Model of Gifted Learning
Model for converting multiple general capacities or aptitudes of high ability into particular talents
John Munro
Our work in the Gifted Education Unit is underpinned by an explicit model of learning. The model focuses on the characteristics of knowledge and cognition that lead to gifted thinking and learning and their implications for regular classroom teaching. It
- recognises that a range of areas of knowledge permit gifted outcomes multiple areas of knowledge can lead to gifted learning and thinking
- distinguishes between high level knowledge that has been acquired incidentally through highly developed ways of thinking and learning (gifted knowledge) and high level knowledge that has been intentionally targeted by specific teaching (talent)
Instruction or teaching is the means by which less directed gifted knowledge is transformed into enhanced knowledge.
| Gifted knowledge |
Instruction or teaching |
Talented knowledge |
The learning model has been used to understand gifted learning and its relationship to talent and to instruction. The focus is on identifying the types of knowledge that lead to superior learning outcomes and what these mean for regular classroom teaching. The model is shown below.
| Areas of giftedness |
> |
Learning interactions for transforming giftedness to talent |
> |
Areas of academic talent |
| |
challenge or reason to learn |
verbal |
| verbal |
an idea of knowing where the learning will go |
|
| |
link with and use what is known re topic |
technological |
| visual imagery |
see a pathway to the goal |
|
| |
learn new ideas in specific ways |
artistic, painting |
| action kinaesthetic |
deepen what has been learnt |
|
| |
invest positive emotion in the new knowledge |
kinaesthetic |
| mathematical scientific |
store what has been learnt in memory |
|
| |
identify how one learnt |
sciences |
| social competence, manage social interactions |
see progress being made |
|
| |
automatate what has been learnt |
mathematics |
| transfer and generalise new knowledge, create, elaborate think originally, flexibly |
|
| organise what they have learnt for assessment purposes |
music |
| |
|
social relationships, planning ability; leadership |
The model the research on which it is based and its implications for teaching are described in How gifted students learn: Mapping research into effective teaching (pdf)
Reviews of research in gifted learning that provide a foundation for the model are in the set of articles The psychology of gifted learning.
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