I love to create curriculum for gifted students! Everywhere I go and everywhere I look, I always see things through the eyes of a middle and high school English teacher: “How can I use this interesting ‘thing’ I found in a museum gift shop in my classroom?” “Oh, the quotation on that poster relates to a novel my students are reading, and I can use it as a writing prompt!” I’ve even used a classroom poster on punctuation marks that I found at a Goodwill Store as the basis for a presentation to parents about youth with gifts, creativity, and talents! For example, how are your gifted children like exclamation points (intensities, sensitivities, overexcitabilities) and question marks (curiosity, divergent thinking, multipotentiality that complicates college and career decision-making)? I’d use these questions and parents’ responses to identify and discuss common intellectual, social, and emotional characteristics of gifted students. 

In addition to museum gift shops and Goodwill Stores, teachers now have another interesting, more powerful resource to assist with curriculum development—artificial intelligence (AI). By leveraging AI's capabilities in data-driven instruction, personalizing content, utilizing educational materials in new ways, and refining teaching strategies through targeted professional development, teachers can significantly enhance teaching and learning to meet the unique needs of gifted learners. 

The use of educational technology by teachers and students is not new, of course, but the possibilities afforded by AI have brought the use of technology for educational purposes to the forefront. Twenty-five years ago, Bransford et al. (2004) identified five applications of educational technology that are still relevant and with AI, more practicable today: 1) relating content to real-world problems; 2) using multimedia tools to enhance learning; 3) providing additional avenues for student-teacher communication; 4) supporting global engagement; and 5) offering new forms of professional development for teachers. AI-driven tools can help teachers develop dynamic curricular content that adapts to different learning styles and paces. This flexibility is essential for gifted students who often learn at an accelerated rate and require more complex material than their peers (VanTassel‐Baska, 2018). For example, intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) can provide personalized support and feedback, helping gifted students navigate challenging subjects while freeing teachers to focus on delivering educational value and fostering a rich learning environment (Aubeuf, 2023).

Jump ahead to 2013, Chen et al.’s Enable, Enhance, and Transform Framework provided a comprehensive strategy to “systematically conceptualize, incorporate, and utilize technology in gifted education” (p. 166). Specifically, AI enables teachers and gifted learners to access more and more diverse ways of knowing and doing, including communicating with like-minded peers across the world; enhances teaching and learning with its ability to analyze gifted students’ data, to identify their learning patterns and preferences, and to create personalized learning experiences tailored to students’ learning strengths and weaknesses; and transforms the quality of teachers’ and students’ experiences in gifted programming by designing learning environments that incorporate academic acceleration and enrichment. For instance, AI-driven platforms can assess students' progress and adapt content in real-time to ensure that concepts are both challenging and engaging, thus promoting higher-order thinking skills, which are particularly crucial for gifted learners (Bright & Calvert, 2023; Cheung et al., 2020; Miedijensky, 2018).

Let’s jump ahead again to Siegle’s (2024) application of AI in three key elements of curriculum for gifted students: acceleration, depth and complexity, and interest-based content. We know that effective gifted programming is founded on high-quality curriculum that challenges gifted students intellectually and provides opportunities to them to explore their interests and passions (Sutherland & Reid, 2023), and AI can enhance curriculum by offering recommendations on advanced topics and resources suited to individual interests and talent areas, thereby fostering motivation and deeper engagement (Neal, 2025). 

Another powerful application of AI is to aid teachers in collaborative data-based decision-making and professional development in gifted education. By aggregating data on student performance and preferences, AI systems can enhance communication among administrators, teachers, students, and parents to facilitate informed decisions regarding resource allocation and academic interventions before issues arise, thereby ensuring that educational needs are proactively met (Yu, 2023). In addition, many educators express a lack of confidence in teaching gifted students effectively and express their need for training. AI can support these efforts by identifying specific training needs based on teacher-provided data regarding student achievement, affective needs, classroom behavior, and engagement, thus guiding teachers to pursue relevant, targeted professional development opportunities (McCormick & Guilbault, 2023).

Serendipitously, the April 2025 issue of Gifted Child Today contains two interesting articles related to this topic. Guilbault et al. (2025) explore ChatGPT's application in addressing high school gifted learners' academic and social-emotional needs, emphasizing how to create effective prompts, to enhance critical thinking, to incorporate virtual mentorships, and to support reflective learning. Rubenstein et al.’s (2025) Journeying between Worlds and Words lesson explored using ChatGPT with third and fourth graders to create customized play scripts, enhancing students’ engagement, creative processes, and reading fluency and empowering them as active creators of learning experiences rather than passive consumers. These recent articles provide solid examples about how teachers can use the power of AI to positively affect students’ learning experiences for increased achievement and meaningful engagement.

