Gifted Jaguars and Eagles

I gave a 3 hour session for teachers yesterday at KHS on  Culturally Responsive Teaching & Bloom’s Taxonomy . I really enjoyed the conversations we had together with staff from Oak Grove Middle, Olson Middle, JHS and KHS about how to increase the amount of culturally responsive teaching in our classrooms and how to do it in a way that helps our kids carry more of the cognitive load and to be less dependent learners. x

This is our second year implementing the social studies component to Dimensions Academy Humanities.  My students are taking an accelerated course of AP Human Geography.  I wanted to share some picture of some recent activities.  Last week students completed infographics on agricultural topics that they choose. Some did it individually whereas other did it with a partner.  In class we did a gallery walk and everyone got to learn from each other's projects.  On the last day of our agriculture unit we had Socratic Seminars on food insecurity.  Students discussed student generated questions like "To what degree is it western country's responsibility to help developing countries with food insecurity?"and "What and when will the next agricultural revolution be?" Everyone is required to speak a minimum of two times and to come prepared to discuss the articles with 3-5 higher level discussion questions.  My favorite part of Socratic Seminars is that th...

I have been a big fan of Ian Byrd's blog for a long time and have tried to get into see him present at NAGC multiple times but haven't been able to get in.  I'm excited to be able to see him present today with Lisa Van Gemert (giftedguru.com) and to learn more about the Depth and Complexity framework.  I plan to use this in my teaching in DA Humanities and in professional development I'm leading in 2 weeks! 

Today I had the opportunity to observe the Nobel 9th grade class.  They were presenting their creative projects to each other for To Kill A Mocking Bird.  They got to focus on a form of current prejudice and connect it to the novel.  I saw projects on ageism, racism and sexism.  The students did a gallery walk and got to fill out comment sheets.  At the end 2 groups performed their projects.  I enjoyed getting to see the projects and getting to see what they had to say about each other's projects.  Natalie Pederson, our new Nobel instructor, is having a great year with these kids!  I'm excited to visit again next tri! 

Erin Boltik, BPS gifted and talented director, and I presented “Cultivating Creativity” on 11/2 at the MN Council for the Gifted and Talented conference at Robbinsdale Middle School.  We shared strategies for growing creativity with parents.

Dear Parents,  Bloomington Public Schools Gifted Department needs  to cancel our upcoming Dimensions Academy High School informational meetings currently scheduled for November 4 at Jefferson High School  and December 12th at Kennedy High School from 6:30-7:30p.m. In case you were interested in learning more about these programs for your student, and were planning to attend one of these meetings, we wanted to let you know that we have to reschedule. Feel free to let us know that you are interested in these advanced programming options and we will make sure to keep you in the communication loop.  Thank you for your understanding and sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.