Preparation Of Teachers For Work With Gifted Students

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the need to improve work with gifted students, and, accordingly, to improve the preparation of teachers for organizing this activity. The study reflects the global trend of creating special conditions for the development of giftedness and improving the professionalism of teachers in this area. This article is aimed at the analysis of regional conditions for the development of gifted students and the justification of the organizational and pedagogical conditions for preparing teachers for this process. The main research method was a questionnaire, which allowed for regional monitoring of the conditions for the development of students' giftedness. The method of comparative analysis of the literature was also used to determine the basic concepts of the study. The article presents the validated results of the pedagogical experiment testing the organizational and pedagogical conditions for preparing teachers for specific work with gifted students, including organizational and methodological activities. It shows creating a database of teachers who trained schoolchildren - winners and prizewinners of Olympiads; monitoring on the topic “Assessing the conditions for the development of gifted students in general educational organizations of the Stavropol Territory “. It shows scientific and methodological orientation (holding webinars, seminars, competitions, conferences for teachers working with gifted students; interaction with leading publishers of the Russian Federation to prepare students for the Olympiads); and educational and methodological orientation (the implementation of programs of additional professional education (advanced training, retraining) reflecting the features of working with students who have shown outstanding abilities).

Keywords: Teacher educationteacher traininggifted studentsthe development of giftedness

Introduction

In world educational practice, work with gifted children has attracted the attention of scientists since the end of the nineteenth century. In Russia during this period, these issues were considered in the context of “exceptional children,” which included mentally retarded and gifted children. In the Soviet period, based on the methodology of equality as a fundamental principle of socialist society, talent development issues were not relevant, since all children without exception were considered gifted and it was important to find giftedness in every child. At the beginning of the 21st century, the opposite approach began to dominate in Russia, according to which there are few gifted children, they need to be identified and special conditions for development must be created for them ( Grigorenko, 2017).

However, the majority of practicing educators working at school still hold the view that all children are gifted. This means that it is not necessary to create any special conditions for certain categories of children (in accordance with the type of giftedness), and a functioning system of additional education is quite capable of satisfying the needs of children in their own development.

By giftedness, in accordance with the Working concept of giftedness, we mean the developing, systemic quality of the psyche that determines the ability of students to achieve higher results in any type of activity (compared with other students) ( Anisimova & Zolotareva, 2016).

Problem Statement

The Stavropol Territory Institute for the Development of Education, Further Training and Retraining of educators conducted regional monitoring of the conditions for the development of gifted students. The monitoring results allowed us to draw conclusions and determine areas of activity for preparing teachers for work with the specified category of children. This article proposes a systematic solution to the problem at the regional level, which can be unified and applied in other regions.

Research Questions

• What are the conditions for the development of gifted students at the regional level?

• What are the organizational and pedagogical conditions for improving the training of teachers for working with gifted students?

• What is the role of the institute for the development of education, advanced training and retraining of educators in improving the training of teachers to work with gifted students?

Purpose of the Study

Targeted work with gifted children requires high professional competence of teachers, creation of conditions in organizations of general and additional education for the development of specific types of giftedness. This article aims to:

• analysis of regional conditions for the development of various types of giftedness of students;

• justification of organizational and pedagogical conditions for improving the training of teachers to work with gifted students.

Research Methods

To conduct regional monitoring of the conditions for the development of giftedness, one of the universal methods was chosen - a questionnaire, which allowed revealing the opinion of a large group of respondents. The survey was attended by 48,940 respondents from 592 educational institutions of the Stavropol Territory: 592 deputy heads of educational organizations in charge of working with gifted children; 25074 pupils of 7-11 forms with experience in participating in Olympiads, contests, competitions; 15158 parents of gifted students who participated in competitions, contests, Olympiads; 8116 teachers.

