Teachers College offers new gifted courses for education majors

A story about new gifted coursework for undergraduate elementary education majors at Arizona State University was featured recently on Univision 33 - UniMás Arizona.  Reporter Clara Colmenero interviewed in Spanish both ASU Instructor Dina Brulles, gifted program coordinator for Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, and one of her students, an ASU master’s degree candidate specializing in gifted education, Gerald Calamia.

According to the Arizona Department of Education, gifted and advanced learners comprise approximately eight percent of the state’s K-12 public school population. However, Arizona’s state funding for gifted and talented education was zeroed out in fiscal year 2010-11, after having dropped from an annual $3.2 million to $640,000 in fiscal year 2009-10, according to the National Association for Gifted Children.

With the shortage of funds comes a shortage of gifted teachers, according to NAGC. To address that need, ASU’s Teachers College is offering for the first time this fall two gifted courses as electives for elementary education majors. The coursework will prepare them for state certification to teach gifted students in grades 1-8. Kimberly Lansdowne, executive director of ASU’s two-year-old Gary K. Herberger Young Scholars Academy, developed the curriculum for both undergraduate courses with Rebecca Baker, a former gifted specialist in Scottsdale Unified School District, who will teach the classes at West Campus.

Additionally, ASU students can get real-world experience working with gifted children through undergraduate internships and student teaching opportunities at the Herberger academy. Information is available at http://education.asu.edu/.

Lansdowne developed and teaches the college’s K-12 online Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction: Gifted Education program. Brulles also teaches the online graduate gifted courses and is past president of the Arizona Association for Gifted and Talented (AAGT).