New research suggests new ways to nurture gifted children
I was in the GATE program in Utah [1] growing up and it was very project based.  I think all education should encourage projects. In one case, we had to come up with products for younger kids and present and research the ideas, brainstorm, build prototypes, do user testing, and deliver it. A key aspect of the program was brainstorming which no idea is a bad idea but the best ideas floated to the top, this is important to learning.<p>Finland is tops in education and lots of their teaching is letting kids pursue projects together and individually especially, the latter is very important for self-confidence. 
Finland does this through project- or phenomenon-based learning (PBL)[2]. This empowers kids and more closely resembles real life, you constantly have projects of all sorts going on in your life over overlapping timeframes, sometimes in a team, sometimes all by yourself.<p>The best teachers also encourage projects. My 6th grade teacher had Apple II&#x27;s and let us experiment with building games in BASIC of which I built a Tron game. I still think of it to this day. He also always had access to educational games like Oregon Trail. My high school computer lab teacher Mr Iles had gaming, programming and media&#x2F;internet hardware and software setup to experiment with, many of the kids in that class and group are great programmers and some worked for intel while there.  We had TV running on computers and internet before most saw those things and built things on it. He also let us play Scorched Earth and let programming projects be self-driven.  My art teachers did critiques so you learned to take criticism and explain why. At Chandler High School there was a video class where you had to come up with video content, edit, produce, direct, write etc and that was amazing in terms of fun projects where I learned a great deal. All of this led to great educational outcomes both in team projects and individual.<p>As long as a program is project based, a kid from anywhere or any level can benefit.  We need more project based education in the US. Most gifted programs that do well do have a project based element to it, but not dictated to the kids as much as curriculum but a set of requirements and the rest is a creative exercise.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schools.utah.gov&#x2F;curr&#x2F;giftedtalented" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schools.utah.gov&#x2F;curr&#x2F;giftedtalented</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-europe-39889523" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-europe-39889523</a>