Lake County Gifted

What will be the impact of the new gifted rules in your district?

2008-03-05T12:07:00.005-05:00

The new Operating Standards for Identifying and Serving Gifted Students is slated for adoption this month. Check it out on the ODE website or see the attachment. It's great to see that service is more clearly explained and that the department has recognized the need for consitent quality service provision. I'm looking forward to students receiving service in their identified area for the equivalent of 45 minutes / day, five days a week only by someone who is trained and receiving regular support from a Gifted Intervention Specialist with co-planning time! Wow!
What do you think the impact will be on your district and what support will you need to ensure that the intent of the rule is implemented?

2008-01-18T11:10:00.001-05:00

Welcome back to the gifted blog! It's been a busy year so far with many exciting activities. We just completed the first of a two part session of Designing Curriculum Units for High Ability/Gifted Learners with Professor Susan Rakow, Ph.D. of Cleveland State University and content specialists in Math, Anna Marie Tabernik of SMART Consortium / Ideastream, and Science, Rich Benz, LCESC.

I would greatly appreciate your posting of unit ideas and challenges as you work on the unit templates. I hear there are some fabulous resources out there that many of you are engaged in with your students, such as podcasts. If you would like to post any of these for the gifted community and have any problems figuring out how to manage it, please contact me and we will use our collective strenghts to build capacity to appropriately serve our brightest students.

Gifted Licensure Cohort Opportunity

2007-04-03T13:03:00.000-05:00

Since you probably have gifted students in your class, why not take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about how to provide curriculum that is responsive to the needs of gifted students. If you need continuing education credits for license renewal, consider joining a cohort for gifted endorsement here in Lake County. Cleveland State University is offering this opportunity at a reduced tuition cost for members of the cohort. Evening or weekend and summer classes will be held at LaMuth Middle School. An informational meeting will be held on 4/23/07 at 4:30 pm at the Lake County ESC conference room. Anyone who is interested is encouraged to attend the meeting.
You can check out the flyer at our newly updated website. http://www.lcesc.k12.oh.us/

Differentiated

2007-03-19T13:13:00.000-05:00

Based upon what I learned at the workshop, I used my consulting teacher to create an accelerated assignment for my students, at the 8th grade level. Instead of creating just a volcano brochure (science/language arts integrated), I am having the students act as the local vulcanologist. Their role is to, through research and concrete evidence, convince the townspeople that the local volcano has increased in activity and a chance for an eruption has become more and more likely. The students then have to problem solve and offer realistic solutions as to what the citizens must do. They have to include different non-fiction text features, as is with the other students in the class, but the critical thinking aspect is more high end than the typical students of the classroom. I am excited to see the outcome of the brochures!

Dan

2007-03-15T13:56:00.000-05:00

Thanks for sharing what you are trying! How did the students who completed the work in two days do with the different work that you provided? I'm interested in their response to the compacting opportunity you provided. Also, did they have an opportunity to share their projects with the rest of the class when they finished?

With your pre-assessments, have you tried pre-teaching the concept? It is beneficial for students who are being exposed to new information or concepts to be given an overview of the topic and how it connects with the bigger ideas of your content area. Once you have provided this for students, then give the pre-assessment to determine where they need to begin.
Using pre-assessment in this way will help you identify students with high ability (superior cognitive) who will be able to grasp material quickly and develop connections with the concepts, once it is introduced. It is doubtful that they will need as much repetition and can handle more complex applications of the skill. You will use the pre-assessment to help you determine what to teach to whom, not necessarily to sort students in to groups. If it is totally new material (unfamiliar) and you pre-assess, don't expect anyone to be able to show mastery. This could be why you are not getting the results you anticipated from the pre-assessment.
Does anyone else have examples of trying a new pre assessment strategy? We'd love to hear from you!

How I am trying to use what I learned!

2007-03-13T08:06:00.000-05:00

I realized that I do not instruct to the top 10%. At the HS level, my interpretation is that we shove students into accelerated classes and think that takes care of the gifted students needs. Also, at the high school I use pre-assessment but I am not sure it always sorts my students how I would like them to sort. I also think I have more high achievers than gifted students.

In Geometry this last chapter, the pre-test did not give me the results for what I was looking for. So I divided my group based on past performance. The accelerated group completed the work I would do in class other 7 days in 2 days giving them time to do an exploration including history, math topic - networks and final project. Their final project will replace their test score. Some students were very offended that they did not get picked. I tried hard to sell the concepts that I was not meeting the other groups needs. The group that is receiving the same approach definitely gets more attention though!

This will definitely give me opportunity to grow as a teacher.

2007-03-05T16:25:00.000-05:00

We had a great workshop on Friday! As you take what you learned from Susan Rakow and the content workshop leaders to your classrooms or districts, please share on the blog your successes, concerns, and issues. It would be interesting to hear any responses you get from your students when you implement some of the strategies. Together we can support each other and build a repetoire of resources to increase the rigor and challenge for gifted and high ability students.

I'd like to make this a regular session in the fall (from the evaluation feedback) and have more opportunity for unit construction / revision. Ideas??
Thanks to all who contributed from your personal experiences.

Welcome to the Lake County Gifted Blog

2007-02-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Lake County Gifted Blog. As you can see Rich helped me get this started. The picture will change!! I plan to have this ready to unveil at the workshop on Friday. Folks will have to be invited to post to it, so there is a level of privacy for us. Let me know if you have any problems reading or posting to this. The link will be put on the LCESC website soon!.