Gifted Jaguars and Eagles

The gifted department offers a vareity of ways that we support teachers. Below is what I shared with teachers at KHS and JHS today.

I had a great time today presenting with the other members of the gifted and talented department as a part of 271Learns. We did a 3 hour workshop with teachers to teach them how to increase their teaching of creative thinking skills. It was fun to work with teachers on creativity and to help them start thinking about their fall!

This is a post from one of my all time favorite education writers - Ian Byrd.  It is about how to ask better questions and increase the depth and complexity of our students.  I strongly recommend it! https://www.byrdseed.com/questions-01/?ck_subscriber_id=623706191

"The study, published Sept. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that, though students felt as if they learned more through traditional lectures, they actually learned more when taking part in classrooms that employed so-called active-learning strategies. Lead author Louis Deslauriers, the director of science teaching and learning and senior physics preceptor, knew that students would learn more from active learning. He published a key study in Science in 2011 that showed just that. But many students and faculty remained hesitant to switch to it." Read more here: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-that-students-learn-more-when-taking-part-in-classrooms-that-employ-active-learning-strategies/

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! 

January is high school registration time.   The gifted and talented department has some upcoming information nights we want you to know about.  If you can't come or have specific questions you can also email Meredith Aby-Keirstead our high school gifted and talented coordinator at maby@isd271.org. Dimensions Academy High School - 2 Pathways:  STEM & Humanities Parents and students are welcome to attend any of the DA HS  informational meetings. They are all from 6:30-7:30 pm: Tuesday, January 8th at Normandale Community College, Partnership Center , Room P0808 Monday, January 14th at Kennedy High School, Media Center Tuesday, January 22nd at Jefferson High School, Auditorium FFI:   https://www.bloomington.k12.mn.us/DA-High-School Nobel Creativity Program Parents, guardians and students who are interested in the Nobel Program at Kennedy High School are invited to attend the information session at KHS on Thursday, January 10th at 6pm i...

We were fortunate to have Minneapolis as the host city for the NAGC conference this weekend. I got to attend with many educators from Bloomington including Kris Krenz, Kathryn Haddad, Josh Coval, Lori Schultz and Nick Hupton. I got to go to lots of sessions and think about how to improve myself as an educator and how do I improve the services that we provide for students in Bloomington. I love opportunities like this. It gives me a time to reflect and to get motivated. Sessions I attended: Equity and access in K 12 gifted and the need for targeted professional learning for teachers, Culturally responsive professional learning in gifted education, The positive impact of empowering gifted learners, When grouping works for gifted students, Transforming text based talks to reach today’s gifted learner, Simple models that promote complex thinking across the content areas, Embedding GT practices in the classroom, Lighting the career path:  counseling strategies and activities f...

Dimensions Academy High School of Bloomington Don’t let your child’s exceptional gifted education stop in middle school Bloomington Public Schools has developed an innovative approach to gifted education at the high school level through Dimensions Academy High School.  Students can apply to be in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and/or the Humanities (English and Social Studies) strands. DA HS STEM:   DA High School STEM is a partnership with Normandale Community College to provide an early college experience for 9th and 10th grade students who have exceptional academic skills and are ready for highly rigorous college-level curriculum prior to their eligibility for PSEO (Post-Secondary Enrollment Options) in grades 11-12.  This original program allows students to college from 7:50-9:35 am at Normandale Community College. Students work in a cohort class of 9th or 10th graders with college professors. After the college classes, students ar...

One of my favorite GT blogs is Byrdseed.com.  Today's his blog had two great posts about differentiation which I wanted to post here.  Differentiation has become one of my favorite topics to do professional development on because I think it is super needed.  However a barrier is that many people misunderstand what the term even means.  These blog posts help with that.  http://www.byrdseed.com/what-textbooks-think-differentiated-instruction-looks-like/?mc_cid=a4889881d4&mc_eid=b26527992e http://www.byrdseed.com/differentiation-anti-patterns/?mc_cid=a4889881d4&mc_eid=b26527992e

November 29, 2017 Elissa F. Brown Gifted students who are served in general education classrooms frequently finish their work sooner than other students. This can happen in one subject area, such as mathematics, or in all subject areas. Due to their rapidity of thought (VanTassel-Baska & Brown, 2007), they typically finish assignments before other children. Then they may act out because they are bored. What is really going on is a mismatch between the academic needs of the student and the pace and depth of the curricula and instructional program. Following are suggestions for how to best serve these students -- and what not to do. Don't. . . 1. Use these students, whether formally identified as gifted or not, as teacher assistants. Using gifted students as tutors or teacher assistants for other students in the classroom is inappropriate and unethical, and it does not provide for their social-emotional or academic needs. When an appropriately differentiat...