ABSTRACT

Essential to the element of discovery in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is the notion that it is the teachers' role to coach students to understand the limits of what they know and leverage their natural curiosity to resolve the gaps in their knowledge. As teachers plan instruction to meet the advanced cognitive needs of gifted students, they must keep in mind the need for access to advanced content knowledge, higher level thinking, conceptual development, problem solving, and real-world application. When planning instruction for gifted students, teachers typically focus on meeting students' cognitive needs. Determining the most effective way to deliver content in a rigorous and engaging way is important, but for gifted students, it is equally important for teachers to plan ways to support their affective needs. In our experience, PBL supports talent spotting, first, because it provides an opportunity to observe student performance that is unlikely to occur when implementing traditional teacher-directed instruction.