Teachers’ pedagogy on the creative-thinking preferences of gifted children, influence of

Abstract

Introduction: Today’s fast-shifting social and educational realities highlight the need to harness, drive yet respect the capabilities of children, including the gifted and talented, who need to be taught in ways that foster the development and maturation of their abilities and aptitudes. Gifted children require positive engagement and ownership of their learning, as well as access to appropriate learning opportunities that stimulate their minds and challenge their thinking. Thinking allows children, but perhaps facilitates, especially more so those gifted and/or talented, to draw connections between seemingly unrelated ideas in cognitively more complex ways. Gifted children tend to possess a heightened imagination, exhibit magnified sensations, asynchronous development, and are also more likely to think in novel, original, and questioning ways. This intensity of thought, which is more prevalent in the gifted/talented child especially, places an onus on teachers to teach in innovative ways. This entry describes how a broader approach to teaching and learning may positively establish and maintain a more flexible pedagogical framework that increases the opportunity for creative and higher-thinking processes in learners. The first part of this entry describes how the gifted/talented child is likely to be perceived at school and in the classroom. The second part describes how teachers, through their teaching, are likely to influence children as to the way they think and engage more creatively with their thought processes. The third part describes how stories may be employed by the teacher to cater for different creative-thinking abilities and/ or aptitudes of children, including the gifted/ talented.