Not all giftedness looks the same. And neither should the support we offer to gifted students.
Thinkering Fellow Kelsey knows this firsthand. With more than two decades of experience in public education—as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, gifted education leader, and SEL facilitator—she’s spent her career meeting students where they are. And what she’s seen is simple, yet urgent:
Gifted students are often invisible when it comes to social-emotional learning.
Kelsey’s capstone project is here to change that.
A Curriculum for the Overlooked
Kaleidoscope Learning, Kelsey’s new initiative, is building the first developmentally responsive, identity-centered SEL curriculum created specifically for gifted learners.
Most SEL programs assume a neurotypical learner. They focus on surface-level behavior management rather than the nuanced emotional lives of highly sensitive, highly aware, and often asynchronous students. For gifted learners, these programs can feel irrelevant—or worse, condescending.
Kaleidoscope Learning flips that script.
"This curriculum is metaphor-based, layered, and designed to help gifted learners feel seen, safe, and valued for who they truly are."
Each module supports:
Identity development
Emotional literacy and regulation
Self-awareness and confidence
Cultural reflection and inclusion
Deep, creative thinking—not just compliance
And it’s not one-size-fits-all. The curriculum uses a continuum-based framework that personalizes each lesson based on a student’s developmental, not chronological, stage.
From Seed to Structure
Kelsey’s capstone began with a simple question: What would it look like to design SEL for students like mine?
Through the Thinkering Fellowship, that question became a prototype—and that prototype became a scalable vision.
Kelsey built the entire curricular model on proven frameworks: the CASEL SEL competencies, Depth and Complexity strategies by Kaplan, and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. Then she added what was missing: a gifted lens.
Each unit uses metaphor—like giftedness as a tree—to build emotional language, foster reflection, and support identity formation. Modules are:
Student-facing
Digitally accessible
Built for independent or small-group use
Designed with family and educator support tools
It’s a system that lets students explore who they are—while offering educators and caregivers the scaffolding to support that journey.
From Educator to Entrepreneur
The fellowship sparked something unexpected for Kelsey: a new sense of entrepreneurial purpose.
She’s now building Kaleidoscope Learning as a business. That includes:
LLC formation and trademarking
Hosting courses on platforms like Teachable
Designing with Articulate 360 for interactivity
Connecting with schools, gifted ed networks, and parent organizations
And she’s doing it all while piloting her work in real time with students—testing, refining, and scaling as she goes.
"I thought I was just going to make some lessons and sell them online. Now I realize I’m building something that could truly change how we support gifted students."
What’s Next
Kelsey’s roadmap includes:
Completing and testing early modules
Building a supportive network of schools and GT educators
Launching a full platform for educators and families
Presenting at national education and edtech conferences
But more than that, she’s building a movement.
One where gifted learners aren’t left out of SEL conversations. One where social-emotional growth is personalized, purposeful, and powerful. One where emotional safety isn’t a privilege—it’s a promise.
“This is the start of everything.”
🎓 Support the Launch of Kaleidoscope Learning
🤝 Partner with the Project
🔗 ThinkeringCollective.org
Ready to Build What School Could Be?
The Thinkering Fellowship is where bold ideas become real-world impact. If you're an educator with a vision—or the spark of one—join a growing network of change-makers reimagining learning from the inside out.
