Browsing by Author "Hämäläinen, Liisi"

The purpose of this study was to examine mathematically gifted students in a teacher's point of view. The students examined were on a second grade. Research questions were: 1. How does the teacher's define gifted students? 2. How should the mathematically gifted second graders education be differentiated? 3. What do the teachers think about the differentiation methods used? The differentiation methods that were used were strategy games and problem-solving tasks. The theory is about giftedness and especially mathematical giftedness. Three giftedness theories that help to describe the diversity of giftedness are introduced. The second theory chapter is about differentiation. The study is a qualitative research. There were four teachers participating. Each one got two differentiation methods to try. After the trial period the teachers were interviewed about the methods and giftedness. They were also interviewed about the differentiation methods that they may have used before the research. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed with content analyses. The answers were categorized based on the interview themes. The teachers defined that gifted student is someone who has specific skills in some areas. They also said that gifted student is fast and has the ability and desire to solve problems and find more information. Based on the information received from the research, teaching of mathematically gifted students should be differentiated by giving the appropriate level of activities. Methods tested during the trial period were found useful, but not in a context of differentiation. The teachers thought that the methods were helpful and all of the teacher told that they will use them again later.