Teachers toolbox for working with gifted students

Working with gifted students is always a challenge for teachers in regular schools. They need to be equipped with a toolbox of strategies that both fits the needs of the student and the capability of the teacher. This workshop will look at some of these strategies and the impact they can have on the classroom. Teachers can put these in their toolbox and adapt them according to their context, their resources and their students’ needs.

Nidal Jouni, M.A., is an instructor of educational leadership and management at the American University of Beirut(AUB). Nidal jouni has completed a B.S. in biology, a teaching diploma in special education with two tracks, learning disabilities and gifted, and M.A. in guidance and counseling from AUB. She co-founded a K-12 school in 2001 and served as the school’s principal until September 2017. During these years, she established the first inclusion program in South Lebanon for learners with disabilities within her school and a program for gifted students, among the first in the country. She is Lebanon’s delegate at the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children(WCGTC), an accredited trainer of several programs for gifted children, and has presented more than a hundred workshops on different subjects related to general education, special education, and educational leadership. Nidal is also a coach within TAMAM Project at AUB to assist schools aiming to become inclusive. In July 2017, Ms. Jouni became a fellow at the Middle East Initiative for Professional Learning (MEPLI) at the graduate school of education at Harvard University (HGSE). In 2020, she won the Fouad Haddad Award for the best thesis at AUB.