Using the National Gifted Education Standards for Teacher Preparation

Copyright ©2016, National Association for Gifted Children and The Association for the Gifted, Council for Exceptional Children

Edited by Lacy Compton

Cover and layout design by Raquel Trevino

ISBN-13: 978-1-61821-478-2

No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

At the time of this book’s publication, all facts and figures cited are the most current available. All telephone numbers, addresses, and websites URLs are accurate and active. All publications, organizations, websites, and other resources exist as described in the book, and all have been verified. The authors and Prufrock Press Inc. make no warranty or guarantee concerning the information and materials given out by organizations or content found at websites, and we are not responsible for any changes that occur after this book’s publication. If you find an error, please contact Prufrock Press Inc.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

References

About the Authors

Foreword

Informed standards are the foundation of quality teacher preparation programs. Standards define the destination, suggest routes, and provide landmarks to creating programs that graduate effective gifted education teachers who then positively influence our high-ability students. The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) views the NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted Education as the benchmark of excellence.

This guidebook provides the map to using the NAGC-CEC standards to build an effective teacher preparation program, including information on providing quality clinical experiences and measuring the outcomes of those experiences. You will find information on how the 2006 and 2013 teacher preparation standards differ and the research base used in creating the standards. The guidebook was written by teacher educators who are among the best in the field of gifted education.

There are two important new sections in this updated guide. One addresses creating partnerships with K–12 schools, parents, and the community at large. Gifted education is a collaborative effort, and providers need to be strategic in sharing the value of and the specifics of effective gifted education strategies. The other new section discusses how to work with our general education colleagues to incorporate gifted education into general education teacher preparation courses. This is crucially important considering the general education teacher is typically the gateway to gifted education assessments and services or, in many cases, is the primary provider of advanced coursework.

Finally, information is provided on preparing a program report for CAEP program review. This section includes examples of quality elements, as well as areas of concern that can assist programs as they apply to become nationally recognized.

We are seeing increased attention to the connection between developing high levels of giftedness and talent in all student populations and the success of the nation. This guidebook will assist schools and districts in supporting that talent development by graduating superior gifted educators.

George Betts

NAGC President

2015–2017

Acknowledgments

Although the authors are responsible for the content, this book incorporates the 2013 teacher preparation standards and builds on the previous guidebook that resulted from the combined efforts of numerous colleagues who contributed to the standards’ development and their application to higher education settings. Of particular note is Jane Clarenbach at the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) who provides ongoing assistance to universities seeking national recognition; Cheryll Adams, chair of the NAGC Professional Standards Committee and representative from The Association for the Gifted on the Council for Exceptional Children’s Knowledge and Skills Subcommittee; the boards of the National Association for Gifted Children and The Association for the Gifted; and the authors of the first guidebook—Susan K. Johnsen, Joyce VanTassel-Baska, and Ann Robinson. We also want to thank Lacy Compton, Prufrock Press, for her fine editorial work on this guidebook. We especially appreciate faculty from higher education institutions who so generously contributed examples of coursework and assessments and who believe that these teacher preparation standards will improve the quality of gifted education for Pre-K–12 students.

Chapter 1

Introduction and Background

SUSAN K. JOHNSEN AND JOYCE VANTASSEL-BASKA

Introduction

Since the national teacher preparation standards in gifted education were first released in 2006, two important events have occurred in the area of standards development. First, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education’s (NCATE) Specialty Areas Studies Board (SASB; 2004) developed guidelines recommending that Specialized Professional Associations (SPAs; i.e., teaching specialty areas such as social studies, gifted education, science, special education) reduce the number of their teacher preparation standards to 7 and the number of elements to 28 to facilitate both the preparation of program reports and the review process. Second, the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC, 2013) released the Model Core Teaching Standards as a resource for states, districts, professional organizations, teacher education programs, teachers, and others as they develop policies and programs to prepare, license, support, evaluate, and reward today’s teachers (p. 5). These two events precipitated a review by the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) of the Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education (2013 Teacher Preparation Standards) and a consequent revision to realign the 2006 Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education (2006 Teacher Preparation Standards) with the new guidelines and InTASC standards (for the complete development process, see pages 6–13).

