Personal Computers Help
Gifted Students Work Smart
ERIC Identifier: ED321488
Publication Date: 1990-00-00
Author: Jones, Geoffrey
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Handicapped and Gifted Children Reston VA.
Since the early 1970s, schools across the nation have been adding instruction in
computing to programs for students of all ages and abilities. Gifted and talented
students in many schools now have access to computers in their classrooms, and an
increasingly large percentage of these students have home computers. As the goals for
technology education and the promises of educational change have grown, the
hardware and software used in both schools and homes have improved steadily.
Educators, business and industry, the government, and the general public believe our
most able students must be computer literate for our nation to be competitive in the next
generation. Only recently, with the gulf between promises and achievements widening,
have voices of concern been raised (Holden, 1989).
The disparity between theory and practice is attributed to many causes, ranging from a
lack of educational focus to a shortage of funding. But even those reporting problems
have found evidence that students are working "smarter," whether they are learning and
using more information, understanding key concepts and relationships better, or
developing higher level thinking skills. Gifted students are benefiting from increased use
of computers because their special needs are being met through informed use of
technology.
THE NEEDS OF GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS
The identification of gifted and/or talented individuals and the determination of their
specific needs is complicated by the widely different opinions of what giftedness is and
how it is manifested. Basic research is as varied as Howard Gardner's (1983) theory of
multiple intelligences and Joseph Renzulli's (1977) dependence on congruence
between ability, commitment, and creativity. Most agree, however, that the talents of
gifted youngsters are dynamic, rather than static or fixed, and that the youngsters and
their talents must be nurtured.
How schools nurture and the effects of various practices are the focus of much
research. June Cox (Cox, Daniel, & Boston, 1985), with the Sid W. Richardson
Foundation, conducted a national study of current programming for able learners.
Donald Treffinger (1986) has written prolifically on gifted programs. Others have
explored the relationship of specific processes such as problem finding to nurturing
specific talents such as creativity (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976).
Combined with practice and experience, the research suggests that the following tenets
are essential to good programming for gifted and talented students:
- Instruction recognizes students' unique learning styles.
- Students are supported as they grow in self-confidence and self-awareness of their
strengths and weaknesses.
- Students progress at a rate most appropriate for them.
- Structured opportunities are provided for individual and small-group investigations of
real problems.
- Students are encouraged to develop and practice higher level thinking skills.
- Opportunities are provided for students to establish goals and determine objectives.
- Students learn with and from each other.
- A wide range and variety of materials and resources are available.
- Student interests are used as a basis for learning.
COMPUTERS ARE IDEA ENGINES
The computer has evolved well beyond the ancestral calculator that did amazing
computations. It has become an idea engine--a tool for discovery, exploration, and
collaboration. Computers are designed to process information, and the results they
furnish are as limitless as the human beings using them and the problems and
applications for which they are employed. Computers can manage data whether the
information they store is organized as numbers, names, words, dates, or any
combination of facts. Computers can produce graphics in charts, pictures, animation,
color, and three dimensions if the necessary peripherals and programming devices are
available. They can be used to manipulate text, correct spelling, critique grammar, and
speak several languages. When connected with telephone lines or other cabling, they
can share information. Instructed properly, computers can make "intelligent" decisions.
They do all of this accurately, with speed and increasing flexibility.
COMPUTER APPLICATIONS
At the simplest level, as intelligent tutors offering computer aided instruction (CAI),
computers provide only modest support of program goals for able learners. Instruction is
individually paced, different learning styles may be accommodated, and some
self-confidence may be gained. However, this use of computers fares poorest in the
research. Teachers are still better at traditional stimulus/response instruction.
At a higher level, students are provided opportunities to do research and apply complex
thinking skills by working with real problems and computer simulations. Learning
becomes fun and more challenging. Some of the best software on the market falls into
this category, and the results of time spent with computers in this mode are not easily
dismissed. Students are taught programming languages that aid them in beginning to
turn a computer into a real tool. The LOGO languages and the concepts introduced in
Mindstorms (Papert, 1980) and the more advanced Turtle Geometry (Abelson &
diSessa, 1984) provide platforms for students to invent their own syntax, integrate
knowledge, and share ideas. All students in gifted and talented programs should be
introduced to such computer applications and programming.
