Agents of Change Celebrating Teachers TEACHING SCIENCE FOR GIFTED STUDENTS. A CASE STUDY DONE IN...

Agents of Change Celebrating Teachers 2013

TEACHING SCIENCE FOR GIFTED STUDENTS.

A CASE STUDY DONE IN INDONESIA

By

Surachman Dimyati ([email protected])

Universitas Terbuka

Indonesia

Abstract

Science should be taught in certain ways in order to lead and encourage students to get the

optimum results in education. The use of the inquiry method in teaching science, especially for

gifted students is more sound than other strategies. Some researchers such as DiGissi and Willet

(1995), on the matter of inquiry showed that only advanced learners shown how to construct new

knowledge from the text. Moar and Taylor (1995) argued that teachers whose pedagogical

approach promoted inquiry were more successful than those who implemented a direct teaching

approach. Others issues regarding science and studies related will be discussed.

Students’ characteristics, variety of teaching methods for teachers, understanding the role of the gifted students’ parents, and also the schools support better results for the gifted students are also discussed scholarly and other field observation and interviews with the administrations, teachers, parents, and

students done in Cugenang Gifted School, Cianjur, West Java.

Some examples include Dimyati’s observation of his gifted daughter Rachman in 1997 when she

finished reading 254 books in 10 days. Moreover, the use of inquiry strategy to teach science

implemented by Dimyati to Rachman in 2003 proved that the use of this strategy was the most sound

for the gifted. Additionally, in May and June 2013, when Dimyati taught science to gifted students,

he found that the use of the same strategy led the gifted to become more enthusiastic in learning

process.

Key words: teaching, science, gifted students, IQ

mailto:[email protected]


TEACHING SCIENCE FOR GIFTED STUDENTS.

A CASE STUDY DONE IN INDONESIA

Introduction

This paper poses and views science or natural science as knowledge taught in schools. First,

Science is the body of knowledge about nature that represents the collective efforts, findings,

insights, and wisdom of the human race. Second, science is a human activity with the function of

discovering the orderliness of nature and finding the causes that govern this order. (Hewitt, 1993,

p.1). Yager, et all (2010), cited the 1996 National Science Education standards (NSES) as

portraying science as a human endeavor and how this is translated to what should be considered in

science classes (NRC, 1996)

Teaching science is sometimes a bit different than other social sciences. Science is the results of

the original work of many scientists. It should be taught as scientists work and produce to get the

results. The concepts of science were implemented in many ways to help human being in more

efficient and require less effort to do many things, and to ease, to speed the work and other daily

life. How science should be taught will be discussed. Gifted students will be discussed in term of

definitions, characteristics, some true stories, and some other important issues related to gifted

students. The special characteristics of the gifted, like the high RAM of computer that can handle

many tasks at the same time, require parents, teachers, and school administration to have extra

information to handle these very bright students. They act differently in doing many things,

including learning.

Teaching science

Research in science education suggests that a curriculum based on in-depth understanding of science

concepts and “new science” standards that focus on an investigatory rather than the more traditional

approach best develop the talents, interests and motivation to do science in the real world for talented

learners. (Robinson, Shore, Enersen,(2007), p. 163).

Science contains biology, physics, chemistry, earth and astronomical sciences taught to all of the

students from elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school, and as part of

higher education in a certain department from bachelor degree, master degree, and doctorate

degree. In Indonesia, science is taught almost in all the level since K-10, from kindergarten to

grade 10. Although science is taught in almost all the level from K-10th grade, the termination of

the science teaching is in the 11th grade due to the specification of the output of schooling. For

Surachman Dimyati


instance, since grade 11, students of high school in general high schools are grouped in math and

science classes and social classes. Other emphasis groups, such as religion, linguistics, food and

beverage, aviation and other group is facilitated in the vocational high school. Vocational high

school however science is taught in less theoretical manner, means in this type of school,

science is taught in more practical in the ways of explaining the application and implementation

of the concepts.