With the release of the 2013 Teacher Preparation Standards, NAGC’s Professional Standards Committee (PSC) decided to update the teacher preparation resources in order to help not only universities realign their programs to the new standards, but also provide guidance to others involved in professional learning and development such as public and private Pre-K–12 schools, state departments of education, professional associations, and community organizations. The authors have revised the guide, Using the National Gifted Education Standards for University Teacher Preparation Programs (Johnsen, VanTassel-Baska, & Robinson, 2008), and updated previous chapters related to the rationale for standards, the development process, the 2013 Teacher Preparation Standards and their relationship to the 2006 Teacher Preparation Standards, and the research base for the standards. Similar to the previous guide, this revised edition provides specific examples and ways for integrating the standards within the Educator Preparation Provider’s (EPP) conceptual framework, courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, key assessments that operationalize the standards for candidates, and clinical experiences. Moreover, it provides a new chapter that describes how to develop a SPA program report for national recognition status as part of the accreditation process administered now by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), with particular emphasis on developing rubrics to evaluate teacher candidate performance. (Note. NCATE merged with the Teacher Education Accreditation Council [TEAC] in 2013 to form CAEP, which is now the national accreditor for teacher preparation programs. Readers will note references to both organizations.)

Another new chapter within this guide focuses on how to develop partnerships with preservice teacher education programs, Pre-K–12 schools, other educator preparation providers, and community organizations. Specific examples of partnership activities are discussed that highlight the integration of gifted education standards within general education teacher preparation courses, support for new teachers, accountability, continuous improvement, and interrelationships among various entities that promote Pre-K–12 gifted students’ learning. Also included in this revised guidebook are the new Advanced Standards in Gifted Education and how they might be used for developing programs for educators who already have their initial certificates in gifted education.

This guidebook concludes with a discussion of challenges and a rich set of resources in the appendices, including sample course syllabi, a bibliography of the research literature related to the field of gifted education, and an alignment of the 2013 Teacher Preparation Standards with the NAGC Pre-K–Grade 12 Gifted Education Programming Standards.

Rationale for Standards

According to InTASC (2013), standards serve three major functions: They provide a common vision of where educators need to go, they set a level of performance that needs to be met, and they provide a way of assessing progress so that each teacher has the support and opportunity to meet the standards. The standards therefore provide educators with meaningful outcomes to assess in optimizing candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

Standards have benefits particular to the field of gifted education. In order to ensure equity and systematic talent search and programming, it is essential that practicing teachers and candidates are educated in the relevant theory, research, pedagogy, and management techniques important for developing and sustaining classroom-based opportunities specifically designed for gifted learners. Educators must develop a deep understanding of the critical concepts and principles of their discipline and, by completion, are able to use discipline-specific practices flexibly to advance the learning of all students toward attainment of college and career-readiness standards (CAEP, 2013, Standard 1, p. 2). Standards therefore assist candidates and practicing teachers in having specific content knowledge and pedagogical skills in gifted education so that they are able to develop gifted learners’ talents for high-level functioning in the 21st century.

Because gifted education is not federally mandated, these standards are able to provide a structure that creates consistency across states, universities, and schools involved in teacher preparation, development, licensure, and evaluation. This consistency ensures that each gifted learner receives a challenging curriculum and the pedagogical supports needed to master it effectively.

Standards also are able to provide a curriculum template for the development of courses and other professional learning opportunities so that candidates and practicing teachers are able to develop their knowledge and pedagogical skills systematically. In the case of candidates who want to be gifted educators, they need to learn how to develop, deliver, and differentiate curriculum for gifted learners, often within an inclusive classroom. The sophistication and complexity of the instructional practices that work in such a setting need time to be developed. Standards are able to provide guidance about what practices are effective, how they might be implemented, and resources needed for improving instruction to deepen learning for gifted and talented students.

