Collaboration In Gifted Education

Collaboration among educators, parents, and the community is vital to meet the varied needs of today’s diverse student population. Through a shared vision and desire for meeting the essential needs of all learners, specialized educators share their knowledge to plan for their students across programs and services. Giftedness is a complex wonder impacting the development of the whole child. It takes quite a bit of collaboration to address the diverse social, academic and emotional aspects of the development of children that are gifted and talented. It is imperative that educators, parents, and the community collaborate with one another to ensure that students are properly identified for services to address their diverse advanced learning needs.
Depending upon the precise needs and abilities of these learners, numerous collaborative partners are needed to design and provide a range of appropriate services. Comprehensive, coordinated services for students with advanced learning skills require a shared commitment and continuing collaboration between general and gifted education professionals and families. I believe that high quality collaboration does not remove the need for gifted education services or for gifted education specialists, but rather redefines the roles of educators in the plan for serving gifted and talented students. Collaboration calls for shared responsibility for recognizing indicators of giftedness and responding to those unique characteristics through more comprehensive and individualized programming options. Collaboration builds a community of perceptive educators who create learning environments that are more challenging and engaging for all students, that better meet the needs of those who have been identified for gifted services, and that enable teachers to recognize potential giftedness in diverse