The common teaching method implemented by most teachers and lecturers and probably science

professors are different from this method. However, the inquiry method is the most appropriate

teaching method to teach science. In inquiry-based learning, the students’ plays a major role in

defining the content through curiosity-driven questions and defining the pedagogy needed to

actively pursue the answers to these questions. (Robinson, Shore, Enersen, 2007, p.35).

Why do most of the teachers and lecturers in higher level education avoid implementing inquiry

in their teaching process? Well, some people argue that the school system with the way evaluates

the learning process.is the main factor influencing the way how teachers and lecturers are

hesitate or “hate” using this teaching method. Multiple choice tests are used in almost every

subject matter in pretests, formative tests, and summative tests. The multiple choice tests

themselves are ok for testing cognitive skills, however, they unable to measure students’ attitude

and psychomotor skills accurately. Other issues that most likely take a major role in degrading

teachers’ attitude to implement an inquiry teaching strategy are national examinations, entrance

tests in almost every level from junior high school to even college levels. So that what most

teachers do in the learning process in schools is almost the same with those private institutions

which offer to train students to do problem solving in many types of exercises to cope with the

high schools content standards to prepare for competition among other high schools students to

get the admission from state or private favorites Universities or colleges..

Definitions of Gifted

According to the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) in the US: gifted individuals are

those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude (defined as an exceptional ability to reason and

learn) or competence (documented performance or achievement in top 10% or rarer) in one or more

domains.

The federal definitions (in the US): “The term of gifted and talented students means children and

youth who gave evidence of higher performance capability in such areas as intellectual, creative,

artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or

activities not ordinarily provided by the schools in order to develop such capabilities.

Surachman Dimyati


States definitions (in the US):

Kansas: “Gifted” as defined in K.A.R.91-40-1(cc) means performing or demonstrating the

potential for performing at significant higher levels of accomplishment in one or more academic

fields due to intellectual ability, when compared to others of similar age, experience and

environment.

Georgia: Gifted student- a student who demonstrates a high degree of intellectual and/or

creative ability (ies), exhibits an exceptionally high degree of motivations, and /or excels in specific

academics field and who needs special instructions and or special ancillary services to achieve at

level commensurate with his or her abilities. (SBOE Rule 160-4-238,p.1)

The newly adopted standards for the university personnel preparation alone are not sufficient to

reach the goal of quality instruction for gifted learners in our schools, partly because not every

college of education offers course work in gifted education.

Currently, teachers who wish to learn more about how to work with advanced learners must

attend workshops or convention programs or seek written material in the topic. (Callagher in

Kitano at all, (2008, p. viii).

Parents of Gifted children are notoriously accurate in identifying their children abilities,

especially if they have some ideas about how children normally develop Louis and Lewis (1992),

Jackson (1992), Robinson and Robinson(1992), AND Robinson, Dale, and Landesman (1990) report

that parents dependably describe their children in term of characteristics and behaviors that are

indicative of advance reasoning and skills.

(Robinson, Shore, and Enersen (2007, p.7)

There are many evidence-based practices that work with talented youth. The home environment

can stimulate parent involvement, developing specific talents, genders and others. In the

classroom environment, many activities can stimulate gifted children such as encouraging

creativity, multiple intelligences, higher level thinking, science in the classroom, etc. School can

act in carrier education, learning multiple languages, school programs, acceleration, multiple

Surachman Dimyati


criteria for identification, Professional development for teachers. (Robinson, Shore, Enersen

,2007).

Over view of Cugenang Gifted School.