Standards also offer a focus and a direction for new research efforts that link seminal ideas about teaching with ways of studying their effects on gifted and talented students’ learning. Standards, then, provide criteria for selecting problems for which solutions may be found and function as consensus-building agents within and across institutions.

The systemic reform movement in education displays many of the features just described. It causes educators to reconstruct their reality based on new views of teaching and learning, as well as new assumptions about the nature of learners. It calls for a coordinated response in schools to the major problems of student achievement and alienation. It suggests that schools have to be reorganized as collegial and collaborative learning communities and that classrooms have to focus on maximum competency standards designed to create competent adults in the society. It also suggests that teacher preparation institutions need to partner with Pre-K–12 learning communities in working together toward learning how candidates impact student learning.

Differences Between the 2013 and 2006 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education

The 2013 Teacher Preparation Standards are closely aligned to the 2006 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards. As mentioned previously, the 2013 Teacher Preparation Standards were revised to align with the InTASC standards and to meet the SASB recommendations (i.e., reduction to 7 standards and 28 elements). Although the content of the standards and the elements are not substantially changed (see Table 1.1), the following differences should be noted:

1.Reduction of standards. Formerly, the 10 standards included Foundations (Standard 1), Development and Characteristics of Learners (Standard 2), Individual Learning Differences (Standard 3), Instructional Strategies (Standard 4), Learning Environments and Social Interactions (Standard 5), Language and Communication (Standard 6), Instructional Planning (Standard 7), Assessment (Standard 8), Professional and Ethical Practice (Standard 9), and Collaboration (Standard 10). These were integrated into seven standards: Learner Development and Individual Learning Differences (formerly Standards 2 and 3), Learning Environments (formerly Standards 5 and 6), Curricular Content Knowledge (formerly Standard 7), Assessment (formerly Standard 8), Instructional Planning and Strategies (formerly Standards 4 and 7), Professional Learning and Ethical Practice (formerly Standards 1 and 9), and Collaboration (formerly Standard 10). (See Table 1.1 for a comparison between the 2013 and the 2006 standards; for a reverse comparison [i.e., 2006 standards are aligned to the 2013 standards], see Appendix A.)

2.Reduction of elements. As the 77 elements from the former standards were reduced to 28 and placed into the new 7 standards, they were reviewed for redundancy and clarity. Elements were eliminated if they were redundant and closely related elements were combined. Elements focused on what the candidate needed to know and be able to do instead of student performance. Elements were not only kept general to incorporate the knowledge and skills from the former elements but were also restated so that the content of the element was clearly conveyed.

3.Rewritten narratives. To ensure that gifted educators understood each of the standards and their corresponding elements, narratives were crafted that elaborated the required foundational knowledge and skills required and incorporated the detail in the former elements. For example, with the Assessment Standard, the types of assessments were elaborated to include quantitative, qualitative, formal, and informal assessments of behavior, learning, achievement, and environments.

4.Updated research base. The research base for the former standards was updated to ensure that the standards and each of the elements were supported by the latest research regarding effective practices with students. This research included literature/theory-based, research-based (i.e., empirical), and practice-based research. Any elements that were not supported by research were discarded.

5.Alignment of language to InTASC standards. In developing the titles for the revised standards, CEC and NAGC used the language from the 2011 InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards (see Table 1.2). This common language provides opportunities for teacher educators to collaborate not only within the field of gifted education but also across other teacher preparation disciplines.

It should be noted that Standard 3, Curricular Content Knowledge, was contained only within elements of Standard 7 in the former standards. Its change to a stand-alone standard stresses the importance of developing the gifted candidates’ understanding of both general and specialized curricula. This firm foundation of the role of central concepts, structures of the discipline, and tools of inquiry allows the candidate to understand how to organize knowledge, integrate cross-disciplinary skills, and develop meaningful learning progressions for gifted and advanced learners. This understanding is the first step toward developing specialized content domains that incorporate advanced, accelerated, conceptually challenging, in-depth, distinctive, and/or complex content.

