Participation in contests and Olympiads as a form of development of gifted students

This article is devoted to the study of specifics of participation of students in contests and olympiads as a way of developing giftedness. The authors substantiate the relevance of the issue under consideration and the significance of contest-olympiad movement in educational process. The article considers theoretic-methodological approaches to the definition of “giftedness”, quality features of revealing the presence of giftedness in a student. The authors study the specifics of student participation in contests and olympiads as a special type of development, formation and implementation of creative talent. Special attention is paid to the description of the experience of the organizing competitive and olympiad activity among the students at ISEDT RAS Research-and-Education Center for Economics and Information Technology (Vologda). For 12 years of functioning of the school extracurricular course at the Research-and-Education Center, particular emphasis has been placed on providing students with opportunities for developing their ability to study core subjects through the presentation of results of participation in contests and olympiads at local and regional, national and international levels. The main purpose of the contest-olympiad activity at the Research-and-Education Center is to identify the students that have special inclination to study economics at the profile level, and develop their abilities by engaging them in active cognitive, research and creative activity. To achieve this goal, the Research-and-Education Center developed a special system, the main component of which is the strengthening of training in the framework of classes in economics and the elective course “fundamentals of research” and organization of participation of students first in contests and olympiads at the Research-and- Education Center and then - their participation in external events. The article analyzes the activity of the Research-and-Education Center on the organization of students’ participation in contests and olympiads, reveals existing problems in this sphere and proposes ways of their solution. In general, it can be concluded that the work of the Center contributes to the deepening of students’ knowledge, helps develop their creative abilities and personalities and is productive in nature, which is proved by high performance results of competitive-olympiad activities of students of the Research-and-Education Center for the entire period of its existence.