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Research to reveal hidden talent in classrooms

September 19, 2005

Merrotsy.thumb.jpgA researcher at The University of New England has received funding for a project that will help regional school communities to identify and encourage gifted students.

The Telstra Foundation has awarded funding of $55,000 for the two-year project led by Dr Peter Merrotsy from UNE’s School of Education. Dr Merrotsy, a specialist in the education of gifted and talented children, will be working in collaboration with the Catholic Schools Office of the Broken Bay Diocese.

Dr Merrotsy (pictured here) said that seven teachers from the Diocese of Broken Bay who had undertaken training in Coolabah Dynamic Assessment would use that method to identify about 25 students who were under-achieving, or whose gifts had gone unrecognised in the classroom. (Coolabah Dynamic Assessment, developed at UNE by Dr Graham Chaffey, was used to identify gifted Aboriginal students in Armidale, he explained.)

The 25 students taking part in the project (all eight-and-nine-year-olds) would be identified by the end of the year, Dr Merrotsy said. The project would then focus on educational intervention to help them express their talents, and explore existing and potential relationships among the students, their families and their teachers that could foster this expression. The title of the project is "A Gifted Synergy – Children and Parents".

Dr Merrotsy explained that many children in the Broken Bay Diocese came from economically disadvantaged families, or from families belonging to cultural minorities, and that these backgrounds often contributed to their under-achievement at school. “The children we are looking for often sit in the classroom wearing a ‘talent mask’, are disengaged from their schooling, and under-achieve,” he said. “But behind that mask there can lie a high potential.”

Dr Merrotsy has conducted research on relationships between gifted students and their parents and grandparents. “I’m interested in these relationships, and their potential for fostering children’s talents,” he said. “I’m also interested in the extent to which the parents of gifted under-achievers might be gifted under-achievers themselves.”

“The project aims at encouraging greater involvement in schools by both students and parents by changing teachers’ perceptions of under-achievers and under-achievers’ perceptions of themselves,” he continued.

He said the Catholic Schools Office had sought UNE as a research partner because of the University’s reputation in the area of gifted education. “And we’re very grateful for the support of the Telstra Foundation, which funds innovative, community- based research projects,” he added.


Media contact: Dr Peter Merrotsy, School of Education, UNE (02) 6773 3832 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.
The PHOTOGRAPH of Dr Peter Merrotsy displayed here is at:
http://photodatabase.une.edu.au/albums/incoming/2005/monthly/September/Peter%20Merrotsy.jpg

Posted by Jim Scanlan at September 19, 2005 03:55 PM