Pedagogical Intervention with a Mathematically Gifted Student from the Underground Profile: Case Study

Abstract

The topic of gifted students has become the focus of the professional publications by a number of pedagogical researchers. Many of them point to the fact that the giftedness of these students is not always apparent in the school environment, so these students are often not identified as gifted. The article focuses on the pitfalls related to the identification of mathematically gifted students in the educational process and points to the reasons for this phenomenon. It presents the theory corresponding to this topic and follow-up research that deals with a case study using qualitative research methods. The selected case study focuses on a student who appeared to be mathematically gifted before entering primary education, but his giftedness did not manifest itself in the school environment. The student was observed by the researcher for a long period of time and was involved in a ten-month intervention aimed at cultivating his mathematical thinking and expression and developing metacognition through appropriately selected mathematical tasks. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with the student, his mother, and his maths teacher, with the aim of identifying and describing phenomena related to situations where the school environment did not allow the student to be offered support or assistance that would have helped him in the learning process.