Jakarta, Kartunet.com - Unlike the mathematics learning process for other children with special needs, which requires adjustments to the environment and methods, mathematics education for gifted children necessitates adjustments across many aspects. These multi-faceted adjustments will henceforth be referred to as differentiation.
Differentiated education for gifted children refers to distinctions or differentiation across five aspects: (1) content differentiation, (2) process differentiation, (3) environment differentiation, (4) evaluation differentiation, and (5) product differentiation. In mathematics education, prominent differentiation can occur in content, process, and evaluation.
Gifted children tend to have a high level of curiosity and enjoy challenges, including in learning and solving problems. In this regard, the material provided to gifted children should not be the same as that for typical children. If a typical child completes 10 problems in a day, a gifted child could be assigned 20 problems.
Not only in terms of quantity, but the quality of problems given to gifted children must also be higher. If typical children are only given problems with a difficulty level at cognitive level three, then problems for gifted children must demand cognitive abilities at level four, or even up to level six. For example, if typical children only work on standard textbook problems, gifted children should be given Olympiad-standard problems.
Since the material provided to gifted children is broader, more developed, and deeper, their learning process must also be different. For example, in the measurement unit, gifted children could be taken to a school building to measure the volume of objects in a room using different geometric shapes and direct measuring tools, rather than relying on pre-existing numbers.
Furthermore, the form of evaluation for gifted children must also be differentiated. For instance, their evaluation could involve a measurement practicum or researching the accuracy of measurement data for a project.(Nir)