Problem based learning untuk gifted child?

PROBLEM BASED LEARNING untuk GIFTED CHILD?

Minggu-minggu ini kami sibuk hunting sekolah lanjutan untuk Entong anakku semata wayang.

Sebelum kuceritakan lebih lanjut model sekolah gifted untuk sekolah lanjutan di Belanda ini, kuceritakan dahulu model pendekatan pendidikan anak-anak gifted SD.Pendidikan sekolah dasar di Belanda menganut dua system, yaitu sekolah regular – dan sekolah khusus (SLB).

Sekolah reguler Belanda menganut sistem pendidikan dengan pendekatan adaptif, yaitu memberikan perhatian pada keunikan setiap anak dan tawaran pendidikan harus sesuai dengan kebutuhan anak. Dengan demkikian ia melayani pendidikan inklusi, yaitu menerima anak-anak special needs belajar bersama dengan anak-anak “nonmal” lainnya. Special needs yang diterima si SD reguler ini adalah: ADHD, Austime spectrum disorder, Gifted, dan Disleksia. Sekalipun ke empat bentuk special needs itu sudah ada UU nya bahwa ia boleh masuk dalam sekolah reguler, pihak sekolah juga masih menerima anak-anak Down Syndrom, cacat primer seperti tuli ( yang sudah terlatih dengan hearing aids) dan gangguan penglihatan. Juga anak-anak dengan inteligensia borderline.

Mereka yang special needs akan mendapatkan metoda pendidikan khusus dan layanan kebutuhan pembelajaran khusus. Misalnya yang disleksia akan mendapatkan remedial teaching, kompensasi waktu (lebih lama) dan fasilitas lain seperti pita rekaman saat harus membaca, reading pen, dan komputer.

Bagi yang mengalami gangguan motorik halus tidak bisa menulis dengan baik, maka ia boleh menggunakan komputer. Bagi anak yang mengalami gangguan cacat primer seperti gangguan pendengaran dan penglihatan, juga diberi kemudahan fasilitas.

Untuk anak-anak gifted juga dilayani giftednessnya dengan memberikan pengkayaan, percepatan, dan pendalaman.Semua anak dalam sekolah reguler ini haruslah mempunyai inteligensia normal ke atas.

Pendekatan pendidikan yang diutamakan adalah pendekatan keharmonisan tumbuh kembang. Karena itu untuk anak-anak gifted lebih diutamakan masuk ke sekolah reguler bukan sekolah khusus anak gifted. Kelak saat di sekolah lanjutan anak-anak ini akan masuk ke dalam sekolah khusus.

Walaupun begitu ada tiga bentuk sekolah untuk anak-anak gifted ini di tingkatan sekolah lanjutan.

1) Model sekolah yang menempatkan anak-anak gifted bersama anak-anak lain hingga dua tahun lamanya (dg pendekatan inklusi), baru di tahun ke tiga ia dipisahkan masuk sekolah khusus (gymansium & athenium). Bentuk sekolah bersama-sama sampai dua tahun disebut brugklas (kelas jembatan).

2) Model sekolah yang langsung dari sekolah dasar masuk ke sekolah khusus gifted, disebut gymnasium dan athenium. (Gymnasium menekankan pada bahasa dan ilmu2 sosial, athenium menekankan pada sains dan matematika). Atau kombinasi keduanya.

3) Model sekolah khusus gifted Xtra. Bentuk ini adalah model baru yang tengah dikembangkan oleh pemerintah Belanda, dengan pendekatan teori multifactor dari Kurt Heller (lihat: TEORI GIFTEDNESS ) .

Artinya ada delapan bidang ketrampilan yang perlu pengolahan. Mana yang terkuat dikembangkan, mana yang lemah dibantu agar bisa juga berkembang. Karena setiap anak dianggap mempunyai keunikan individu, maka dalam satu kelas dibuka system pendidikan yang sangat berdiferensiasi dalam materi.

Untuk masuk kesini ditutut anak-anak dengan kecepatan pikir, kreativitas dan ketahanan yang tinggi.Pelajaran diberikan secara mandiri, individual, dan menggunakan pendekatan problem based learning.Problem based learning di Belanda dikenal sebagai pendidikan dengan pendekatan projek (project onderwijs).

Kepada anak-anak ini diberi tugas yang harus dipecahkan melalui riset, kepustakaan, dan melaporkannya dalam bentuk makalah. Pokok bahasan, mereka boleh memilih sendiri mana yang menjadi minatannya. Jadi disini juga ditekankan pada konsep kebebasan, kemandirian, tetapi harus bertanggung jawab akan keberhasilan tugas.

Dengan begitu dituntut ketahanan kerja yang tinggi.Secara teoritis pendekatan model seperti ini (no 3) adalah pendekatan yang paling ideal untuk seorang anak gifted yang memang selalu mendahulukan berpikir secara konsep. Ia bisa langsung menyalurkan pemikiran-pemikirannya.


