Action Labs
Wednesday, November 2
Separate Registration Required | $89 (includes lunch)
REGISTRATION FOR THE FOLLOWING ACTION LABS MAY STILL BE AVAILABLE
NAGC Action Labs, designed by local educators, artists, and administrators, provide an experiential learning opportunity that will broaden your perspective and give you ideas to use back home.
All 2011 Action Labs depart from the Hilton Riverside beginning at 7:30 am and should return no later than 3:00 pm so that you may join us for the 4:15 to 6:00 pm event, “Leadership and Life Lessons from the Field.” Specific departure times will be provided to those registered.
To ensure that the Action Labs go as planned, pre-registration is required by September 16. We do our best to ensure that all Action Labs will take place, but some arrangements are out of our control. Please register as early as possible to ensure your spot. There is no onsite registration and no waiting lists. If accepted, you will receive a detailed letter in early October. These Labs fill quickly. Register early and please be sure to note your alternate selections.
When you return from the Action Lab, you're invited to join us for Leadership and Life Lessons from the Field from 4:15 - 6:00 pm. It's a rare opportunity to get "up close and personal" with some of gifted education's most well-known leaders in this refreshingly open general session. In a "fireside chat" format, you'll hear reflections and lessons learned: from what they wish they had known when they first started, to where the future of the field is headed. Ask questions of your own during this lively discussion that will keep you engaged and entertained.
A1. Special Schools for Special Students/Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts and New Orleans Center for Creative Arts
Grade level: 6 – 12
You will begin your adventure at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, Louisiana’s only public, residential high school for advanced G/T students. Students come from across the state to attend a school named by Newsweek as “one of the nation’s ‘Public Elites.’” After a refreshing lunch, you will move to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). Established in 1973, NOCCA offers curriculum in Media Arts, Music, Theatre, Culinary, and Visual Arts. Leave this action lab with two effective models for meeting the needs of highly gifted and talented students while also engaging in best practices to prepare students for success in college that depends on rigorous academic training. Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick, Jr., Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, and former Saints cornerback Ashley Ambrose are a few NOCCA graduates who can attest to the extraordinary educational opportunity the Center represents to the children of Louisiana. Participants will have the opportunity to tour both sites and see how these venues train future professional actors, singers, visual artists, media producers, dancers, musicians, and culinary artists.
A2. Differentiated French Quarter Walking Tour
Grade level: K-12
Take a stroll through some of New Orleans’ most well-known historical sites with a G/T New Orleans native. On this Action Lab you’ll see several unique venues including the Cabildo Museum, the Presbytere Museum, Jackson Square, and the St. Louis Cathedral. The overall experience will not only shed light on turbulent events from New Orleans’ past, but also on the splendid resiliency of the city and its culture. Hands-on learning strategies will be explored. (Note: this is a walking tour)
A7. Heritage Education/Destrehan Plantation
Grade level: K – 12
Enjoy History and G/T Day at the Destrehan Plantation in St. Charles Parish. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Destrehan Plantation was established in 1787 and remains the oldest documented plantation home in the lower Mississipp
i River Valley. You will tour the home and learn what heritage education is all about with school children helping you learn Cajun dance and demonstrating open hearth cooking and indigo dyeing. You’ll learn how to use primary documents in the classroom, view the 1811 slave revolt exhibit, and get an authentic perspective of plantation life. Participants will jump from the 19th to the 21st century when they experience a program that student visitors use to communicate while on site, such as blogging, tweeting, and using GPS.
A8. Arts-Based Education/Lusher Charter School, K-12
Grade level: K – 12
Visit two very unique and dynamic campuses of a New Orleans Charter School. The Lusher Charter School, a K-12 New Orleans Public Charter School located in uptown New Orleans, partners with Tulane University and is operated by the non-profit Advocates for Arts-Based Education Corporation. For the past several decades, the two campuses of the Lusher Charter School have been in the vanguard of innovative and successful educational institutions in Louisiana. Using a collaborative site-based leadership structure, Lusher faculty has implemented cutting-edge reforms in arts-based education, monitored and integrated the latest developments in neurological and brain research, designed positive discipline programs to build a strong school culture, and implemented a research-based, systematic approach to literacy and numeracy instruction. Participants leave with cutting-edge curriculum models to take home and implement with their gifted and talented students.
Global Visions Action Lab
Lending a Hand: A Unique Service Action Lab
The NAGC Global Awareness Network presents their second annual Global Visions Service Project with Habitat for Humanity on Wednesday, November 2,7:30 am - 3:00 pm. Transportation will depart at 7:30 am from the first floor, right outside NAGC Central. The Global Awareness Network designed this program in 2010 to build a network of engaged citizens (NAGC members, local students, community members and organizations) working in collaboration to directly impact homelessness, affordable housing, and related issues in the NAGC annual convention host city. Those who register for this program will participate in hands-on, direct service to demonstrate and model the belief that there is interdependence among all people. Registrations are first-come, first-served until the maximum of 50 registrants is reached. (A waiting list will be maintained should there be any cancellations.) In order to cover a portion of the costs for transportation and lunch, each registrant is required to pay $15. Click here for the registration form for this Action Lab.