Abstract

In this article, self-regulated learning (SRL) is suggested as an alternative to herding high school gifted students in the regular classroom and educating them with the common core curriculum. Research findings on the metacognitive, motivational, and creative processes of SRL in recent decades have presented compelling evidence of the importance of facilitating student control over their learning outcomes, even more so for those learners with gifted abilities as compared to their average-ability peers. The triumvirate theory of SRL characterizes high school gifted students as being able to self-regulate their learning outcomes at a level well beyond that of their average-ability classmates when significant curriculum learning opportunities are implemented for them. By making maximum curriculum provisions for learner control in the learning milieu, fitting conditions can be created for intrinsically motivated, high school gifted students to self-regulate their own learning in an effective and productive manner instead of being reliant on their teachers and being fully compliant to them as their external regulators. Hence, it is emphasized in the article that the triumvirate theory of SRL can be effectively used to transform the practice of traditional teaching in the regular classroom with the primary goal of achieving optimal learning for gifted students. By implementing this innovative theory for gifted students in the mainstream of high school education, a major metamorphosis in the traditional roles of subject teachers can take effect.