First, we analyzed the aspects of legal regulation of work with gifted students in educational organizations, which is one of the conditions for the effectiveness of the process under study. To this end, questions were asked about the availability of documents in schools that regulate this activity. According to the answers of the deputy directors in charge of this area of work, almost all educational institutions (95.4%) have a section in their Development Program aimed at working with gifted children. But at the same time, only 61.8% of educational organizations have a targeted program for working with gifted children, which means a lack of attention to the problem of giftedness.

It was important for us to identify the organizational aspects of the regulation of work with gifted children. During the questionnaire, it turned out that issues related to working with gifted children are mainly considered at meetings of professional education management bodies in an educational organization: at meetings of the pedagogical (98%) and methodological council (97%). More than half of educational organizations (64%) include these issues in the agendas of governing councils. More than 90% of educational institutions conduct additional classes with students to prepare for contests, Olympiads, shows, competitions, and also work with parents and teachers.

More than 80% of schools provide psychological and pedagogical support and psycho-diagnostics of gifted children. However, only every second school has a tool for identifying giftedness in children (57.8%). Respondents noted that in organizing work with gifted children in schools, the opportunities of cultural institutions (37%), sports (39%), and higher education (15.5%) are not sufficiently used. Only 43% of educational organizations have built work with gifted children on the basis of agreements with institutions of additional education.

An assessment of the material and technical conditions of the schools showed that 35.64% have workshops for designing, modeling, and creativity, 19.26% – for research and teaching laboratories, and 10.64% of educational institutions – for robotics laboratories. One of the directions for assessing working conditions with gifted children is the assessment of personnel potential, which is based on the results of a survey of teachers. This survey was attended by 8116 teachers with experience working with gifted children. Noteworthy is the low level of interest of teachers with experience working with gifted children in improving professional competence. So, only every second teacher (55%) constantly takes part in training events (seminars, forums, webinars, etc.), only every fifth teacher (21.4%) takes part in various pedagogical mastery contests and in research activities (writing articles, speeches).

Despite the fact that 55.9% of teachers of the region answered positively to the question: “I am familiar with effective forms, methods and techniques of organizing educational activities of schoolchildren, taking into account their age and individual characteristics”, only every third teacher (respectively 35.8% and 38,3%) owns the theoretical aspects of the concept of giftedness and the skills to build individual educational trajectories, taking into account the age, psychological and physiological characteristics of students.

The results of self-assessment of the subject competence of teachers became important. 49.53% of teachers believe that the depth of their knowledge of the subjects taught allows them to easily organize the educational activities of gifted students. 57.95% of teachers offer additional (in-depth, expanded) information for individual students of the class on the issue under study; but at the same time, only 43.28%of teachers know effective methods and techniques of working with parents of gifted students. Thus, the study allowed us to conclude that it is necessary to create organizational and pedagogical conditions for improving the training of teachers for working with gifted students.

Findings

Conditions in pedagogy are usually understood as a set of measures (factors) that can improve the efficiency of the educational process ( Volodin & Bondarenko, 2014). In our study, organizational and pedagogical conditions reflect the totality of measures aimed at improving the training of teachers for working with gifted students. The organizational and pedagogical conditions for preparing teachers for work with gifted students were determined with the analysis of the scientific literature on teacher education both domestic ( Igropulo, Semina, Sorokopud, & Shapovalov, 2013; Igropulo, Magomedov, & Romaeva, 2018; Vezirov, Borozinets, & Sorokopud, 2013 ) and foreign authors ( Edinger, 2017; Hertzog, 2017; Kettler, Oveross, & Bishop, 2017; Rowan & Townend, 2016).

Since 2018, the Laboratory of Scientific and Methodological Support for Work with Students with outstanding abilities (the head is Professor N. B. Romaeva) has been operating in the SBI of FPE Stavropol Regional Institute for the Development of Education, Further Training and Retraining of Education Workers. The main aim of it is to make organizational and pedagogical conditions for improving the preparation of teachers to work with gifted students. The laboratory performs the following tasks: monitors, creates a database of students who have demonstrated outstanding abilities (winners and prizewinners of olympiads, competitions, etc.). It develops, coordinates and improves the regional system of work with students who have shown outstanding abilities, interacting with various educational organizations (general, professional and additional education). In addition, it provides methodological support for the school, municipal and regional stages of all Russian Olympiads of schoolchildren. It provides scientific and methodological support for testing and implementing effective methods, innovative technologies and forms of work with students who have shown outstanding abilities. It participates in the development and conduct of continuing education courses for continuing education programs, seminars, and webinars on pedagogical and psychological support for students who have shown outstanding abilities; organizes networking on pedagogical and psychological support of students who have shown outstanding abilities.

