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This study explored what should be known, by a teacher of talented children, when implementing the PENTA UC School program. This study included a sample of 18 educators directly involved in the implementation process of this enrichment program. Teachers established bridges between verbalized knowledge and their pedagogic practice, recognizing know and know-how as two fundamental spheres of knowledge for the implementation of this program. The results show that these spheres traverse five different dimensions: planning, implementation, evaluation, learning environment, and collaborative work; which, in conjunction, allow the teacher to apply a differentiated instruction, taking into consideration the particular learning paces and characteristics of talented children. Furthermore, the need to consider these spheres in teacher's preparation programs was confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research study analyzed the structure of educators' implicit theories of intelligence (ITI) and explored the relationship between ITI and beliefs about the identification of gifted students. This study included a sample of 372 educators. School Teachers and professors from colleges of education favor practical, analytical, and creative attributes in their prototypes of an intelligence person. However, participants were fairly neutral about whether interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes characterized intelligent people. Educators that rated creativity as an important attribute of intelligence tend to favor multiple methods to identify gifted students. In contrast, educators who supported the use of IQ test as the primary basis of gifted identification tended to agree that analytical abilities were part of the structure of intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the design, construction and validation processes of a instrument aimed to the evaluation of teaching skills of the Catholic University of Colombia's undergraduate level teachers. The instrument evaluates seven skills that are basic to the exercise of teaching: curriculum planning, appropriate usage of methodological designs and organization of teaching activities, scientific technological competence, appropriate interaction with students, evaluative competence, tutorial skills, and self-reflection on teaching practices. The indicators of teacher's competence were thus constructed, and the test was validated by the opinion of 60 expert judges. The results of this process were used to design the final instrument, which once adjusted, was applied to 20 teachers of the Catholic University of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]