The Impact of Targeted Professional Learning on Gifted Resource Teachers' Perceptions of Their Cultural Awareness

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: Research on Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent SIG Roundtable: Education and Assessment (Table 18)

Abstract

In a mixed-methods research design, university researchers provided professional learning to a a large school district in Texas on culturally responsive and equity-focused identification and programmatic services for gifted students, collecting data on the outcomes of the professional learning. Quantitative findings include short-term positive changes on gifted resource teachers’ personal measure of cultural awareness, but without consistent long-term changes on the same measure. Qualitative data indicated resistance from teachers to district level changes that occurred during the study, (e.g., adjustments in the job descriptions), that there was a lack of access and/or teacher desire to be the change agents as per the goal of the study, and that the professional learning had an impact on the gifted program.

Authors

• Angela Novak, East Carolina University
  Presenting Author

• Katie D. Lewis, York College of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author