Melihat kenyataan no 3, sebagai orang tua anak-anak gifted, pada awalnya banyak yang tertarik pada pendekatan seperti ini. Ideal.Namun melihat kenyataan lagi, bahwa anak-anak gifted adalah populasi yang beragam.

Keragaman bisa terjadi sebagai akibat dari banyak hal. Bisa dilihat lagi Konsep giftedness Kurt Heller.Semakin tinggi inteligensia si anak, akan juga terjadi ketidak sinkronan perkembangan. Ada yang perfeksionisme luar biasa akibatnya menekan potensi kreativitasnya. Ada yang sangat kreatif tetapi kurang presisi karena perfeksionismenya dihantam oleh kreativitasnya. Ada yang kadang perfek kadang kreatif sehingga susah ditebak…Ada yang terfokus pada satu masalah, masalah lain tidak digubris.

Berbagai masalah disinkronitas ini akan mewarnai bagaimana ia dapat bekerja dalam sebuah proyek problem based learning, bagaimana reaksi anak-anak ini dalam bekerja? Bisa diperkirakan. Bagaimanapun ia seorang anak gifted tetap membutuhkan bimbingan terstruktur dan kombinasi kekebasan. Menurutku kebebasan dengan menekankan pada tanggung jawab, tetapi tanpa struktur sama sekali ... ah... saya masih tidak tega. Bagaimana dengan masalah adiministrasinya? Sekalipun ada portfolio pasti repot banget...Karena setiap anak mempunyai pekerjaan yang berbeda...

Early warning signs of learning disabilities

Early warning signs of learning disabilities


From preschool through fourth grade, parents can watch for the following signs their child may have a learning disability:

- Slow to learn the connection between letters and sounds
- Difficulty "sounding out" unknown words
- Repeatedly misidentifying known words
- Makes consistent reading and spelling errors including letter reversals (b/d), inversions (m/w), transpositions (felt/left), and substitutions (house/home)
- Transposes number sequences and confuses arithmetic signs (+, -, x, /, =)
- Difficulty understanding or remembering what is read because so much time and effort is spent figuring each word


If a child regularly displays one or more of these behaviors, he or she may have a learning disability and parents should seek appropriate testing and intervention from their child's school.
With diagnostic tests, it can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy which students in kindergarten and first grade will have difficulty learning to read. Identifying reading difficulties early means children have more time to learn to be successful readers. Since reading is learned more easily and effectively during the early years, identifying language-based learning disabilities and providing appropriate interventions give children more time to learn to read well.
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6253

Gifted? Autistic? Or just Quirky?

Gifted? Autistic? Or Just Quirky?

As More Children Receive Diagnoses, Effects of These Labels Seem Mixed

By Maia SzalavitzSpecial to The Washington PostTuesday, February 27, 2007; Page HE01

"Paradoxically liberating" is how Phil Schwarz has described his Asperger's syndrome diagnosis. He was in his late 30s at the time, and he had number of things on his mind: A software developer in Framingham, Mass., Schwarz had been labeled "gifted" as a child and had graduated third in his high school class. For years he had struggled with depression and a feeling that he was not living up to the promise of his past.
What's more, he had begun to worry about his toddler's delayed language development and repetitive play style. But he had no idea how the diagnosis that his son Jeremy would receive might affect his own identity.

Jeremy turned out to have a form of high-functioning autism. Later the same year, Schwarz received his own diagnosis with the related Asperger's syndrome. Only then did he realize that his long-standing difficulties with socializing, sensitivity to loud noises and bright light, and what he calls a "syncopated conversational style," were all related, both to one another and to being on the autistic spectrum. "It allowed me to make sense of everything through a new lens," says Schwarz, who is now vice president of the Asperger's Association of New England.
It seems that America has fallen in love with the stamp of medical authority. Increasing numbers of children are given increasingly specific labels, ranging from psychiatric and neurological diagnoses such as Asperger's and attention-deficit disorder to educational descriptors including "gifted" and "learning disabled." And parents who in the past might have fought ferociously against giving their children labels -- particularly for once-stigmatized conditions such as learning disorders -- sometimes actually seek such diagnoses for their children to get them extra time on tests, to receive insurance reimbursement for treatment, to qualify for extra educational services or simply to have a name (and treatment) for a problem.
The trend is widely acknowledged even though it is hard to quantify, and its causes and effects vary wildly. "There is no doubt that we are labeling children more," says psychiatrist Bruce Perry, my co-author on "The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories From a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook." In fact, Perry says, "in order for clinicians to get reimbursed, they have to label. There is also a tendency on the part of both educators and parents to want to get an answer. They are very uncomfortable with ambiguity."
And although Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck cautions, "I think some children would rather be seen as 'odd' or 'quirky' than 'broken,' " others recognize how helpful the labels have been.

Robert Sternberg, a psychologist and dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, says there are numerous, complex factors involved in the increasing use of labels. "One reason is that in order for them to get special services, kids often need to be labeled. A second reason is for testing. In order to get accommodations like extra time, they need that label."
Because a diagnosis is often required before insurers will cover medical treatment, the rising use of psychiatric medications is also tied in with the trend toward labeling. The number of children taking such drugs rose two- to threefold between 1987 and 1996, a trend that is bolstered by pharmaceutical advertising.

