Recommendations

The research study examined the Chamizer challenges method as an impetus for cognitive development as a strategy of teaching that develops thinking and examined it as a learning environment that mediates between thinking styles and demographic and personal variables.

5.6.1 Recommendations for Further Research

• To examine and isolate the meaning of the learning environment among gifted and talented students when in the present constellation it was not found to mediate between thinking styles and achievement, it is recommended to perform a continuation study based on an experimental design that will consists of an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group will cope with the Chamizer challenges with the teacher’s mediation, a technology rich environment, versus the control group, in which the students will receive the riddles in a random manner from an Internet site without mediation. The solutions will be sent to a joint center.

• It is recommended to perform a continuation research study to present a larger and more diverse sample (additional variables) through which it will be possible to differentiate between different population sectors that represent the phenomenon in the student population (native language, parental education, date of immigration, etc.).

5.6.2 Applicative Recommendations

• The present research study found differences in the evaluation of the work environment between students in the traditional schools and students in the Gordon Center. The research findings show lower scores of the Gordon Center students for their perception of the learning environment.

This finding requires the re-examination of the expectations in regards to the satisfaction of the Gordon Center children so as to allow levels of development and higher achievements. The design of a learning environment for

gifted students needs to enable an opportunity to develop personal traits such as creativity, curiosity, insight, perseverance, and imagination, tolerance, and ambiguity.

All this in the development of skills of cultivation of social awareness in discussions, researches, and surveys through teamwork. The program for the cultivation of the gifted student needs to be based on the assessment of the student’s cognitive, personal, and social characteristics and on the recognition of what differentiates between him and his same age peer of average intelligence. Only through the recognition of the characteristics versus the mapping of the gifted child’s needs will it be possible to provide a suitable solution to the unique needs (Smutn, 2001; Strip and Hirsch, 2000; Winebrenner, 2001).

• The present research study raises the following question:

What is the appropriate / challenging environment that motivates success? The awareness of the ability observed in the present research study of students in traditional classes to cope successfully in a challenging environment, as the Intel program headed by Dan Chamizer proposes, necessitates continuing to assimilate in the traditional curricula challenging programs of the type examined in the present research. This recommendation requires a training program of the role-holders in education who have the ability to lead projects of this type. In addition, it is recommended to introduce into the study schedule of the students in programs for training teaching practitioners the method of accompaniment, instruction, and leadership of unique programs in a challenging environment. Thus, a challenge is created for them as emissaries, educators, and instillers of educational and scholastic values in the educational system at all levels without difference of the students’ level of intelligence. These characteristics of the successful student on the one hand and the teacher who enables growth of the graduate on the other hand constitute today the vision of the educational system in the 21^st century (Abuab, 2007).

• The need for change of the learning environments is obligated by reality and is linked to the cultural and technological changes and globalization that we all are experiencing today. The desired change should be based on their perception of the learning environments as a constellation of factors that should ensure the appropriate preparation of the future generation and educational and integrative perceptions. These should have challenging ability beyond the stimuli that the students find through the technology to which they are exposed more than ever.

• External factors with proven ability to intervene as a tool for educational development should be encouraged to join. This encouragement causes the decision making of the educational institutions in regards to the appropriate training of the participants, to awaken a process that allows the involvement of the factors that act inside and outside of the educational system. This process needs to lead to the adoption of the principles upon which the initiative is based and to assimilate them so that they become guidelines for everyday work in the institution.

• It is necessary to create an assimilation program beyond one-time events so that a program like that of Chamizer and Intel will be integrated into the school curriculum. Today the existing constellation is not flexible enough and it can even be argued that there is considerable difficulty in the introduction of changes in such a bureaucratic system (Fox, 1998). Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that autonomy is required in the decision of the education institution in regards to the preference of contents and learning methods, beyond those dictated by the nationwide system.

• The access to learning resources (computers, technology) is a main point. It is necessary to address the place of the resources in regards to the desired changes and primarily to the place of modern technology. In addition, the physical place in the system – the access to it and the integration in the teaching and learning processes is very important.

• It is necessary to acknowledge the importance of the element of social climate. The social aspect, which primarily focuses on the ability to cooperate between the different individuals in the system (students, teachers, principals, parents, and other interested parties), is a main aspect in all that pertains to the promotion of change processes in the approaches of education and development of the future generation. A process of change does not develop by itself (see Fox, 1998; Levy, 2000). To create change and primarily so that the system will develop the flexibility to perform changes in the everyday life, it is necessary to distribute authorities and to allow the autonomy of the school as an organization that manufactures the product of the highest importance – the students. The realization of these goals can be through the cooperation of all the interested parties, including the students themselves. In this way we create the shared inner motivation that Herzberg refers to (in Bar-Hayim, 1996) regarding the creation of a challenging class learning environment and we prepare graduates towards higher and more creative achievements with values of greater discovery, concern, and commitment to one another.