Unfortunately, many students never move beyond this level. The newfound mastery of
the power of the computer is seductive. Every problem presented can be solved. The
graphics are spectacular. Nonusers are awed, and even the teachers are often
surpassed; "hackers" emerge. However, little is to be gained from merely a faster CPU,
better resolution, gigabytes of storage, or technology. The real power of the computer
derives from the quality of the questions students ask and attempt to answer.
ASKING BETTER QUESTIONS
In November, 1987, Control Data Corporation challenged students across the country to
put their best questions forward as part of a contest to promote a new supercomputer.
They wanted to know what students were interested in and how they would use a
computer to discover, explore, and collaborate. Teachers were asked to spend the next
6 months building and guiding learning experiences that reinforced and clarified the
students' topics. Teams were formed--each student member having an independent
project--to pool strategies, share learning, and expand alternatives. Time was spent in
the library reading professional journals and investigating tangents. At the end of the
school year the students with the best-developed questions (still no solutions) were
invited to spend the summer in Minnesota working with a powerful computer and
mentors from Control Data staff. After nearly 8 months of investigation, the students
reported what they had learned to a panel of scientists who read each paper and spent
several hours listening to the students and sharing their own knowledge and
experience.
The impact of that program on each of the 1,475 schools that participated nationwide
was remarkable. Computers had been used to frame better questions, define important
problems, and stretch students farther than they or their teachers had thought possible.
These gifted and talented students combined their individual strengths and needs with a
conglomerate of people, resources, and technologies that changed their learning
experience. It is important to note that the use of computers, although significant, was
not the focus of the program. The students were not studying computer science or
applications.
GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS WORK SMART
When computers are used to support program goals and meet individual student needs,
they can help gifted students work smart.
- When choices are provided and experimentation allowed, individual learning styles and
preferences can be accommodated and enhanced through the flexibility of the computer
to interact with pictures, words, numbers, or any other medium the student is most
comfortable with. The flexibility of the technology is the key concept. Different students
find different word processors, graphics packages, databases, and spreadsheets easier
to use.
- Structured experiences designed by well-trained teachers can help students use
computers to develop strengths and overcome or neutralize weaknesses. Word
processors do improve writing and expression of ideas. Databases can be as rigid or
open as the student needs. Solving problems and answering questions are satisfying
outcomes. Students grow in confidence as they build their repertoire of skills.
- Computers can be used to match students' paces. They are patient and will hold on to
an idea for a long time. They do more complex tasks when students are ready to use
them in more complex ways. They provide information when students are ready for it.
- When students assume responsibility for the process, they work smarter. Computers
serve people. People define problems, set goals and objectives, and determine roles.
The better students understand the learning process, the better they will use
technology.
- People learn from people. People are on the other end of the information and ideas
accessed through a computer. Students have contact with these people via software,
bulletin boards, or face to face in discussions and group projects. Students can meet a
lot of smart people through computers.
Prepared by Geoffrey Jones, Principal, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and
Technology, Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia.
ERIC Digests are in the public domain and may be freely reproduced and disseminated.
This publication was prepared with funding from the U.S. Department of Education,
Office of Educational Research and Improvement, under contract no. RI88062007. The
opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of
OERI or the Department of Education.
REFERENCES
Abelson, H., & diSessa, A. (1984). Turtle Geometry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cox, J., Daniel, N., & Boston, B. (1985). Educating Able Learners Austin: University of
Texas Press.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York:
Basic Books.
Getzels, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1976). The Creative Vision: A Longitudinal Study of
Problem Finding in Art. New York: Wiley.
Holden, C. (1989, May 26). Computers make slow progress in class. SCIENCE, pp.
906-909.
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. New York:
Basic Books.
Renzulli, J. S. (1977). The Enrichment Triad Model: A Guide for Developing Defensible
Programs for the Gifted and Talented. Wethersfield, CT: Creative Learning Press
Treffinger, D. (1986). Blending Gifted Education with the Total School Program. East
Aurora, NY: D.O.K.
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