In order to understand the research, to debate the issues and to be effective in identifying and providing for gifted students in schools, teachers need to develop a clear understanding of the concept of giftedness. Schools need to develop shared understanding of giftedness and adopt a school-wide definition that is appropriate for their context. This assignment will help students to explore (in detail and at depth) one definition of giftedness and consider both the beliefs that inform the definition and the implications that flow from the definition.
Task:
Critically evaluate one definition of giftedness from the literature. Your paper will:
• determine the ideas and beliefs that underpin the definition and grounds it in a particular philosophical or theoretical framework
• evaluate the definition using 3 of Moon’s (2006, in Purcell & Eckert, 2006, p. 26) guiding principles of:
• soundness
• equity
• utility
• reflect on the feasibility of this definition for your particular educational context, or for a specified group of students.
• reflect on the educational and incidental implications of this definition.
Possible Definitions to consider:
There are many to choose from, including the definition that your school/sector/state or country includes in their policy.
• Renzulli’s Three Ring Conception of Giftedness (1977, 2013)
• Gagne’s Developmental Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT)
• Sternberg’s WICS model (2004)
• Sternberg’s Pentagonal theory of giftedness (1993; Sternberg & Zhang, 1995)
• Tannenbaum’s star model of giftedness (1983, 2010)
• Columbus Group’s definition (1991)
• Piirto’s Pyramid Model of giftedness (1994)
Resources:
There are many chapters that will illuminate your ideas, but in particular read the first section of the textbook (Callahan, C. & Hertberg-Davis, H. (Eds.). (2013). Fundamentals of gifted education: Considering multiple perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.)
The following short chapter is available as an e-reading, accessed through the Library link on our topic FLO page. The book from which it is taken is the textbook for EDUC9793. Moon, S. (2006) Developing a definition of giftedness In J. Purcell & R. Eckert (Eds.). Designing services and programs for high-ability learners: A guidebook for Gifted Education. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Tannenbaum is one of the key scholars in the field. This longer chapter from an excellent
1
resource book provides a very comprehensive overview of the issue & is an e-reading. Tannenbaum, A. (2009). Defining, determining, discovering and developing excellence In J. Renzulli; E. Gubbins; K. McMillen; R. Eckert & C.Little. (Editors). (2009). Systems and
models for developing programs for the gifted and talented (2nd ed.). Mansfield Centre,
CT: Creative Learning Press.
Another resource for this assignment is the book that was previously used as the textbook for this topic, so is available in the library. Chapter 2 is an e-reading. Sternberg, R.; Jarvin, L. & Grigorenko, E. (2011). Explorations in giftedness. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1 describes Sternberg’s Pentagonal theory of giftedness.
Whichever definition you select, I would expect that you read that author’s original work to best understand their conception of giftedness, so search for articles/books by that author to read.
These are some suggested starting points, and many articles and books can provide wider reading and more specific research relating to individual definitions.
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