Gifted education is relatively new for Indonesia, since the National Education system does not

clearly facilitate gifted students, provide teacher preparation, or set regulations. There are still many

pros and cons. Association of Gifted in Indonesia was actually founded, although

developers (colleges or universities), schools (schools that provide gifted service), and

practitioners are still unready to take the big challenge to cope with gifted education in

Indonesia. Initial preparations that close to the preparing gifted education were acceleration

programs implemented in international school standards. However, the implementations are

need to be improved in many ways

The study will focus on teaching science in Indonesian schools including that implemented in

Cugenang Gifted School (CGS) , Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia. The school is claimed to be the first

gifted elementary school in Indonesia. It started in 2008 to 2010 for facilitating infra-

structure, and the implementation of teaching and learning processes have been in progress for three

years. This is a private boarding school with free tuition and other expenses that is offered especially

for low incomes families. The school was founded by two private people who want to contribute to

the development of gifted children in Indonesia. The school expenses were paid mostly by the

founder and other individuals donations.

As a gifted school, the students were selected with a high degree of levels of ability. They must have a

score of more than 130 in IQ, commitments, and verbal quotients. Therefore, only a few students have

been accepted in every academic year. In the last academic year, even though more than 100 students

applied to register for this school, none of them were accepted.

Unlike other common elementary schools, the teaching process in this school is that every

teacher teaches one or two subject matters. So the teacher is moving from class to other classes. Like

other elementary schools in Indonesia, this school also implemented the national

curriculum, including science.

Surachman Dimyati


As gifted students who have a high level of intelligence, most of them act differently from other

common students in their level. For instance, they attend the instruction looked strange. While

teacher explains a -certain concepts, they usually do other things, such as crawling, drawing,

moving and other activities. When teacher warns them that she or he is teaching and explaining,

they answered that they are listening. When the teacher tries to test whether they comprehend

what the teacher was explaining, surprisingly most of them are able to answer the question

comprehensively, even though they were moving around and did many things while their teacher was

explaining something.

Although the three years maximum effort for this school was implemented with personal funding and

donations, someone might say that this school actually not a real gifted school in US or

Western countries.

Some interesting short true stories about gifted children.

1) A nine year old girl read 254 books within 10 days!

Before school closing for winter break at the end of 1997 and early 1998, the teacher in the third grade

of Weber Elementary school in Iowa City, Iowa, gave 2 pieces of paper to all of her

students. She encouraged them to spend some of their vacation days reading books and noting,

note, the name of the books, author, and short summaries on the paper provided. Purnawati

Hustina. Rachman, or Tina as she nick named, was one of the students who paid attention to her teacher

encouragement. From the first day of the vacation she asked her daddy, Dimyati, a ride

to the public library. She grabbed around 15 books every visit to the library. She read them all of the

books from morning to afternoon. Then in the evening she asked her daddy again to go to the library to

borrow another 10 to 15 books. Surprisingly, she read all the books in the evening and morning. So,

within ten days she had read 254 books!

Imagine a nine years old girl able to read 254 books within ten days! She must have an extra

ordinary capabilities. The explanation is that she wanted to show her teacher that she can do a

tremendous thing. No one in her class did like as she did. However, when school began in early

January 1998, Tina submitted the 14 pages of paper showing that had read 254 books within ten

days in winter vacation to her teacher proudly. Poor Tina, for some reason her teacher did not

Surachman Dimyati


pay much attention with the paper she submitted. She might pay a little attention with the long

report of her fantastic achievement in reading. When her daddy asked her, what was your teacher

response when you submitted your reading report? She responded calmly; “nothing. Her face

turned red. She looked mad about the response of her teacher For a few weeks after that, she

never asked again to borrow books from the public library. With the situation like that, her daddy

then met his psychology professor and explained the situation. The professor told him: “You

come to Tina’s school and meet the teacher- and explain the situation. Please asked her,

whether she had read Tina’s fantastic reading report carefully”. The stunned teacher heard this.

She felt very guilty that she hurt Tina’s feeling. The teacher apologized for this. She paid some

attention to her reading report. She promised to call Tina and tell her that her works during the

winter vacation was really fantastic! A few days after that, there was a big change of Tina’s

spirit. She asked again to go to public library although the number of books she read was not as

big as that during vacation days.

2) Three months physics teaching, the gifted learned in less than 7 minutes!

