Didactic Strategies and Competencies of Gifted Students in the Digital Era

Grozdanka Gojkov,Aleksandar Stojanović,Aleksandra Gojkov-Rajić

doi:10.26529/cepsj.142

Grozdanka Gojkov, Aleksandar Stojanović + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.26529/cepsj.142

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Abstract

This paper presents the findings of explorative research undertaken on an intentional sample consisting of 112 master’s students of pedagogy in Serbia, assumed to be potentially gifted and to have demonstrated academic giftedness, since their average mark during their studies was above 9.00 on a scale of 1.0 to 10.0. The intention was to examine the influence of didactic strategies and methods on the competencies of gifted students and thus verify the hypothesis on the significance of certain didactic strategies and methods for the contribution of higher education teaching in order to encourage intellectual autonomy in learning in the case of gifted university students. The method of systematic non-experimental observation was used, accompanied by an assessment scale used by students to estimate the level of the presence of the listed strategies, methods or procedures during studies and to what an extent learning and teaching strategies used in lectures, exercises, seminars, and consultations addressed their needs and contributed to the development of competencies. When making a choice between didactic strategies, methods and procedures, particular attention was paid to the 52 offered methods in order to include 30 of those that refer to problem learning,creative approaches to learning, critical autonomy etc., and for the list of 35 competencies of which 30 refer to independent thinking and are elements of critical thinking and indicators of, above all, approaches to the learning of gifted students. The essential finding was that the achieved competencies with higher average values were, mostly, those that are important for intellectual functioning, but that were not directly connected to what explains critical thinking, intellectual autonomy, as well as to the knowledge of basic concepts, the understanding of facts, and the giving explanations of events.

Highlights

The digital age and changes in the field of higher education, which are conditioned by factors such as knowledge expansion, new technologies, new forms of communication etc., are accepted only partially, from the perspective of the gifted
The second part of the instrument constructed for the purpose of the research (DSCGS-1 – Didactic strategies and competencies of gifted students) referred to the scale according to which students assessed their competencies regarding critical thinking as an expression of intellectual autonomy
The current findings are in accordance with previous statements, implying that the gifted have realized the importance of digital world and that they assess that ICT contributes to competences that could be classified within the set of intellectual autonomy abilities

Summary

Introduction

The digital age and changes in the field of higher education, which are conditioned by factors such as knowledge expansion, new technologies, new forms of communication etc., are accepted only partially, from the perspective of the gifted. 60 didactic strategies and competencies of gifted students in the digital era with the dimensions of the cognitive style, etc.) from the perspective of the encouragement of gifted students’ metacognitive abilities and intellectual autonomy, point to the conclusion that gifted students’ metacognitive approach to learning is connected to the ICT technology in the process of self-study and research This is especially evident in the application of the project method and discourse method, which are combined with the classic system of teaching. This means even more chances for the development of their intellect, creativity as well as character traits, which are a necessary framework for creativity and critical thinking How does this look in the pedagogy studies at the Philosophical Faculty in Serbia, where professors know more about the didactic strategies, methods and procedures for the encouragement of intellectual autonomy than the professors from other faculties and where the students study all of this as well as how to implement that knowledge in the practical work of the schools? How does this look in the pedagogy studies at the Philosophical Faculty in Serbia, where professors know more about the didactic strategies, methods and procedures for the encouragement of intellectual autonomy than the professors from other faculties and where the students study all of this as well as how to implement that knowledge in the practical work of the schools? This is the question that initiated the study, the results of which are partially represented in this paper in order to argue the view that the didactic strategy and method reached from the perspective of ICT technologies in the work with gifted children is still not sufficient, especially when considered from the perspective of contributions to intellectual autonomy, where they could be the most efficiently, the most rationally and the most economically used

Methodology framework

Conclusions

Findings

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