Educational strategies for high ability/gifted studentes: educator's opinions

Abstract

The Brazilian legislation provides for the deepening and enrichment of curricular aspects for high ability/gifted students by means of supplemental challenges in general education classrooms, resource rooms or other spaces defined by the teaching systems. For this reason, the objective of this study was to verify the knowledge possessed by educators, participants of a lato sensu graduate course, named "Specialization course in Special Education in the area of High Abilities/Giftedness" in the blended mode, about pedagogical strategies for high ability/gifted students. The data collection took place in three classes of the referred course, during which participants watched two animations that presented situations in the school environment and were then invited to choose one of them to discuss what changes could occur in the animation, based on national and state policies. As an inclusion criterion, only the accounts that were about giftedness would be eligible to compose the sample. The data were analyzed according to Bardin's Content Analysis and the reports were quantified and distributed among non-mutually exclusive categories. The results showed that from the 33 participants who composed the sample, 21 (63.64%) discussed about pedagogical strategies as requested by the activity. The accounts also involved other themes, such as: Legislation (13); Characteristics of the high ability/gifted student (9); Teacher's needs (9) and Student referral to the Resource Room, or to evaluation for the ratification of the diagnosis of giftedness or also to the administration staff so that they can devise some collaborative work (8). Diverse, motivating, creative, challenging and stimulating pedagogical strategies are considered the minimum requirements for students with high abilities; however, the teachers are supposed to evaluate each student's abilities and plan suitable activities.