Professional paper
https://doi.org/10.32633/eb.9.5
Adaptation of the teaching process to gifted students in the field of science
Dorotea Vrbanović Lisac
orcid.org/0000-0002-1519-8406
; V. Gymnasium, Zagreb, Croatia
Ines Radanović
; Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Slavica Šimić Šašić
; Department of Teacher and Preschool Teacher education, University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
Primary school is a common starting point in the education of pupils from different intellectual, social-economic and national groups. With this in mind, the teaching method and the provision of educational support must be adapted to the needs of each student. A particularly interesting group are gifted students, for whom the teaching process must be directed towards higher levels of cognitive processes. In addition to adapting the learning environment and pace of learning and teaching, gifted students should also adapt activities aimed at adopting educational outcomes. In school, gifted students are often not accommodated in the teaching process because teachers have not identified them as gifted or because of a lack of teacher education about their specific needs. For the identification of potentially gifted students, the Scales for the assessment of potential giftedness of students in the field of science were used. The scales are adapted to the age of the students, and for the students of Primary school the assessment was carried out by the teachers, while for the students in Elementary school, in addition to the teacher's assessment, the Self-Assessment scale was also used. 46 primary school teachers participated in the assessment of potential giftedness, and a total of 982 students were assessed. The results showed that the Scale for assessing potential giftedness implemented by teachers has good metric characteristics, while in the Student Self-Assessment Scale two subscales did not have good metric characteristics and will be refined for further research. As part of the research, a highly interactive student-centered model (ASIO) was developed for learning and teaching biology for primary and elementary school. For potentially gifted students, hybrid materials, adapted to online and face-to-face teaching, were created for eight grades with two biological concepts - concept A (Energy effects of nutrition of living beings) and concept B (Adaptations of living beings as a consequence of evolution) and with teaching using simulations field research. Created materials and proposed activities enabled students to choose learning activities, solve more complex problems, self-regulated research learning and participate in discussions. The materials were available to all teachers, i.e. their students, regardless of whether their teachers assessed them as potentially gifted in the field of science. The research results indicate that all students, regardless of potential giftedness, have the same approach to solving tasks and performing activities intended for gifted students. Students who are assessed as gifted solve tasks with great success, while for other students it varies. In addition, the analysis of the students' answers showed that the understanding of the content depends on the type of task and that even gifted students show a conceptual misunderstanding of certain concepts.
Keywords
primary school; elementary school; ASIO model; BUBO platform; conceptual understanding
Hrčak ID:
296755
URI
Publication date:
28.2.2023.
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