The story happened in early 2003 when Tina attended her 8th

grade in SMP 4 Bogor. Her physics

teacher was kind of sick for about three months. One day when her teacher had recovered, she

told the class that on Monday the test will be held covering the 3 months teaching of physics.

The physics material was 2 books thick. Tina told her mommy that she wanted to quit. She did

not want to go to school any more. She kept complaining, “how come the works for three months

teaching will be tested in two days ahead. No, I quit. I do not want to go to school any more”.

Tina kept yelling to her mommy. Well actually she complained to her physics teacher that it was

not fair. How come without regular teaching, she took the test. Her mommy then told her

husband Dimyati and told him that his daughter wanted to quit going to school because her

physics teacher did not really teach her for three months but she would give the test for those 3

months physics teaching on Monday. The husband told his wife to tell his lovely daughter that he

promised to teach her for 30 minutes as replacements of her teacher’s three months teaching.

Dimyati was a physics education professor at Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia. He had a strong

belief that the use of inquiry method would challenge his lovely gifted daughter. In the evening

around 7, Tina met her daddy and asked him whether her daddy really promised to teach her for

two books physics teaching for 30 minutes. Her daddy agreed calmly and nodded. He then

Surachman Dimyati


hugged her tightly and whispered to her ear. “Tina, you are my blood shed. Anything belong to

your daddy and mommy, you already have them. So, this 2 books for your daddy need seconds

to comprehend it, for you, because you are my blood shed, you needs minutes. Tina stunned and

said; “Daddy you told mommy that you need 30 minutes, right!”. Her daddy responded: “ Yes,

but for you actually you need less than that; - 30 minutes is too long for you”. ”Let’s begins”.

Dimyati grabbed a piece of paper then he punched it with a sharp pencil to make a small hole on

the paper. He then prepared a candle to burn. He talked seriously to Tina, that she should

observe what he did, asked questions, and answer the questions, again and again. He then turned off the

light at home. So it was really dark. The only light was the light of the flame. Tina

screamed; “Daddy it is scary”. Her dad responded, “I’m with you”.

The dark situation is the best condition for observing the light. Dimyati put the candle in front of the

paper that had a hole on it. The image of the flame looked very clear on the wall beside the punched

paper by moving the candle back ward or forward to the paper. Tina began observed the flame of the

candle. She said, “ The flame is up, but the image (on the white wall) is down. The image of the flame

is changing depend on the distance of the candle to the paper. She

observed , she asked the questions, then she answer the questions by herself. She did it again and again

with the moving of candle to the paper that had a hole on it.

Suddenly, Tina was stunned. She realized that his daddy just punch the paper to make a hole on

it. She asked her dad, “ Daddy, you just punch the paper with a pencil, right”. Her daddy

responded: “Yes, I did”. Tina then asked her daddy: “ So this means there nothing in the hole”.

Her daddy responded: “ I do not think so, my baby”. Tina then, surprisingly got the answer

correctly. She said: “ It must be air. It must be air. Air works as optics”. Her daddy then lead

her in the concepts of optics, and said: “ Is that only air works as optics?”. Tina responded

quickly that she did not agree. She said: “ Well , I think water can works as optics, plastics, glass.

In this situation the inquiry approach really worked and led the student to think in higher order of

thinking. Tina thought to extrapolate the material from air, to water, plastics, glass, etc. Her

daddy then argued her and said: “ Well, if you want to read those physics books, (by pointing the

physics books on the shelves) you will find that in certain situations and conditions electric or

magnetic field would work as optics too”. Ok let continue learn physics by using computer with

physics software in optics concepts. When the computer on, then the physics program selected

for optics concepts, the teaching process became more interesting. From magnifier, telescope,

Surachman Dimyati


then microscope was just a few minutes. But again, surprisingly Tina got many ideas regarding

how to put some lenses in order to get an optic instrument. She said: “ if I have 2 convex lenses I can

make a telescope for looking at stars. If I have three lenses, I can make an earth telescope. So I can

make many things with the lenses, many, many things!”. At that time her daddy said: Tina, now

almost 7 minutes have passed, but you are done”. Tina responded: “ what do you mean by

done daddy?”. Her daddy said: “Well, Tina, you do not need my help any more, you have now the three

months physics teaching”. Tina said: “Oh really”. Her daddy then asked her to open her 2 physics

books, to check her understanding the physics concepts in the books. She was stunned that she

understood the whole concept comprehensively. On Monday evening, she brought good news that her

score the for physics test was 100!.

