Study Of Education Program For Gifted Youth At Stanford University

Title:Study of Education Program for Gifted Youth at Stanford UniversitySince the late 20th Century,along with America entering the information society,many first-class universities in America has been exploring and striving to research how to apply the network technology to gifted education so that academically gifted and talented can still get highly individual study environment suitable to their study speed,contents and ways and methods in the general popular study environment in the times when the computer network technology is developing increasingly and rapidly.Among their efforts,the EPGY(abbreviation for the Education Program for Gifted Youth at Stanford University) has caused wide public concern for its wide influence.In our country,some educational organizations and media has briefly introduced partial contents and implementation situation of the program and also begun to introduce it in practice.However,as is shown in Chinese and foreign related literature,little study has been undertaken on the systemic and whole introduction and research about its contents and implementation status,no research has been conducted about its background,and not any analysis of its characteristics by comparisons of this program with similar education programs for gifted youth conducted at other universities in America.On the basis of systematically summarizing Chinese and foreign related literature,the author makes a case study of the EPGY at Stanford University in America using the theories and methods of Comparative Education.This article explores the background,history,contents, implementation status and characteristics of the program,with the purpose of understanding and mastering how first-class universities in America apply the network technology to gifted education so that academically gifted and talented can still get highly individual study environment suitable to their study speed,contents and ways and methods in the general popular study environment in the times when the computer network technology is developing increasingly and rapidly.With this study,the author attempts to find out the reasons why the EPGY has made wide influence in over 30 countries and some revelations to our education for gifted youth.The whole paper covers five parts:part one with title introduction puts forward research problems of this article and summaries the foreign and domestic literature,and puts forward the research designing including purposes and significance,contents,methods and structure;part two focuses on the background and history of the EPGY exploring the direct reasons why the program created and its social background on four aspects including the development of American gifted education,the development of American network education and long-distance education,the gifted education of Stanford and the long-distance education of Stanford,etc., introduceing its four developmental stages and pointing out three characteristics of its evolution accroding to the time clue;part three is the contents and implementation of the EPGY,mainly covering the respective aim,object,courses,instuctional models,implementation procedures and methods and results of four programs constituting the EPGY,Long-distance Education,Summer Institute,School Program and Online High School;part four summarizes eight characteristics of the EPGY by comparison of EPGY with similar education programs for gifted youth conducted at John Hopkins University and Duke University in America;part five gives conclusions on four aspects covering the background,history,current status and characteristics,and provides some revelations to the gifted youth education of China and possible subsequent research.