3.2.11 How Do You Prepare Gifted and Talented Teachers for Student Diversity?

Many books, articles and videos discuss the diversity of students within our schools, particularly that many students from diverse backgrounds are overlooked in selection for gifted programs. As instructors in an urban university online program, we face the challenge of educating our graduate students to provide leadership in their schools concerning the needs of these diverse students. To compound the difficulty of our work, our urban university draws participation from surrounding rural districts with seemingly different attributes for their students. How, then do we meet the needs of our diverse educators? We start with foundations of knowledge in gifted education from solid sources delivered by strong leadership who themselves are educators in urban and rural settings. Our instructors work as a team, sometimes co teaching ,but always collaborating to revise coursework based on participant feedback about what is effective in their settings. In the program, graduate students complete assignments customizing the process and product for their own students’ needs. Through shared activities, teachers become aware of approaches beyond their instructional environment. Assignments include discussion boards, student groups, and collaboration through digital media tools. Working together teachers begin to realize that there may be significant ethnic differences, but the cultural issues are ultimately quite similar. Students are under-identified , funds for services are limited, and staff to serve multiple buildings are inadequate. Our teachers work together to solve issues for their “overlooked gems”. For the session, university staff will engage participants in an interactive format

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