Analysis of the literature, our own pedagogical activity allowed us to formulate 3 groups of conditions: organizational and methodological, scientific and methodological and educational-methodical orientation.

First of all, it should be noted the importance of organizational and methodological events, which includes the creation of a database of teachers who have trained schoolchildren - winners and prize-winners of Olympiads; the creation and operation of the “Preparing for the Olympiads” section on the WikiStavCDO website, monitoring on the topic “Assessing the conditions for the development of gifted students in educational institutions of the Stavropol Territory”. A database of educators who successfully work with gifted students is necessary both for targeted work with this category of teachers and for generalizing and disseminating their experience, including through the activities of network pedagogical (subject) communities.

Scientific and methodological events are aimed at conducting webinars (for example, “Innovative forms of work with children who have shown outstanding abilities in the Russian language and literature” and other subjects), seminars (“Creating conditions for the development of gifted children in an educational organization”, etc.). To improve the preparation of teachers for work with gifted students, pedagogical competitions are important, during which the teacher has the opportunity to scientifically and methodically substantiate his own ideas, to demonstrate unique experience. Since 2018, in the Stavropol Territory, a regional competition for the best methodological development "Work with students who have shown outstanding abilities" has been held. Teachers' Olympiads are also popular, where they can demonstrate an extraordinary approach to solving Olympiad tasks in subjects and offer an original vision of the problem. Conferences and conventions of pedagogical workers, including those dedicated to working with gifted students (for example, the All-Russian Conference “Scientific, Methodological and Organizational Support of Work with Students with outstanding abilities,” held in Stavropol in 2018), are becoming traditional. In the training of teachers, it began to take up interaction with the leading publishing houses of the Russian Federation (“Academic Book / Textbook”, “Education”, “Russian Word”, etc.) in preparing students for the Olympiads. This is because publishers involved in the publication of educational and methodological literature, in recent years have been conducting active research and educational activities, creating innovative sites.

Educational and methodological activities are aimed at implementing programs of additional professional education (advanced training, retraining). This includes both targeted programs “Scientific and methodological support of work with students who have shown outstanding abilities” in accordance with subject areas, and the inclusion of certain topics in the programs of additional professional education. They are “Use of educational technologies of the activity type in working with students who have shown outstanding abilities in foreign languages”, “Interactive teaching methods in working with students who have shown outstanding abilities in history and social science”; “Digital information and educational resources in working with students who have shown outstanding abilities in the Russian language and literature”, “Preparing students for the All-Russian Olympiad in Physical Culture”, etc..

Conclusion

Thus, an analysis of the conditions for the development of giftedness at the regional level has shown that working with gifted students requires systematic and continuous work, primarily in improving the training of teachers for working with this category of students. Organizational and pedagogical conditions for the training of teachers include events. They have organizational and methodological orientation: creating a database of teachers who prepared schoolchildren-winners and prizewinners of the Olympiads, - creating and operating the section “Preparing for the Olympics” on the site “WikiStavCDO”, - monitoring on the topic “Evaluation of the conditions for the development of gifted students in educational institutions of the Stavropol Territory. They have scientific and methodological orientation: - webinars, seminars, competitions, conferences for teachers working with gifted students - interaction with leading Russian publishers on preparing students for Olympiads (“Academic Book / Textbook”, “Education”, “Russian Word”, etc.), and they have educational-methodical orientation: - implementation of additional programs professional education (advanced training, retraining) reflecting the features of working with students who have shown outstanding abilities.

References

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