I hope I’ve convinced you to give AI a try in one or more of the ways described above. AI's transformative potential in gifted education is marked by its capability to personalize learning, create adaptive curricula, and facilitate teacher development. Through effective utilization of AI technologies, educators can significantly enhance the educational experiences of gifted learners, ensuring that their distinct needs are met and their potentials fully realized. 

If you want or need to learn more, why not create your own professional development plan using AI-powered tools? Professional Development for Teachers in the Age of AI (Cukurova, 2024) is an excellent resource for this purpose, including example prompts teachers may use when seeking professional development on a specific topic. If you have time, come back to the blog to let us know how it goes! 

References

Aubeuf, C. (2023). Uses of artificial intelligence in intelligent tutoring systems. In Mafalda Carmo (Ed.), Education Applications & Development VIII (pp. 304-312), Advances in Education and Educational Trends Series. inScience Press.  https://doi.org/10.36315/2023eadviii25 

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2004). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. National Academy of Sciences. https://www.csun.edu/~SB4310/How%20People%20Learn.pdf 

Bright, S. and Calvert, E. (2023). Educational technology: Barrier or bridge to equitable access to advanced learning opportunities? Gifted Child Today, 46(3), 187-200. https://doi.org/10.1177/10762175231168711 

Chen, J., Dai, D. Y., & Zhou, Y. (2013) Enable, enhance, and transform: How technology use can improve gifted education, Roeper Review, 35(3), 166-176. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2013.794892

Cheung, R., Hui, A., & Cheung, A. (2020). Gifted education in Hong Kong: A school-based support program catering to learner diversity. Ecnu Review of Education, 3(4), 632-658. https://doi.org/10.1177/2096531120967447 

Cukurova, M., Kralj, L., Hertz, B. & Saltidou, E. (2024). Professional Development for Teachers in the Age of AI. European Schoolnet. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10186881/1/EUNA-Thematic-Seminar-Report-V5%20%281%29.pdf 

Guilbault, K. M., Wang, Y., & McCormick, K. M. (2025). Using ChatGPT in the secondary gifted classroom for personalized learning and mentoring. Gifted Child Today, 48(2), 93-103. https://doi.org/10.1177/10762175241308950 

McCormick, K. and Guilbault, K. (2023). Thriving amidst the pandemic: Teaching gifted students online and the role of adaptation and innovation. Journal of Advanced Academics, 35(2), 199-229. https://doi.org/10.1177/1932202x231220052 

Miedijensky, S. (2018). Learning environment for the gifted—what do outstanding teachers of the gifted think? Gifted Education International, 34(3), 222-244. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261429417754204 

Neal, T. M. (2025). Creating academically advanced learning environments for gifted students through artificial intelligence. In A. G. Walters (Ed.), Transforming Special Education Through Artificial Intelligence (pp. 165-192). IGI Global. https://www.doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-5538-1.ch006   

Rubenstein, L., Waldron, A., & Ramirez, G. (2025). Transforming worlds into words: Using ChatGPT to bring student visions to life. Gifted Child Today, 48(2), 104-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/10762175241308951

Siegle D. (2024). Using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to support the three legs of talent development. Gifted Child Today, 47(3), 221–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/10762175241242495

Sutherland, M. and Reid, C. (2023). A small country with big ambitions: does this include the gifted? Education Sciences, 13(8), 832. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13080832

VanTassel-Baska, J. (2018). Considerations in curriculum for gifted students. In S. I. Pfeiffer, E. Shaunessy-Dedrick, & M. Foley-Nicpon (Eds.), APA handbook of giftedness and talent (pp. 349–369). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000038-023

Yu, P. (2023). The future prospects of deep learning and neural networks: Artificial intelligence's impact on education. Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Machine Learning and Automation. https://www.doi.org/10.54254/2755-2721/33/20230239 

The Role of Curriculum in Identifying Gifted Behaviors and Gifted Potential*

Kristen Seward, Ph.D.
NAGC Curriculum Studies Network Chair
Clinical Associate Professor in Gifted, Creative, and Talented Studies
Purdue University

Enriched and accelerated curriculum differentiates gifted education from regular and special education, and in typical education practice, this advanced curriculum is initiated after students have been identified for gifted programming. For this blog, however, I’d like to consider the important role curriculum serves in identification of gifted behaviors and gifted potential, particularly for students with limited opportunities to learn (OTL) prior to and throughout formal schooling and for students from underrepresented populations. Specifically, how does curriculum front-loading support equitable identification practices?

