Chemistry Reference
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Affect and Meeting the Needs of the Gifted
Chemistry Learner: Providing Intellectual
Challenge to Engage Students in Enjoyable
Learning
Keith S. Taber
Abstract Meeting the needs of gifted learners is normally considered from a
cognitive perspective—a matter of incorporating sufficient higher-order cognitive
tasks in learning activities. A major problem in the education of gifted learners is
lack of challenge, which is needed to ensure such students are able to make
progress. Lack of challenge can also influence learner motivation and even lead
to boredom. Meeting the needs of gifted learners is therefore a matter of matching
task demand to their abilities to meet their emotional as well as their cognitive
needs. The present chapter suggests that an aim in teaching should be to engage
learners in activities that offer an experience of
'
flow
'
, which is achieved when
learning demands offer sufficient but not insurmountable challenge. Flow is an
inherently motivating experience but requires a suitably high level of task demand
to maintain deep engagement. The chapter draws on an example of a science
enrichment programme that offered activities that were demanding for the 14-15-
year-old learners because they drew upon cognitively challenging themes (related
to aspects of the nature of science) and required a high level of self- (or peer)
regulation of learning to provide high task demand. An example of one of the
activities concerning the role of models in chemistry is described. Students
recognised that learning activities offered greater complexity, open-endedness
and scope for independent learning than their usual school science lessons. The
features that students reported in their feedback as making the work more chal-
lenging also tended to be those they identified as making the activities enjoyable.
Keywords Gifted Affective domain Flow Metacognition ASCEND project
Nature of models in chemistry
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