Valuing, Teaching, and Mediating: What Teachers Need to Know About Twice-Exceptional Learners

Balanced research and practice

Teachers are often not well-equipped to teach twice-exceptional learners. If they have a background in special education, they are not familiar with how to enrich and extend and challenge a talented learner, and if they have a background in gifted education, they are less familiar with the characteristics, assessment needs and behaviors that can be part of the disability. It is not enough to merely provide gifted services part of the day and special education services another part; Twice-exceptional learners needs teacher who understand the diverse needs. This session describes the elements of a professional learning program that can be developed to help teachers develop their strength areas in teaching and mediate their less-known areas of knowledge- very much like what is needed for 2e students. Using two presenters, this session is taught in a co-taught manner to model how teachers with expertise can share, collaborate, and learn from others