Skip to main content

Colourful and complex... students' thoughts about like-mindedness


Working (effectively) with like-minded peers is an essential element of the MindPlus programme. But what do children actually think and say about working with their like-minded peers?... I asked two classes of gifted children and here are their responses:

Learning with like-minded peers…
-          It’s easier because we don’t have to explain ourselves or our ideas
-          It’s not as hard as working with non-like-minded peers
-          We can work together on the same things, or on different things in the same ways
-          We can help each other learn
-          You can understand each other
-          We can learn from each other
-          It’s just easier to work with like-minded peeps

     Communicating with like-minded peers…
-          We don’t have to tackle ‘what does that mean?’
-          You can really properly listen to and think about other people’s ideas
-          It’s waaay easier to communicate

Connecting with like-minded peers… (socially and emotionally)
-          We ‘get’ each other
-          You can connect with others
-          We go through similar things
-          It’s interesting to be able to talk to people who are like you
-          You learn better social skills from being with people who are more similar than different
-          You can understand what other people are feeling, and they can understand what you are feeling


And in summary, it’s a colourful and complex experience.


Find other #NZGAW Blog Tour posts at http://giftededucation.ultranet.school.nz/WebSpace/1286/.













Comments

  1. Thank you all so much for contributing to the blog tour! I loved your ideas, and think you expressed the importance of working with like-minded people well. Keep up the good work :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please believe me if I need you as I do!
    ------------
    دعامة القضيب

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Like-mindedness...inclusion...and us.

Associate Professor Tracy Riley’s recent research, shared in a SENG article, Thinking Along the Same Lines , and to be further explored at the upcoming NZAGC conference , puts like-mindedness in the spotlight. Like-mindedness is an important part of gifted education. The benefits of grouping gifted children together, creating like-minded environments, are both intellectual and social. Intellectually, like-minded students can work together at a faster pace, in greater depth, can challenge and question each other in order to bolster their individual and collective learning. Research by Adams-Byers, Whitsell and Moon (2004) found that gifted students saw the academic advantages in learning with like-minded peers as being challenge, fast pace, quality and depth of discussion, and lack of repetition of content.  Sandra Kaplan highlights that in like-minded groups, students can share perspectives and ideas that can be more readily understood, without the need for protracted explanati

Gifted Awareness Week 2014 - 6 word stories

The cells in a beehive has six sides. A guitar has six strings. The atomic number for carbon is six. There are six geese a-laying. And any good story has just six words. My Tuesday class of year 4-6 students at Gifted Kids (New Zealand Centre of Gifted Education) have expressed their ideas about what being gifted is all about, briefly, through 6 word stories. What better way to communicate complex ideas. You might take a minute to think about the deeper meanings here, about where these ideas come from, and about what we can learn from understanding what our gifted children think. Here's a selection that really captures the spirit of their thoughts. Getting straight to the point... An individual with advanced intellectual ability. Gifted? Me? High intellectual ability? Yes! Intellectual ability, born with the person. And with deference to Lady Gaga... Baby, I was born this way.  Being gifted doesn’t come by mail.   S ee Mum, it’s all your fault. Don’t b