Development of social competence of teacher-tutors in supporting gifted children in crisis situations

Introduction. As shown by the modern practice of education, a number of difficulties of pedagogical and psychological nature arise in the work with gifted children, caused by a complex of various factors, including differing giftedness types, gifted child’s socialisation features, peculiarities of manifestation and development of children’s motivational, intellectual and creative potential, teachers’ unpreparedness and insufficient competence with regard to design of forms and methods of working with such children. In cases of crisis situations in the development and socialisation of children, most pedagogues experience difficulties, which actualises the need to raise their competence level in understanding the problems connected with changes in the personality and psyche of gifted students. In this regard, the changed strategic educational guidelines have prioritised the problem of high-quality training of the teaching staff for due support and education of gifted children. The purpose of the article is to present the possibilities for teacher-tutors’ social competence development in terms of building support for gifted children. Materials and methods. The study involved 150 pedagogues of general education organisations of Krasnodar region and the Republic of Adygea (Russian Federation). The survey focused on the issues of teacher training in the aspect of working with gifted children, building support for gifted children; the psychological/pedagogical component of development of children with signs of giftedness, etc. Results. The analysis of the initial state of indicators reflecting the extent of formation of professional competence components in teachers working with gifted children showed that 28% of the teachers demonstrated a high level which is characterised by marked effectiveness of professional activity as well as creative activity, responsibility for the development of a gifted child. A total of 60% of teachers demonstrated a reproductive (average) level characterised by forecasting the learner’s further personal development at an average level when the selection of content, methods and technologies of teaching takes place according to a cliché. A total of 12% of teachers showed an adaptive (low) level of professional competence characterised by difficulties in building an individual educational strategy for teaching and educating a gifted child. Conclusion. The teacher-tutor is essentially an important figure in the process of psychological and pedagogical support of gifted children. The efficiency of his/her professional activity largely depends on taking into account the peculiarities of a gifted child, the knowledge and ability to use the forms and methods of presenting the material with regard for the special educational needs of such children, the ability to interact with all participants of the psychological/pedagogical support and tutoring.