I have a master's degree in gifted education. I think that there are two things that make for a teacher who is good with gifted students.
The first is obviously training--but this training needs to have been understood and internalized. There were a lot of students in my classes who were getting the same training that I was who obviously didn't get it at all. For example, when asked to design a lesson plan appropriate for gifted students, they focused on making popsicle sticks with students' names on them to draw during discussions so that everyone would get a chance to speak--nothing about depth, complexity, nuance, or offering choices that allow gifted kids to really dig in to whatever it is.
The second--which I realize is not PC--is that they really need to be gifted (or at least very bright) themselves. I think this is why the popsicle stick people were resorting to popsicle sticks. They really had *no idea* what it meant to alter a lesson so that it is intellectually appropriate for gifted students. I don't know what sort of feedback they got when they did that sort of thing, but my suspicion is that it probably didn't alter their approach.
I think that training that has been internalized can compensate for a lack of giftedness to some extent, but I think that more often that teachers who are known for providing appropriate experiences for their gifted students are those who are gifted themselves. Unfortunately, since by definition gifted folks make up only a few percent of the population, these teachers are going to be few and far between, and they are going to be even more rare in the population of elementary school teachers.
As for certification--which I know nothing about--if it is just 12 hours of passive training, it isn't going to do much.
