Improving rural teachers' attitudes towards acceleration

Abstract

Gifted students see both educational benefits and barriers as a result of living in rural communities. Benefits include increased individual attention and community engagement; barriers include limited curricular options (Lawrence, 2009). Acceleration is an option that has positive academic outcomes but is underused, especially in rural areas. Even teachers with experience teaching gifted students can be hesitant to recommend acceleration. This position paper, supported with evidence from the literature and from personal experience with an online course involving rural teachers, explains the objections teachers have to acceleration and why there is a need to improve rural teachers’ attitudes towards acceleration.

Keywords

Rural gifted acceleration talent

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