Upcoming Gifted Education Institute

Experience institutes that will help you grow as a professional and learn to address contemporary issues in gifted education. Registration opens Spring 2025! 

Summer 2025 Teaching for Learning Institute

Resources & Strategies that Promote Differentiation & Talent Development for HiCap Learners

HiCap students need advanced instruction matched to their strengths and levels of understanding in order to learn and grow. In this engaging and practical three-day institute we will focus on providing the latest research, resources and strategies that respond to the following questions: How do you differentiate instruction in ways that develop students’ talents and strengths? What evidence-supported curriculum resources and instructional strategies encourage student learning? How do you identify HiCap students and assess their growth? What psychosocial skills do your students need to maximize learning? And how do we support equitable instruction and identification for all students, particularly those from culturally, linguistically and economically different backgrounds?

• Collaborate with others in the field of gifted education.
• Create new lessons, units and program designs based on evidence-supported frameworks and strategies.
• Contribute your ideas and successes in serving gifted students.

Registration  Contact Us 

• Dates: June 25-27, 2025
• Location: On campus
  Whitworth University
  300 W. Hawthorne Road
  Spokane, WA 99251
• Time: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
• Cost: $399* per person (includes lunch)
  *School-based teams that register together will receive every sixth registration free; Whitworth University is a Washington state-approved clock hour provider.

Join us for three days of engaging sessions focused on ways we can use or adapt curriculum resources, identify strengths, differentiate instruction and support psychosocial skill development. Each day includes a keynote, breakout session, an in-depth multi-day strand, as well as opportunities to share your ideas and network with others around specific topics of interest. 

 More information coming soon! 

Daily Schedule

Additional Information

Academic Credit/Clock Hours

You may elect to receive one graduate-level credit from Whitworth University for an additional fee of $150. There will be additional course assignments for those receiving graduate-level credit. This credit can be used to meet the elective requirement for the Washington State Gifted Education Specialty Endorsement offered at Whitworth. One graduate-level semester credit equals 15 Washington state-approved clock hours. Registration for credit will occur during the institute.

Washington state-approved clock hours will also be available for $3 per clock hour with a total of 16 clock hours available. Contact gifted@whitworth.edu if you have questions. Additional information will be sent regarding signing up for clock hours to all registrants prior to the conference. 

Payment Information & Cancellation/Refund Policy

Payments with credit cards can be made via the online registration form. We also accept checks and purchase orders. Please email purchase orders to gifted@whitworth.edu or mail them to:

Whitworth University
Center for Gifted Education
300 W. Hawthorne Road
Spokane, WA 99251

All monies less $25 processing fee will be refunded if paid registrations are canceled by 5 p.m. PST on Friday, June 20, 2025. After June 20, no refund is provided. Contact the Center for Gifted Education at gifted@whitworth.edu or 509.777.3769 to cancel your registration and request a refund.

Hotel Accommodations

Need a place to stay? Hotels near campus, with discounts, can be found here. 

Past Featured Speakers for 2024 Summer Institute

Amy Azano, Ph.D.

Amy Price Azano is a professor of education and teaches doctoral and master's level courses at Virginia Tech. Her scholarship focuses on rural education and literacy research. She is the co-principal investigator of Promoting PLACE (Place, Literacy, Achievement, Community and Engagement) in Rural Schools, a five-year, 1.9 million dollar U.S. Department of Education grant designed to support gifted education programs in high-poverty rural communities. Her previous academic appointment was at the University of Virginia’s National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented where she worked as a research scientist and project manager on two federally funded grants. Azano is the elected secretary/treasurer of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Rural Education SIG, a member of the Rural Education International Research Alliance, co-director of the Rural School-Community Partnership Research Consortium, serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Research in Rural Education, and was the guest co-editor for a rural themed issue of the Journal of Advanced Academics. She regularly presents on rural education at AERA, the Literacy Research Association, most recently at the International Symposium for Innovation in Rural Education, and has been an invited speaker on rural education in England and Australia. Azano has several book chapters, a curriculum series with Prufrock Press, and over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, including several published in top tier journals, such as Review of Research in Education, AERA Open, Journal of Research in Rural Education and American Educational Research Journal.

Shelagh A. Gallagher, Ph.D.

Shelagh Gallagher's career in gifted education spans over 30 years, with positions including classroom teacher, school administrator, founding team member for two schools for gifted students, and 13 years as a professor, researcher, writer and director of two national curriculum grants at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte). Gallagher is currently director of engaged education at UNC Charlotte, where she works with educators from Charlotte to Kazakhstan, conducting research, writing curriculum and contributing to policy initiatives. She is co-author of the national policy report "Americans Agree" and leads the North Carolina Talent Delayed/Talent Denied advocacy initiative. Gallagher has received the Distinguished Service Award and the James J. Gallagher Award for Advocacy from the North Carolina Association for Gifted and Talented, the Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence from UNC Charlotte, and the Article of the Year Award from NAGC’s journal, Gifted Child Quarterly. Gallagher is an eight-time winner of the NAGC Curriculum Award for her problem-based learning curriculum. She is also the recipient of the Person of SIGnificance award from the National Society for Gifted and Talented. She is currently in her third term as U.S. delegate to the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children. In September 2023, she became president-elect of the National Association for Gifted Children after serving three terms on their board of directors.  She is a reading mentor to 4th-grade students, and each summer she spends a few weeks with gifted youth at Camp Yunasa.

Matthew C. Makel, Ph.D.

