Date of Award
1-1-1991
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Child and Youth Care Administration
Advisor
Victoria Jean Dimidja
Committee Member
L. H. Worden
Keywords
academically gifted, elementary education, gifted, interviewing, target selection, teacher characteristics, teacher competencies, teacher effectiveness, teacher qualifications, teacher selection
Abstract
This practicum was designed to (I) identify beliefs, attributes and competencies of successful teachers of gifted (2) increase in administrators an awareness of beliefs, attributes and competencies of successful teachers of the gifted and (3) develop and field test an interview packet that combines the identified beliefs, attributes and competencies of successful teachers of the gifted with the target selection technique of questioning interviewees.
The quality of education for gifted students is directly related to specific skills of the teacher of gifted. The successful teacher of the gifted possess a unique set of beliefs, attributes and competencies. Specific behaviors of successful teachers of gifted were identified in a target population of 127 elementary teachers of the gifted. Based on these characteristics and with input from principals of schools with gifted programs, an interview packet was developed which combined these identified beliefs, attributes and competencies with target selection questioning techniques.
The results indicate that specific beliefs, attributes and competencies can be identified for successful teachers of the gifted. These identified beliefs, attributes and competencies can be combined with target selection questioning techniques to create an interview packet. This practicum also pointed out the importance of involving administrators in the process of developing interview techniques for hiring teachers. Through this practicum a connection was made between questioning techniques from the target selection process and a interview packet for administrators for interviewing prospective teachers of the gifted.