Sternberg had his own childhood experience with labeling: He did poorly on IQ tests. "The teachers thought I wasn't very bright -- and that led me to meet that expectation, which led them to be happy that I met that expectation, and it became a vicious circle. The next year their expectations were a bit lower." Fortunately for Sternberg, his fourth-grade teacher didn't buy it: She saw that there was more to life than test scores, and she encouraged hard work.
As a result, Sternberg became fascinated with psychology and intelligence testing -- so much so that he got in trouble in seventh grade for testing classmates himself. He ultimately became a leading expert in the field. He thinks that one way around the tyranny of labeling is to reduce our obsession with speed -- and give all children extra time on tests.

Sternberg doesn't see labels as all bad, however. "Having a name for something in some cases can help you do something about it," he says, but he stresses that parents and teachers need to focus on children's strengths and reward accomplishments, rather than on what labels imply about ability and potential. Children, after all, tend to live up -- or down -- to the expectations of their parents and teachers.

Research finds that even subtle cues about stereotypes and associated expectations can have significant effects: Some studies have shown that simply being asked to check off "female" at the top of a math test can lower the way a woman performs on a test. Interestingly, if the woman happens to be Asian and is asked to identify her ethnicity rather than her sex before taking the test, her scores rise in line with positive stereotypes about Asians and math. But as in Schwarz's case, positive labels such as "gifted" can have negative side effects, too. Recent studies by Dweck show how labeling children as gifted or highly intelligent can actually inhibit their achievement and self-esteem.

Dweck and her colleagues studied hundreds of early adolescents, giving them each 10 questions from a verbal IQ test. Most did well. Afterward, some were praised for having done well because they were smart, while others were lauded for the hard work that had gone into achieving their high scores. However, when given the opportunity to try a more challenging task, those who had been told they were smart were reluctant. Says Dweck, "They seemed to be thinking, 'They called me smart. I better not do anything too hard in case they change their minds.' " In contrast, about 90 percent of those who had been praised for their effort wanted greater challenges.

Dweck, author of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success," sees the root of the problem not in the labels themselves but in the mind-sets they represent. "I had shown in earlier work that children who believe in permanent traits like fixed intelligence are actually vulnerable because when something goes wrong they think they don't deserve the label anymore." Alissa Quart, author of "Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child," says the gifted label "fixes kids' identities into adulthood. The label is sometimes useful in education, but as an internal self-image, it's not."

Dweck acknowledges that parents and children may be relieved to learn that there's a name for the problem and specific remedies. But, she says, "it's incumbent on parents to explain that 'Well, you may be wired a little differently; this might make it more difficult for you; you might have to work harder and use different strategies,' as opposed to 'This means you can't learn.' "
Recent research in neuroscience bolsters the idea that people can and do change. Says Perry: "The brain is like a muscle: The areas that are used grow and improve while those which aren't, don't." Such growth is often visible on brain scans. Parents should also be aware that the criteria used to define these conditions are not absolute and that they shift over time. The conditions themselves also change as children learn and grow, often worsening with stress and improving when the child feels calm and safe.

As Schwarz says: "It's not the label that's the problem, but the baggage associated with it."
Dan Grover, an 18-year-old college student in Boston, co-founded WrongPlanet.net, a site for teens on the autistic spectrum. He was 10 when he his Asperger's syndrome was diagnosed. "Sometimes people distance themselves from you when they know," he says. "It's both good and bad -- good because it definitely explains some things and gives you some perspective, but at the same time it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Being aware of [traits related to the label] can magnify them."

Another 18-year-old, David Dunnington of Yorktown, Ind., told me via e-mail that his Asperger's label "used to send me through the roof" because adults would treat him like an infant, but that he now values the photographic memory and problem-solving skills associated with the condition.
One 13-year-old from New York who has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder e-mailed me recently that "labels make me see myself as a painting that didn't come out right, and it makes me feel really bad. I think that having these labels is negative because it categorizes children into groups. These labels can be very hurtful, and they don't truly reflect a person's true personality."

Kathleen Seidel is proprietor of the Neurodiversity.com Web site, a resource for autism information aimed at "honoring the variety of human wiring," and the mother of a child on the autistic spectrum. Her site highlights the strengths and talents, not just the problems, associated with autistic disorders. "Everyone has different responses to diagnoses," she says, explaining that the child's perspective about how public to be about the label must be respected and that it may change over time, particularly in adolescence.

Seidel notes that attempts to link autism with mercury poisoning -- though scientific evidence does not find a connection between the condition and mercury in vaccines -- inadvertently evoke images of contamination. "Some people say, 'My child is a toxic waste dump,' " she says. "People don't understand the stigma. I don't want someone looking at my family member that way."
Schwarz uses an adage to describe the dual nature of autism: "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301785.html