6.Alignment to the NAGC Pre-K–Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards. Since 2006, the National Association for Gifted Children revised and aligned its 1998 Program Standards to reflect the principles contained in the NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards. The program standards for Pre-K to grade 12 gifted education programs and services were therefore updated to incorporate more diversity, special education, technology, and differentiation. The result was the development of the 2010 NAGC Pre-K–Grade 12 Gifted Education Programming Standards. The programming standards, along with the 2006 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards, were considered in revising and developing the 2013 teacher preparation standards, providing continuity and cohesion across all of the standards in gifted education.

Table 1.1

Comparison of 2013 NAGC-CEC to 2006 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education

Table 1.2

Comparison of 2013 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education to the 2011 InTASC Standards

The 2013 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education

The Development Process

The Council for Exceptional Children, The Association for the Gifted (CEC-TAG), and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), the two major professional organizations that provide leadership in the field of gifted education, were involved in the development of the 2013 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards. These initial standards for teachers of students with gifts and talents used the CEC process for standards development and were aligned to the 2006 NAGC-CEC Teacher Knowledge and Skill Standards for Gifted Education. CEC-TAG and NAGC initiated a review process in 2011 to realign the 2006 NAGC-CEC Teacher Preparation Standards and its knowledge base and research, guided by the SASB 2004 guidelines and the 2011 release of the InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards. The Professional Standards and Practices Standing Committee (CEC-PSPSC) and the Knowledge and Skills Subcommittee (CEC-KSS) of the Council for Exceptional Children and the NAGC Professional Standards Committee (NAGC-PSC) provided oversight for the process. During the realignment process, a wide range of stakeholders and experts was consulted during numerous meetings and conference calls over a 2-year period. Each meeting offered the opportunity to provide input, typically asking participants to comment on the most recent draft of the standards or to add to a list of research support for each standards area. The timeline and description of activities are outlined below:

1.Information about the realignment process was presented to NAGC-PSC at NAGC’s Annual Conference in November 2009. The Professional Standards Committee was informed of the need to reduce the number of standards to 7 and the number of elements to 28 to conform to NCATE’s Specialty Area Studies Board recommendations. This realignment needed to occur by fall of 2013 when the revised standards needed to be submitted for approval to NCATE (now CAEP). The NAGC-PSC recommended that the revision follow the CEC realignment process.

2.The standards were reduced from 10 to 7 at the CEC Annual Conference in April 2010. The CEC-KSS and the CEC-PSPSC identified seven standards that aligned to CEC’s Common Core initial licensure standards.

3.CEC’s Initial Level Special Educator Preparation Standards were realigned at the CEC Annual Conference, April 2011. CEC-KSS began the realignment process of CEC’s Initial Level Special Educator Preparation Standards to meet SASB recommendations and to incorporate the new InTASC standards. To ensure that knowledge and skills from the previous standards are included, no substantive changes are made to the content.

4.CEC-KSS reviewed the realigned CEC Initial Level Special Educator Preparation Standards at its fall meeting in October 2011, and CEC-PSPSC reviewed the realigned standards at its meeting in Washington, DC, in January 2012.

5.The NAGC-PSC reviewed the 7 standards and began the realignment process of key elements of the 2006 Teacher Preparation Standards in January 2012. The NAGC-PSC reviewed the draft CEC Initial Level Special Educator Preparation Standards and members began realigning the elements to the seven standards. The realignment process included these steps:

»The elements from the 2006 NAGC-CEC standards were placed into the seven realigned CEC Initial Level Special Educator Preparation Standards.

»Elements were eliminated if they were redundant or were combined with closely related elements.

»Each element was reviewed to ensure that it related to what a teacher does, rather than what a student does.

»Elements were kept general but needed to convey the element clearly.

»Elements were reviewed to ensure they did not include specific methods or strategies.

»When not important to a given element, subjective qualifiers, such as appropriate or effective, were avoided.

»Long and partial lists were removed unless there were only a few inclusive items.

»Parenthetical