CCareer exploration and awareness plays a pivotal role in the gifted students’ education. It significantly helps students in roles, options, and opportunities that interest them in the field of work or in the community. To some extent, students differ significantly from each other.
Some of them are fast in learning while others are slow. Some have gender restrictions while others have social restrictions, which threaten their ability to achieve their goals. There are two broad categories of students. These include; gifted students on one side and those who are not on the other.
Gifted students demonstrate some unique abilities in various grounds. This can be through academic performance, reasoning and constructions, leadership or through music (Johnsen 2006). They show capability that is far above other students.
There are several challenges that gifted students face in their effort to maximize on their potential. This group of students sometimes comes across several issues and challenges in their effort to achieve recognition, gain acceptance, and access the necessary gifted student’s education in order to meet their individual needs.
In order for the students to learn effectively, it is advisable to have an effective learning, which promotes career exploration, and awareness that is appropriate and equitable to both genders of gifted students. Some of these problems include prejudices, stereotyping and other discriminatory aspects.
In some cases, some groups of certain gander of the gifted students need certain considerations while programming the curricular options (Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services Division of Public Schools Florida Department of Education 2008).
This is because the gifted students may sometimes be subjected to threats, which can undermine their performance or their ability. It is therefore necessary to understand the prejudice and stereotyping that affects gifted boys and girls students.
In teaching gifted students, it is advisable for the teachers to set objectives or specify the skills as well as the information to be learnt. This step in preparation of a lesson is important as it ensures that all the intended information reaches the students. The objectives should be set in such away that they favor every student despite of their gender.
In addition, it is necessary to ensure that the necessary information is given or demonstrated. By so doing, it becomes easier for the students with varying degrees of giftedness to get all the appropriate information.
While passing this information to the students, it is advisable for the teachers to take into consideration the gender aspects. The information should be provided in such a way that it does not discriminate any gender of the gifted student. For instance, it should be free from prejudices and any form of discrimination.
In the process of teaching, it is necessary for the teacher to verify whether the students are understanding or have understood what is being taught. This ensures that there is no any particular student left behind in the process. Although gifted students get and understand things very fast, sometimes the teacher may be misunderstood. Therefore, it is necessary to verify in order to avoid such confusions.
Previous study reveals that teachers expect more from boys than from their female counterparts (Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services Division of Public Schools Florida Department of Education 2008). This implies that a lower performance in girl is more satisfactory to teachers than the same performance from a male student. This can discourage gifted female students from working hard to realize their potential.
Student’s understanding can also be verified by actively participating in group discussions. Students who have a clear understanding of a certain concept are more likely to participate actively in group discussion. However, lack of participation may reveal poor understanding in certain concepts.
Student understanding can also be measured by asking questions. Students who have understood a question critically in most cases will tend to ask questions, which reveal the depth of their understanding in a certain aspect. Teachers can use this method to identify the areas, which are not clear, and needs further clarification.
Report by (Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services Division of Public Schools Florida Department of Education (2008), confirmed that gifted girl students were very successful in hiding their intelligence and keeping silence.
This makes it difficult for the teachers to understand whether they have understood or not. Teachers should also bear this in mind in order to ensure that such students are not left behind.
The independent activity in a specific lesson should be clearly described in order to ensure that all the students get the intended concept. Again, this should be passed in such a way that it does not discriminate against any gender.
The teacher should encourage the gifted students to be courageous and to have great teams. In driving the message home, teachers should be gender neutral to avoid gender biased ness or prejudice. The activity should be independent in order to allow equal benefit for both male and female gifted students.
According to information revealed by Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services Division of Public Schools Florida Department of Education (2008), teachers play a pivotal role in directing gifted students. It is important to show and discuss the need that female gifted students should be taken into consideration while teaching gifted students.
Past studies indicates that the past gifted female students who performed very well received encouragement words which supported them in their studies (Dubey 2005). For instance, some of them received such terms like you are a loved and special person; you can do anything that you want to do among other encouraging words. This assisted such students in overcoming gender biases and prejudice than is common in the society.
In many cases, some of the gifted students have ended up not realizing their full potential due to various factors. Past studies has clearly indicated that some gifted girls has a number of personal priorities, social emotional issues and personality factors which has been the main obstacles in their effort to realize their maximum potential (Bureau of
Exceptional Education and Student Services Division of Public Schools Florida Department of Education 2008). This raises a need for gender equity in gifted students education in order ensure that the students reaches their maximum potential by neutralizing such a bias.
For instance, girl students may be intimidated from taking bigger challenges due to prejudices as well as the social obstacles. In such a case, gifted girls should be encouraged to take challenging courses of action just like their male counterparts. This will ensure equity and promote good performance.
Conclusion
This discussion has clearly shown that there is a need to have an effective learning process for the gifted students. This plays a significant role in career exploration and understanding, which facilitates the gifted students to overcome issues and challenges in their effort to achieve recognition, gain acceptance, and access the necessary gifted student’s education in order to meet their individual needs.
Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the necessary procedures are followed in order to achieve this. It is also necessary to understand that there are diverse gifted students of different genders and require unique considerations while programming and making curricular options. This ensures that the systems applied are friendly to all students despite of their gender.
Reference List
Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services Division of Public Schools Florida Department of Education. (2008). Education of Special Populations of Gifted Students. Web.
Dubey, M. (2005). Gifted and Talented Education. New Delhi: Mittal Publications.
Johnsen, S. (2006). Definitions, Models, and Characteristics of Gifted Students. Web.