This Topic Study Group is intended to bring together teachers, mathematicians, mathematics educators, mentors and researchers who are interested in identifying and nourishing mathematically gifted students. We would like to gather some information about the theory and practice on the subject and look into the problems related to mathematically gifted students, such as challenges for identifying and providing them with an appropriate education. The web sites are:

ICME-11 website
www.mathhouse.org
www.umoncton.ca/casmi

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Program of our sessions:

Time table: version, 3rd of July: http://tsg.icme11.org/document/get/789

Message from the TSG-6 Organizing Team with some more detials of our sessions:

Dear participants of the TSG-6,

We are pleased to welcome you at the ICME-11 TSG-6 sessions Activities and Program for Gifted Students, which are scheduled during the Congress. The TSG -6 group work will be organized during 4 sessions for the total of 6 hours. You may like to connect your presentation to other papers. All papers are now available online on this page in the papers section. You are invited to read all the papers and prepare questions for the discussion.

The first session is scheduled on July, 8 (please double-check it upon registration), at 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm. It aims to set up the Topic Study Group goals. This session will start with invited expert panel presentations that will address focal points of Activities and Programs for Gifted Students. The panel will include —Summary from ICME 10 TSG-4 : www.math.toronto.edu/barbeau/tsg4.pdf

presented by Viktor Freiman

—The Effects of Government and Professional Policies on Expectations, Challenges, Assessment and Curriculum for Gifted Students:

A Brief View from the United States : For the last fifty years, from Sputnik through No Child Left Behind, the government and professional societies such as NCTM in the United States have had varying policies and support for mathematically promising students. A few of the effects of these along with questions raised, http://tsg.icme11.org/document/get/593“

presented by Linda Sheffield

—Closer look at challenging practices in and beyond the classroom:< Clearly the ICMI Study-16 highlights challenge as an important issue in education and the learning process generally, which has never been documented or studied overtly as it should. Traditionally the learning process probably contained more challenge than it does today. However, particularly in Western countries, like mine, syllabi have become more and more refined, and available time for teaching mathematics has so significantly declined, that many teachers have time only to deliver knowledge and not to challenge. Since people need to react to challenging situations during their careers and everyday life, a vital part of the learning process may be lost … read the whole text …

presented by Peter Taylor

—Overview of the field complexity and related research agenda

Following Schoenfeld (2000), who enlightened two main purposes of research in mathematics education, I argue that in the field of mathematical giftedness and creativity research has two interrelated purposes:

• The theoretical purpose: To understand the nature of mathematical giftedness and mathematical creativity from the perspectives of thinking, teaching, and learning;

• The applied purpose: To use such understandings to improve mathematics instruction that will realize mathematical giftedness encourage mathematical creativity.

read the whole text …

presented by Roza Leikin

All the participants will be involved in the discussion with panelists.

The second session takes place on July, 9 at 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm During this session participants will work in three small groups

Group 1: Activities and programs for gifted Group 2: Identification and learning of gifted Group 3: Teaching issues and resources.

Each group will include 4-5 paper presentations associated with the topic of the small group. Duration of the paper presentations will be 15 minutes following the discussing of the audience with the authors.

The third and the fourth sessions will be organized on July, 11, at 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm and on July, 12, at 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm. These sessions will be run in the form of general presentations following by the whole group discussion. At the last session we plan to discuss further collaboration of the participants after the Congress.

Please see the time table of the group in the attached document. Please, verify the day and time of your presentation, it may be different from the preliminary time. Moreover, some on-site adjustment may still be necessary. The room numbers for general sessions should be given to you upon the registration. The room numbers for the parallel sessions will be announced at the first session of the TSG-6.

We are looking forward seeing you very soon and we wish you a nice and safe trip to Monterrey.

Ali, Arne, Mark, Pablo and Viktor,

TSG-6 Organizing Team members

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Our group will continue the study of the topic undertaken by TSG-4 at the ICME-10 in Copenhagen. We are going to follow up main issues identified and discussed by the group (http://www.icme10.dk/ ,(look for Topic Study Group 4) :

1. Characteristics of giftedness and how such students can be identified.
2. Having identified the group of gifted students, it is now necessary to consider how such students should be met both inside and outside of the classroom.
3. Considering are materials that was presented to gifted students, and discussed in particular, technology that might be of use.
4. Specific examples of problems and investigations.

Further, this group may consider:

a) Literature on the subject of mathematically gifted students? (We welcome survey articles on the subject).

b) Who is a mathematically talented student? What are her or his characteristics? What are the differences between the terms “mathematically gifted, mathematically promising, mathematically talented, mathematically able, mathematical genius, and others used by researchers and practicioners? How does it vary from one country to another?

(c) How can we identify them? What are the ways to search for mathematically gifted students at different ages and settings?

(d) How do we deal with students and kids who think they are (or their family think they are) mathematically gifted, but they are not according to identification criteria?

(e) What is the societal phenomenon of overreacting to mathematically gifted student and how it may affect the life and the future of these students?

(f) How do mathematically gifted students work with mathematics ? What are their strengths and weaknesses on the subject? What are their attitudes and performances? How should we take all this into account in our teaching and assessment practices?

(g) What are special needs for mathematically gifted students (additional trainings, their school and everyday life experiences, their works at home, participation in extracurricular activities such as problem solving, mathematics clubs, mathematics houses, competitions, etc?)

(h) What educational systems should do in order to meet the needs of mathematically gifted? What are the (positive or negative) effects of curriculum as well as its implementation in practice inside or outside school on the development of mathematically gifted students?

(i) How should we teach mathematically gifted students (at different levels) and provide extra curriculum activities for them? How can we as educators or teachers help them to be more creative?

(j) How should we prepare teachers to work with mathematically gifted students?

(k) What are the challenges for gifted students and their mentors and how these challenges can be addressed?

(l) What is the future of a mathematically gifted students and how to help them realize their potential?

(m) What are the resources on the subject? What role may technology play in providing additional resources for mathematically gifted?

(n) Other subjects not identified by the organizers but useful for further studies on the subject.

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The deadline is now extended: new deadline is January, the 3rd Those wishing to join the study group are requested to submit a paper of between 1500 and 2500 words in length that describes their interest in the topic. This contribution should be sent to each of the five members of the committee no later than January 3, 2008 by e-mail. The organizing group expects to make its selection of participation no later than January 20, 2008.

The final schedule of the study group at ICME 11 is expected to be announced by April 1, 2008, when all the accepted and revised papers are published on the web. We look forward to receive your contributions and kindly ask all researchers who are interested on the subject to share their knowledge and experiences on the subject with other members of the group.

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www.amt.canberra.edu.au/icmis16.html
ICMI Study 16 on Challenging Mathematics in and beyond the Classroom

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1. Héctor Rosario, Associate Professor Department of Mathematical Sciences University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus PO Box 9018 Mayagüez, PR 00681

sanskritam@gmail.com

Beautiful Minds Need Able Beholders Preparing Middle School Teachers to Identify and Nurture Mathematical Talent

2. Arne Mogensen Aarhus University College of Education, Denmark Arne.Mogensen@skolekom.dk

The proficiency challenge An action research program on teaching of gifted math students

3. HARVEY B. KEYNES JONATHAN ROGNESS Institute of Technology Center for Educational Programs, University of Minnesota, Vincent Hall 4, 206 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455 rogness@math.umn.edu

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON A PROGRAM FOR MATHEMATICALLY TALENTED STUDENTS

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