• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.151-173
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• 2010

Several researches have been done on the meaning of probabilistic thinking level and its pedagogical implication. However, there is lack of trials of using topics in probability to educate mathematically gifted students. As a result, we don't have sound understanding on gifted students' probabilistic thinking level and how to facilitate it through educational program. This study examines the meaning of probabilistic thinking level, develops and applies tasks in probability for gifted education. Having the analysis of the student responses, this study tries to investigate how teachers who participate in an in-service teacher education program interpret the developed tasks and student responses. In conclusion, this study shows the possible approach of gifted education using probability tasks to facilitate gifted students' probabilistic thinking level and its potential in identification of giftedness through observation.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.407-426
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• 2011

This study is to examine the perceptions and attitudes of parents about the teachers' recommendation system through their observations to identify the gifted. We conducted surveys for parents who had elementary school children in Busan metropolitan city and analysed the results to find out about the differences among parents groups in terms of their monthly incomes and opinions on teachers' observation and nomination for the gifted. The results are following; First, approx. 80% of the respondents recognized the changes in the giftedness identification system. Also, 40.5% of the parents positively thought about the teachers' observation and nomination system (positive group), whereas 32.3% of the parents showed their negative opinions about the system (negative group). There were also 27.2% of the parents who did not make their decisions (no-decision-making group). Second, most of the parents accepted that the teachers who were professionally trained in gifted education should be the persons for observing and nominating gifted students. However, significant differences were shown among the different monthly income groups of the parents in regards to who should be the person taking charge of recommending the gifted and how trustworthy this person could be. Third, the positive parents' group mostly expected that as the teachers' observation and nomination system is adopted, expenses for private education would decrease, whereas the negative group and no-decision-making group thought that the opposite result would occur. These results will be helpful for the successful adoption of teachers' observation and recommendation system to identify the gifted in the field of education.