Science Education for Gifted Students

For the first time, the Gifted Child Today Reader series brings together the best articles published in Gifted Child Today, the nation s most popular gifted education journal. Each book in this series is filled with exciting and practical classroom ideas, useful summaries of research findings, discussions of identification and classroom management, and informed opinions about educating gifted kids. Anyone involved in education will benefit from the practical, research-based ideas this unique series has to offer.

A differentiated curriculum for gifted science students needs to be organized around basic scientific principles that require more advanced levels of thinking and complex processes. Many of the authors provide units of study and specific lessons that model best practices in teaching science.

Science Education for Gifted Students begins with creative ways to engage children in the primary years, thus ensuring that they develop a love of science that will last a lifetime. Subsequent chapters deal with acceleration and enrichment in the sciences, including instructional units on magnetic levitation, integrating science and physical education, and real-world archaeology.

Susan K. Johnsen, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Baylor University. She directs the Ph.D. program, and programs related to gifted and talented education. She is past-president of the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented. She has written more than 100 articles, monographs, technical reports, and books related to gifted education. She is a frequent presenter at international, national, and state conferences.

She is editor of Gifted Child Today and serves on the editorial boards of Gifted Child Quarterly and Journal for Advanced Academics. She is the author of Identifying Gifted Students: A Practical Guide. She also coauthored the Independent Study Program and three tests that are used in identifying gifted students: Test of Mathematical Abilities for Gifted Students (TOMAGS), Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI-3), and Screening Assessment for Gifted Students (SAGES-2).

James Kendrick, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baylor University. He holds a doctorate in Communication and Culture from Indiana University, Bloomington. For 7 years, he was the Scholarly Division Editor at Prufrock Press Inc., where he oversaw the publication of several research journals and numerous books in the field of gifted education.