This is the first ever handbook on giftedness and talent development for the Asia-Pacific region. It discusses important issues for an important group of students, addresses a gap in the current understanding of gifted students in the region, traverses substantial intellectual terrain, and draws on past and present research literature.
The handbook brings together contributions from 18 countries, providing a diverse, unique and comprehensive contemporary research and practice on giftedness and talent development in the Asia-Pacific region. It highlights contemporary issues and incorporates important topics such as conceptions, identification, curriculum, and programs. Chapters in the book will include a stronger focus on pedagogy that could assist researchers, academics and educators, post-graduate students, families, advocates, teachers and practitioners, and other stakeholders to support gifted students. It also informs pre-service education programs in gifted education, in-service professional learning programs, and future research and practice in this region of the world.
Susen R. Smith
GERRIC, School of Education
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Dr. Susen Smith is a GERRIC Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Gifted and Special Education at the School of Education, University of NSW, Australia, where she teaches in the Master in Gifted Education program and supervises PhD students. She has four decades of leadership, teaching, and research experience from pre-K to adult education. Her research and practice interests include: differentiating curriculum and pedagogy for diverse student needs in multi-disciplinary contexts, gifted underachievement and indigeneity, twice-exceptionalities, social-emotional learning, academic engagement, enrichment, education for sustainability, and community outreach programs. Susen is published internationally and is on the editorial boards of the Gifted Child Quarterly,Roeper Review, International Journal for Talent Development and Creativity, and the Australasian Journal of Gifted Education. She has been a visiting scholar to Columbia University, Imperial College London, CUNY, National Taipei University of Education, and the Hong Kong Institute of Education; has acquired many competitive research grants; is widely published; and keynoted at national and international conferences. She has been an academic adviser for educational departmental policies and programs for decades in addition to having on-going advisory board and association memberships. Susen chaired the inaugural national GERRIC Gifted Futures Forum for Talent Enhancement in Australia and has organised regional, national, and world conferences and many gifted education outreach enrichment programs across several universities in Australia and internationally, such as the TalentEd program and the 2eMPower project. She created the Model of Dynamic Differentiation (MoDD) for supporting student diversity across the learning continuum, provides professional learning across Australia and internationally, and is Editor of the first ever Handbook of Giftedness and Talent Development in the Asia-Pacific, in the series Springer International Handbooks of Education. E-mail: susen.smith@unsw.edu.au
