Educational Practices on a Brazilian Gifted and Talented Program

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine to what extent activities implemented at the educational program for the high ability and talented students at the Brazilian Federal District public schools, were in accordance with the adopted theoretical model. A second purpose was to investigate instructional climate in the resource rooms observed. Four resource classrooms, attended by 77 students, and their 11 teachers were observed. An observation checklist was used to check the educational practices implemented in the program. The results indicated that, in spite of the teachers' theoretical background on giftedness, difficulties were encountered by them to transfer this knowledge to real teaching practice, especially in the implementation of the model adopted in the program.