3) Elementary gifted students explained the cardinal directions concepts deeply and

comprehensively.

In late May and early June 2013, Dimyati came to Cugenang Gifted School, Cianjur, West Java,

Indonesia as part of the multi years research regarding developing college text books for gifted

education in Indonesia. It was a free of charge private elementary boarding school. The

administrator claimed was the first gifted school in Indonesia. He observed, interviewed the

administrators, teachers, students and parents of the gifted school. During the works, the

principal asked Dimyati to share his experience with administrators and teachers and also to

teach science to the students. Dimyati agreed to that offer. After sharing experience with 7

teachers and 5 administrators then he continued to teach students question. There are 3 students

for third grader and 5 students for 5th

grade. Part of the teaching material was cardinal

directions. This concepts was very important in daily life. He began by asking the students

queation. “Hi kids! Do you know cardinal direction?”. Almost all of the students responded: “ Of

course, yes sir, yes sir. That’s an easy thing sir.”. Then he continue responded: “ Good, but let

me draw the cardinal directions in this white board”. He drew two line across each other

perpendicularly, and put the sign of North, South, East, and West. One of the students

complained that the picture was too simple, the drawing was supposed to be not just 2 lines, but

need additional 2 line so 4 lines in total. So that we can draw the cardinal directions completely,

such as North, North North East, North East, North East, East etc.

Surachman Dimyati


References

Assouline, S, Shoplik, A L,(2005), Developing math talent; a guide for educating gifted and

advanced learners in math, Prufox Press Inc, Waco, Texas,USA

Colangelo, N, Davis, GA,(2003) Hand Book of Gifted Education, third Edition, Pearson

Education Inc, USA.

Colangelo, N, Assouline, SG, Gross, MUM,(2004), A Nation Deceived: How school hold back

America’s brightest students Volume I, The templeton national report on acceleration.

Colangelo, N, Assouline, SG, Gross, MUM,(2004), A Nation Deceived: How school hold back

America’s brightest students Volume II, The templeton national report on acceleration.

DiGissi and Willet (1995) in Robinson, A., Shore,BM., Enersen,DL, (2007), Best pracices in

gifted education, An evidence-based guide, pp. 109-118, Prufox Press Inc, Waco,

Texas,USA.

Hewitt, PG (1993), Conceptual Physics, 7th

edition, , Harper Collin College Publishers, New

York.

Kitano, M, Montgomery, D, Baska, JV, Johnsen, SK, Using the national gifted education

standards, for professional development, A joint publication: national association for

gifted children, council for exceptional children, the association for the gifted, Corwin

Press A sage Company, Thousands oaks, CA

Moar and Taylor (1995) in Robinson, A., Shore,BM., Enersen,DL, (2007), Best pracices in

gifted education, An evidence-based guide, pp. 109-118, Prufox Press Inc, Waco,

Texas,USA.

Robinson, A., Shore,BM., Enersen,DL, (2007), Best pracices in gifted education, An evidence-

based guide, Prufox Press Inc, Waco, Texas,USA

Yager,RE, Ali,MM, Hacieminoghu, E, (2010), Real Reform takes More than “Stirring the Pot”,

Science Educator (Fall 2010), pp. 56-62.

Surachman Dimyati

Agents of Change Celebrating Teachers TEACHING SCIENCE FOR GIFTED STUDENTS. A CASE STUDY DONE IN...

Documents

Transcript of Agents of Change Celebrating Teachers TEACHING SCIENCE FOR GIFTED STUDENTS. A CASE STUDY DONE IN...