Edutalks & handouts
Edutalk 5 Raising the bar. The competencies of specialists in gifted education
Internationally, there has been shifts in our understanding of the importance of meeting the needs of gifted learners. These shifts call on the knowledge and skills of specialists in gifted education. This has consequences for the way we educate these specialists. Basis for their teacher education should be a competency profile of specialists in gifted education with interplaying with competencies usually associated with general education. In this session, a competency matrix for specialists in gifted education that reflects this development will be presented. The study describes what knowledge and skills could be considered examples of the 25 competencies that are recommended. Stakeholders (teachers, specialists in gifted education and parents; N=354) were presented with these indicators and asked which of them they considered important. Their selections provide insight into their understanding of the competencies of specialists in gifted education. The selections also provide a better understanding of what stakeholders consider to be important for gifted education.