We’ve been searching and re-searching (pun intended) for the best identification assessment or combination of assessments for years with minimal gains in access, equity, and missingness (Gentry et al., 2019). Our efforts to develop identification processes that increase equitable access to and selection for gifted programming have resulted in complicated systems that utilize multiple quantitative and qualitative measures that are difficult to combine, further complicating the identification process, while students from underrepresented populations continue to be left behind (Cavilla, 2013). Curriculum front-loading holds great potential for resolving this identification conundrum. Front-loading is “the process of preparing students for advanced content and creative and critical thinking prior to identification or before advanced-level courses are offered” (Briggs et al., 2008, 137), thereby ameliorating concerns related to students’ opportunities to learn or to long-standing criticism of traditional identification processes. 

As more schools adopt the talent development model of gifted education, front-loading before and after formal identification makes sense. Prior to identification, front-loading enriched and accelerated curriculum allows students with gifted potential opportunities and time to develop their intellectual abilities and academic skills, including problem-solving and creative thinking (Cavilla, 2013). In addition, learning experiences that incorporate students’ interests and meaningful choices in how they learn and/or the products they create allow teachers special opportunities to identify talent in ways they may have otherwise missed. In a very real sense, front-loading provides the opportunities to learn that some students may have missed, thereby leveling the playing field, so to speak, prior to formal identification. In addition, front-loading is cost-effective and fiscally responsible. Districts can direct funds designated for gifted education to their schools to support teachers and students as opposed to sending funds to testing companies to purchase costly assessments. Because curriculum front-loading is implemented with students (not done to students on a specific day and time like a test), it naturally aligns with the gifted programming schools offer. These important considerations follow recent recommendations researchers have developed for evaluating identification processes based on Cost, Alignment, Sensitivity, and Access (CASA) criteria (Peters et al., 2022).


Front-loading also promotes equity and access after formal identification by providing students with deeper and broader exposure to essential concepts, questions, and vocabulary in the content areas needed for future success in rigorous coursework (Cavilla, 2013). In addition to identification, excellence gaps represent another persistent problem in gifted education metrics. Excellence gaps represent the stark variations in gifted students’ academic performance across demographic groups, with underrepresented populations scoring much lower than well-represented populations of gifted students (Plucker et al., 2017). Front-loading provides an avenue for equitable access to and potential for success in advanced programs for students already identified for gifted programming (Meyer & Plucker, 2021). What’s more, curriculum front-loading has been promoted as “the foundation for any comprehensive intervention efforts [to reduce excellence gaps]” (Plucker et al., 2017).

The importance of teacher training in this curriculum front-loading expansion of the identification process cannot be overstated. First, teachers must be trained to deliver an enriched and advanced curriculum in a way that increases the teachers’ opportunities to identify talent. Teachers trained to identify gifted behaviors and gifted potential observe and interact with students engaged in hands-on, minds-on learning experiences over several days, not one lesson or one day. Effective programming for gifted students often involves integrating advanced curricula with instructional strategies to enhance learning outcomes (Callahan et al., 2015). Many curriculum models in gifted education emphasize the use of confluent approaches that combine advanced content learning with enriched experiences to serve gifted students effectively (Sak & Ayas, 2020). 

Second, teacher training must include the identification of gifted behaviors that are representative of the cultures, languages, disabilities, and economic diversities that students bring to the classroom. Observing and noting students who persist through difficult tasks, who ask intriguing questions related to the content, who take charge of a small group of learners on a project, who demonstrate empathy when working with others, or who demonstrate divergent thinking are only a few of the ways gifted potential can be identified through behavior. Note that some of these behaviors are academic in nature, but others point to social and emotional characteristics that are common among learners with gifts, creativity, and talents. Teachers may use a teacher rating scale that yields reliable results and focuses on academic and social behaviors that indicate gifted potential, such as the HOPE Teacher Rating Scale (Gentry et al., 2015). Teachers may find such scales especially helpful for identifying students from underrepresented populations. 

Although research on front-loading is sparse, what exists is positive and promising, especially when schools that have expanded their identification processes to include curriculum front-loading have identified gifted behaviors and gifted potential in students from underrepresented populations. 

*This blog was created with the assistance of scite.ai.