2024 Initial Practice-Based Professional Preparation Standards
CEC Initial Practice-Based Professional Preparation Standards for Gifted Educators
Released in 2024, this set of standards is a revision and update to the 2012 Initial Gifted Educator Preparation Standards. Created in collaboration with CEC’s Special Interest Division, The Association for the Gifted (TAG), and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), these comprehensive standards are designed to enhance the preparation and ongoing professional development of educators who work with students demonstrating gifts and talents and/or exceptionalities.
Field Experience Standard
Gifted education candidates progress through a series of planned and developmentally sequenced field experiences for the full range of ages, types and levels of abilities, and collaborative opportunities that are appropriate to the license or roles. These field experiences are supervised by qualified professionals.
Standard 1: Engaging in Professional Learning and Ethical Practice
Candidates engage in ongoing professional learning; conduct action research; and use foundational knowledge of the field of gifted education, legal policies and procedures, research, professional ethical principles, evidence-based practices, and reflections to create inclusive environments, inform gifted education practice, and advocate to meet the needs of each learner while considering their diversity.
| 1.1 |
Candidates communicate their professional learning needs and engage in activities to improve their overall knowledge of and effectiveness with students with gifts and talents. |
| 1.2 | Candidates model respect for diversity, make decisions that promote equity, and create inclusive learning environments for students with gifts and talents, utilizing foundational knowledge of gifted education, and reflecting how diverse perspectives and historical and current issues influence professional practice. |
| 1.3 | Candidates' practices are guided by standards, ethical principles, and legal policies and procedures relevant to diverse populations of students with gifts and talents. |
| 1.4 | Candidates use evidence-based practices to guide instruction and advocate for improved outcomes for students with gifts and talents and their families, paying particular attention to traditionally underserved and underrepresented populations. Component 1.5. Candidates advance the profession by applying evidence-based research to practice, conducting action research, and using reflection to improve their practices. |
Standard 2: Understanding and Supporting Learner Characteristics, Development, and Individual Learning Differences
Candidates understand how gifted learners grow and develop in cognitive, social, and emotional areas, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually and asynchronously within and across domains and are influenced by cultural, economic, and individual abilities and disabilities. They use this understanding to design learning experiences, provide responsive instruction, and advocate for students’ interests, strengths, and needs.
| 2.1 | Candidates apply their understanding of how cognitive, social, and emotional characteristics of students with gifts and talents interact with their environment to provide responsive instruction and advocate for their needs. |
| 2.2 | Candidates apply their understanding of asynchronous human development and individual differences to respond to the interests, strengths, and needs of students with gifts and talents. |
| 2.3 | Candidates apply their understanding of how diversity influences the characteristics, learning, and development of students with gifts and talents and design meaningful and challenging learning experiences. |
Standard 3: Demonstrating Subject Matter Content and Specialized Curricular Knowledge
Candidates implement advanced content and culturally responsive curriculum by modifying the general or selecting, modifying, or designing specialized curriculum to advance the learning progress for students with gifts and talents.
| 3.1 | Candidates organize knowledge, integrate cross-disciplinary skills, and develop meaningful learning progressions within and across grade levels to support culturally responsive curriculum by applying knowledge of the role of central concepts, structures of the discipline, and tools of inquiry of the academic subject-matter content areas they teach. |
| 3.2 | Candidates design and implement learning and performance modifications for diverse students with gifts and talents that enhance creativity, support acceleration, and ensure depth and complexity in academic subject matter and specialized domains with fidelity. |
| 3.3 | Candidates modify the general or select, modify, or design the specialized curriculum to produce and implement advanced content and culturally responsive curriculum with fidelity by understanding that diverse students with gifts and talents demonstrate a wide range of advanced knowledge and performance levels. |
Standard 4: Using Assessments to Identify Students, Measure Their Progress, and Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Assessments, Curriculum, Services, and Programs
Candidates consider state requirements and effectively use multiple methods of assessment data sources, and norms that are reliable and valid in making educational decisions about the identification of all students with gifts and talents in specific domains, in assessing student learning, and in evaluating the assessments, curriculum, services, and programs designed for these learners.
| 4.1 | Candidates align identification instruments and selection procedures to state requirements for gifted services and programs, domains served within the district, evidence-based practices, and student characteristics. |
| 4.2 | Candidates use norming, reliability and validity data, and information related to minimizing bias in selecting and interpreting assessments to identify and guide all students with gifts and talents, including those from traditionally underrepresented populations. |
| 4.3 | Candidates select, adapt, and/or create classroom assessments that are valid measures of learner progress and content acquisition of curriculum differentiated to meet the needs of students with gifts and talents. |
| 4.4 | Candidates use qualitative and quantitative data and multiple sources to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum, services, and programs for students with gifts and talents. |
Standard 5: Supporting Learning and Career Development Using Effective Environments and Instruction
Candidates use data and knowledge of each student with gifts and talents, including twice-exceptional and other diverse populations, when selecting strategies and technology to differentiate instruction. They design effective learning environments that engage students in learning and prepare them for creative and productive careers in a global, multicultural society.
| 5.1 | Candidates select from a repertoire of evidence-based instructional strategies to differentiate, accelerate, and enrich the curriculum and address the diversity of students with gifts and talents by using knowledge of each student’s interests, strengths, needs, and data. |
| 5.2 | Candidates differentiate instructional approaches and use technology to increase access and engage students in authentic learning experiences, increase their level of skill and performance, and assist them in becoming increasingly more independent learners. |
| 5.3 | Candidates assess students and use data to vary the grouping arrangements and learning environments to accelerate learning progress and encourage interactions with peers with similar interests and abilities. |
| 5.4 | Candidates provide career education, mentorships, and internships and develop communication skills that prepare students for creative and productive careers in a global, multicultural society by using knowledge of each student’s interests, strengths, and needs. |
Standard 6. Supporting Social, Emotional, and Psychosocial Growth
Candidates proactively support the social-emotional and psychosocial development of students with gifts and talents, including twice-exceptional and other diverse populations, through targeted services, programs, and inclusive learning environments that are responsive to students’ particular social, emotional, and psychosocial needs and their identities.
| 6.1 | Candidates create safe, inclusive, and culturally-responsive learning environments to support students’ identities and social-emotional and psychosocial growth. |
| 6.2 | Candidates use a variety of classroom approaches to explicitly teach and practice students’ use of social-emotional and psychosocial skills in developmentally, contextually, and culturally responsive ways. |
Standard 7: Collaborating with other Stakeholders
Candidates apply effective processes and communication strategies to collaborate in a culturally responsive manner with families, professionals within the school, and the community to build awareness and capacity, plan and implement services and programs for individuals with gifts and talents in a process that is iterative and promotes continuous progress.
| 7.1 | Candidates utilize communication, collaboration, facilitation, and problem-solving strategies to share expertise and knowledge with other professionals to assess students with gifts and talents and plan services and programs based on evidence-based practices for students with gifts and talents in their talent domains. |
| 7.2 | Candidates actively communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with families, and other stakeholders within educational and community setting(s) in a culturally responsive manner to build awareness and capacity to address students with gifts and talents’ instructional, social-emotional, and behavioral needs. |
Download 2024 Initial Practice-Based Professional Preparation Standards