeks to provide gifted education teachers with a framework to fulfill these goals—the Scholar Baller Model. Through its integration into the curriculum, gifted education teachers can enrich the pre-college experiences of academically and athletically gifted Black males, resulting in more positive convergence of their academic and athletic identities that will, in turn, cultivate more positive educational outcomes and career options for collegiate-level Black athletes.

Assessment and Introspection of Gifted Programming of USA: From the Perspective of Industrialization of Educationof Giftedness and Practice of Gifted Education Teachers

For a long time, the U.S. government has paid great attention to gifted education, issuedmany educational acts and standardized about gifted education, whichprovides high effect in the fields of theory, model and practice of gifted education. From the perspective of industrialization of Educationof giftedness and practice of gifted education teachers, six aspects of standards are analyzed, including studying and development, identification and evaluation, curriculum and teaching, learning environment, project implementation and professional development of gifted education teachers. Combining the actual conditions of gifted education in China, several enlightenment could be drawn as setting goals by educational outputs, adhering to fair principle, paying attention to growth environment, focusing on professional development, perfecting the systems of evaluation and supportinggifted programming for expecting long-term returns.

Validity Evidence of The HOPE Scale in Korea: Identifying Gifted Students From Low-Income and Multicultural Families

The underrepresentation of students from low-income families and of culturally diverse students is a longstanding and pervasive problem in the field of gifted education. Teachers play an important role in equitably identifying and serving students in gifted education; therefore, the Having Opportunities Promotes Excellence (HOPE) Scale was used in this study with a sample of Korean elementary school teachers ( n = 55) and their students ( n = 1,157). Confirmatory factor analysis and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis results suggested the HOPE Scale shows equivalence of model form, factor loading, and factor variances across different income and ethnic groups. A follow-up interview with teachers ( n = 6) revealed they acknowledged the importance of using the HOPE Scale as an additional method for identifying gifted students; however, they indicated less confidence about rating gifted students’ social characteristics compared with academic components in the HOPE Scale.

Gifted Adolescent Readers’ Perceptions of How Teachers Should (or Should Not) Listen During Dialogic Discourse

Effective listening is essential when teachers facilitate instructional classroom discussions. While the intersection between teacher listening and how students engage in discussions has received a wealth of research attention from other fields, this important phenomenon continues to be underresearched in the gifted and literacy education fields. To deepen our understanding of the phenomenon of teacher listening from students’ perspectives, we conducted an in-depth focus group study with middle school gifted students from five schools in a Southeastern state in the United States. Findings of our data analysis revealed four key interrelated themes: (a) teachers as active listeners, (b) teacher character traits, (c) student feelings and behaviors, and (d) listening as a pedagogical tool. Of significance, this study revealed students’ perspectives of how gifted education teachers should listen and that their listening influences students’ sense of connectedness and motivation for learning. Implications for professional learning and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Full-time Schooling for Gifted Students in Turkey: What Teachers and Experts Say about This?

This study aimed at investigating suggestions provided by gifted education teachers and experts about full-time schooling for gifted students. In this study qualitative survey method was used and data was collected by an open-ended survey and semi-structured interviews. The data was analyzed by descriptive analysis including coding and categorizing. Using purposive sampling 341 teachers and 3 experts were selected for this study. The findings revealed that the experts suggested disciplinary and theme-oriented curriculum while the teachers suggested flexible and mixed-type curriculums. The experts and teachers suggested different ideas for outcome of the curriculum of the school, life skills and thinking skills component of the curriculum, features of classroom environment, physical conditions and technical equipment, and evaluation of learning in a full-time gifted school. The findings have merit to represent the general picture for starting a new full-time gifted school and contribute to the literature, authorities and families about necessity of this reform.

Turkish teachers’ views on acceleration

Acceleration provides positive outcomes methodically yet; people still have wrong beliefs about it. Thus, it is considered to be an important aim to reveal the views of teachers about acceleration in Turkey, which have limited opportunities for academic acceleration in educational settings. In order to understand teachers’ views on acceleration an online survey was developed. The survey consisted from four parts including demographic information, opinion questions, knowledge self-assessment about types of acceleration and a 22-item questionnaire about views on acceleration. The study group consisted from 122 teachers and they were from various regions in Turkey. Data indicated there were no differences in attitudes among teachers from different gender or years of professional experience. Moreover, it was found that teacher’ supported the implementation of acceleration in gifted education. Teachers’ who had experiences with accelerated learners in their professional life were more knowledgeable and hold more positive beliefs towards acceleration. In accordance with the related literature, the teachers were more concerned about social issues and least concerned about academic issues related to acceleration. These results highlighted the importance of teacher training regarding gifted learners and gifted education. Keywords: Acceleration, teachers’ attitudes, gifted education, gifted and talented

Benefits and Barriers to Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Examining Perspectives of Gifted Education Teachers and General Education Teachers

This article examines collaboration in the context of how gifted education teachers co-plan and co-teach with general education teachers. Perspectives of the benefits and barriers to collaboration are explored from gifted education teachers, gifted education administration, and general education teachers in one school district in the Southeast United States. Benefits include perceived growth in teacher competency to differentiate for students identified as gifted and growth in student learning; barriers include time constraints and perceived conflicting assumptions. The article highlights implications of the challenges and practical nature of implementing collaboration between gifted education teachers and general education teachers within the context of systemic change.

Assessing Teacher Beliefs Regarding Research-Based Practices to Improve Services for GT Students

This study examined teacher beliefs regarding research-based practices in gifted education and how these beliefs or other barriers influenced the implementation of practices in their classroom. An online survey was sent to gifted education teachers in a large suburban district. The teacher belief statements were developed based on the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Pre-K-Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards. Although a majority of the teachers agreed with the research-based belief statements, fewer implemented the practice in their classrooms frequently. If they did implement the practice, they perceived positive student outcomes. Teachers did identify these obstacles related to implementation: limited resources, training, skill level, and the school system curriculum.