Gifted Jaguars and Eagles

American Mathematics Competition Are you interested in competing in the American Mathematics Competition in February?   We are looking for talented mathematicians to compete.   This is a national math competition and it is a way to show colleges your math talents! If you are interested please email the Math Team coach, Dr. Liam Rafferty at Liam.Rafferty@normandale.edu by Wednesday, January 3 rd so that we can register you.   The competition days are 2/7 & 2/14. For more info about the AMC exams, including practice problems, go to https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/amc-1012

Gifted Challenges by Gail Post, PhD * June 23, 2017 https://giftedchallenges.blogspot.com/2017/06/five-reasons-to-consider-elite-college.html With so much recent criticism and outright condemnation of highly competitive colleges, you might wonder why anyone would bother to apply. After all, with acceptance rates lower than 10%, and a  brutal admissions process , why subject your child to the stress...and likely  rejection ? Media  commentary  aptly warns about the highly competitive  admissions standards , discourages students from placing so much value on any one school, and reminds us that  a good education can be found just about anywhere.  Elite colleges are sometimes the  target of harsh criticism , though. Sometimes it seems that journalists highlight every possible drawback to  reassure the rest of us  that we're okay despite never having attended  one o...

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...

For our 9th graders they are finishing their first week of high school finals and then in 2 weeks they will wrap up their first college semester!  I have been looking for articles to help them improve their metacognition and study skills and found this one: https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/11/22/a-better-way-to-study-through-self-testing-and-distributed-practice/

Metacognition is the #1 thing I work on with the DAHS students.  What I have learned from four years of working with Dimensions Academy is that gifted students struggle with studying and figuring out whether they have mastered material before the test. Our program is one of the first times these students have had to study.  This article has some great study strategies but it is not just for gifted learners.  These strategies work for all kids to improve their studying. https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-metacognition-boosts-learning?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

This is an interesting article and it really resonated with me.  I think teaching social emotional skills is something we aren't trained as teachers to do but that is critical to do.   A 19-Year Study Reveals Kindergarten Students With These 2 Skills Are Twice as Likely to Obtain a College Degree (And They Have Nothing to Do With Reading) "Then researchers followed up with the kids once they became young adults to see what happened to them. They discovered that the kids with the highest social and emotional competency scores in kindergarten fared better overall. For every one-point increase in children's social competency scores in kindergarten, they were twice as likely to obtain college degrees. They were also more likely to have full-time jobs by age 25. But the kids who had trouble cooperating, listening, and resolving conflict were less likely to finish high school--let alone college. They were more likely to have legal problems and substance abuse issu...

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 Tuesday, January 9th, 2018 @ 7pm in the Kennedy Media Center (9701 Nicollet Ave in Bloomington). This is the slideshow   I'll be using to present.  If you have questions please email me at maby@isd271.org.