Matthew Makel is professor and research chair in high abilities studies in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. His research focuses on academic talent development and open science research methods. In talent development, he investigates the equitable allocation of gifted identification and services as well as how schools can better meet student learning needs. In open science, he explores how to improve research transparency and rigor so that society can better understand the generalizability, reproducibility and replicability of research findings. He also co-edited "Toward a More Perfect Psychology: Improving Trust, Accuracy and Transparency in Research" with Jonathan Plucker (American Psychological Association) and "From Giftedness to Gifted Education: Reflecting Theory in Practice" with Jonathan Plucker and Anne Rinn (Prufrock Press). Makel has earned degrees from Duke University, Cornell University and Indiana University.

Whitworth Faculty and Washington State Speakers

Rebecca L. O'Brien, Ph.D.

Rebecca O'Brien is currently an associate professor of gifted education in the graduate studies of education department at Whitworth University. She received her Ph.D. in educational psychology with a concentration in giftedness, creativity and talent development from the University of Connecticut. Before receiving her doctorate, she taught science, math and robotics at a middle school in Baton Rouge, La. Her research primarily focuses on characteristics and behaviors that encourage and limit the identification of high potential behaviors, particularly in students from underserved populations. Additionally, O'Brien has experience and professional interest in assessment, instrument development and teacher learning.

Tamra Stambaugh, Ph.D.

Tamra Stambaugh is a professor and the Margo Long Endowed Chair in Gifted Education at Whitworth University. Stambaugh is the co-author/editor of several articles, monographs, book chapters, and award-winning books and curriculum units. Her research interests are focused on curriculum and instructional interventions for promoting talent development and expertise as well as strategies and systems for identifying and serving students from low income and rural settings. Stambaugh is a reviewer for several journal articles in the field and serves on the Gifted Child Quarterly advisory board, the American Educational Research Association Gifted SIG executive committee, and the National Association for Gifted Children board of directors. Prior to her role at Whitworth University, Stambaugh was the executive director of Programs for Talented Youth and an associate research professor at Vanderbilt University. She received her Ph.D. from the College of William & Mary. Prior to moving to higher education, Stambaugh was a HiCap teacher and coordinator of gifted programs at the local and regional state level.

Reby Parsley, Ed.D.

Reby Parsley earned her doctoral degree in education leadership with an emphasis in gifted education from the University of Washington. Her dissertation evaluated the impact of elementary talent development models on academic growth and identification rates of minority students for gifted education services. Prior to earning her doctorate, she earned a master's of education from the University of Washington in curriculum and instruction and a bachelor's in elementary education from Saint Martin's University. Parsley has a national board certification in early and middle childhood literacy and holds a superintendent credential. She currently works as the secondary gifted specialist in the Kent School District and as an adjunct professor at Whitworth University. In all, she has 14 years of classroom teaching experience, most being in self-contained and gifted cluster classrooms. She also serves as president of the Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted.

Jen Flo

Jen Flo has been an educator for over 25 years. As a private and public school teacher, she worked in a variety of general education and gifted education programs. It was during her tenure as an enrichment teacher that she began to truly understand the unique needs of gifted and talented students. Driven by her own need to learn, she joined the Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted, volunteering to train with a newly formed cadre of Washington trainers. Flo recently served as president of the Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted and has served nearly a decade overall with the organization as a board member and conference presenter. She earned a master's degree in gifted and talented education at Whitworth University. Her interest in addressing the unmet needs of students led her into program evaluation, where she developed a guidebook to assist districts with internal program evaluation. Currently, she is the regional administrator for advanced learning and teacher support with Capital Region Educational Service District 113, overseeing two multi-district consortiums and supporting advanced learning and comprehensive induction support for new educators. Flo consults with districts and schools in the areas of gifted and talented education and also serves on the Washington State OSPI advisory committee for gifted education and as an adjunct instructor in gifted education at Whitworth University. 

Jody Hess

Jody Hess serves as program supervisor for highly capable at OSPI and is project director for Jacob K. Javits Project HiCapPLUS: Access and Equity online professional learning modules. A former paraprofessional, teacher, HiCap coordinator, principal and district administrator, Jody has experience using a variety of identification and service delivery models for advanced learners. She has particular interest in talent development strategies to help recognize and serve “harder to find” underserved students such as multilingual learners, students with disabilities and those affected by poverty. Jody was nominated by a former student and awarded the SDB Fellowship of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth. She was proud to be recognized by WA Association of Educators of Talented and Gifted (WAETAG) for the Kari DeMarco Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.

Brian Gabele

Brian Gabele is the director of assessment and program evaluation at the Clover Park School District in Pierce County, Wash. He specializes in educational research with a focus on student growth and assessment processes. Gabele has worked as a K-12 administrator since 2011 and has served at Seattle Public Schools, the Kent School District and the Clover Park School District. His latest work focuses on improving proportionality in district referral processes using unique norming approaches and pre-existing academic data to identify prospective highly capable students who would not have been identified using traditional screening processes.

Kristi Stroyan

Kristi Stroyan has been in the field of gifted education since 2006. With a background in reading and literacy and a passion for gifted education, she enjoys leading educators to deepen their understanding of gifted students and develop skills to target their unique needs. She is currently teaching language arts and social studies at a highly capable program in Spokane. Stroyan fosters an environment of intellectual curiosity and supports the holistic development of her students. Through her combined roles as an educator and presenter, Stroyan is dedicated to empowering individuals to reach their full potential. 

Spring Virtual Institute

Email gifted@whitworth.edu for more information.