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A) The Influence of heightened intensities and social context on advanced performance
Virginia Burney, Indianapolis, IN
Kristie Speirs Neumeister, Ball State University
The gifted individual is an amalgam of heightened sensitivities working in concert to cultivate the developmental potential necessary for advance performance. The extent to which such potential culminates in high level accomplishments depends, in part, on the social context within which the individual develops. This session will examine ways in which the interactions among intensities and social context influence gifted students' motivational beliefs and behaviors, including perfectionism.
Participants will extend the discussion into optimal conditions in schools that foster achievement and integrated development in gifted students.
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B) Data Warehousing
Carolyn Callahan, University of Virginia
tonya Moon, University of Virginia
Administrators and policymakers often desire access student and program data to facilitate decision-making on how best to operate, manage, and evaluate gifted programs. However, in most instances districts do not have a system in place that allows for such questions to be addressed.
This Institute is designed to educate educators about longitudinal databases by addressing three board questions:
(1) What is a longitudinal database? (e.g., what types of questions can be addressed?);
(2) What are the components of such a database (e.g., What components, features, capabilities comprise a longitudinal database)
(3) How is a longitudinal database developed?
Using Excel as the first step in setting up a model, we will provide examples of how to collect, organize and access data to address the kinds of questions that are important in organizational decision-making.
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C) Literacy Adventures in school and the community
Arlene DeVries, Des Moines, IA
Christie McConathy, Des Moines Independent School District, Des Moines, IA
Are your gifted students growing as readers and writers? Gifted readers are beyond "learning to read" and instruction should focus on "reading to learn." Gifted writers need advanced skill development. Unique learning opportunities such as Native American legends in a teepee, book discussions led by prominent community leaders and university graduate students mentoring writers, will be shared to aid in meeting the needs of these students. Useful classroom activities combined with various community resources, such as authors, public libraries, universities, and other community experts, will provide practical applications for students to explore literature and enhance writing.
Participants will be involved in literacy activities and materials will be shared for easy implementation in your balanced literacy program.
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D) Currents of Classroom Creativity
Patricia Hollingsworth, University School at the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK
Gail Herman, Garrett College, McHenry, MD
Sally Stephenson, Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD
Every classroom can be a place where currents of creativity flow. Classroom work takes on renewed interest and vigor when there are multiple ways for students to express themselves creatively. This institute focuses on how to develop and enhance creativity through the arts. Involvement in creative activities greatly increases the chances of developing what Csikszentmihalyi calls flow.
Participants will be actively involved in learning ways to teach through drawing, painting, song writing, movement, and drama. The strategies are adaptable for a wide range of ages and subject matter. Adult participants will enjoy expressing themselves artistically as much as children do.
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E) enhancing Differentiation through Talents Unlimited*
F. richard Olenchak, Todd Deveau, Gwen Frank, University of Houston, houston, TX
In this session, participants will learn the power of Talents Unlimited teaching as a mechanism for facilitating differentiation and how integrating it with content quickly and easily sets the stage for content, process, and product adjustments appropriate to the wide range of student abilities and needs found in typical classrooms today. While not new, Talents Unlimited teaching remains a phenomenally easy means for addressing each student's cognitive and affective development.
Participants will learn about each of the Talents and time will be reserved for beginning to create lessons that imbed them.
*Using Thinking Maps to Enhance Talent Development
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F) Using Collaborative Lesson Study as a professional development strategy to improve curriculum differentiation initiative
Jeanne Purcell, Connecticut State Department of education, hartford, CT
Originating in the Japanese schools, lesson study is a professional development strategy that uses collaborative investigation and analysis of implemented lessons and accompanying student work to improve teaching expertise and student achievement. Lesson study combines a small group of teachers who share common professional learning goals, subject-area responsibilities, or grade level assignments with the services of a supportive facilitator and carefully crafted protocol.
During this session, we will explore the concept, purpose, and procedures for lesson study as a professional learning tool. We will practice a lesson study protocol using a small set of Understanding By Design/Differentiated Instruction lessons to show how this strategy supports teacher reflection, evidence-based problem finding, and collaborative problem solving.
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G) Differentiation through development and assessment products
Julia L. Roberts, Tracy Inman, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
Accurately assessing student learning is the key to providing learning experiences that allow for continuous progress. The use of consistent indicators guides the student in developing the product as well as guides the educator in assessing the product. Moreover, each product assessment tool has three levels that vary in sophistication. Differentiation of assessment occurs when the appropriate level is matched to the student.
This session will examine criteria (content, presentation, creativity, and reflection) to consistently guide the development and assessment of products from levels below proficiency to expert. A range of products will be examined, and participants will have opportunities to apply the criteria as they evaluate products.
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H) Get a life! Differentiate the Curriculum with biographies for high-ability learners
Ann Robinson, gwendolynn Millen, Lorna bryant, University of arkansas at little rock
Get a life! Choose children's biography and share it with your students. How did Napoleon contribute to deciphering the Rosetta Stone? What did the Wright brothers' little sister do to make their plane flights possible? Who was the computer wizard of the Victorian age? How did Marian Anderson learn to sing? Answers to these fascinating questions about talent development and more are answered in this institute. Whatever the content area, there's an excellent biography you can use to supply depth and complexity to differentiate curriculum for high-ability learners.
Share in the excitement by learning strategies to improve student writing, analyzing primary sources, and making connections between portraiture and biography. A bibliography of recommended children's biographies is included. Biography has been used to study talent development in gifted children and to track the trajectory of eminence in adults. Now, make biography a part of your differentiated elementary or middle school classroom.
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I) Improving Advanced Studies for underserved populations of gifted learners
mary L. Slade, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Gloria Cox, AVID, Charlotte, NC
Increasingly, research is demonstrating the limitations in traditional advanced studies programs for gifted learners. In particular, the appropriateness of existing programs for at-risk gifted learners is in question.
This presentation will look at current research and discuss the practical implications for enhancing existing advanced studies programs while considering the development of new programs as well. Recommendations for elementary, middle, and high school programs will be discussed. Best practices and demonstration materials will be highlighted.
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J) The grammar-writing connection: reinstating grammar in the gifted english curriculum
Michael Clay Thompson, san Juan, PR
After an era that opposed and abandoned formal language study in the name of whole language or middle school, the country is in the position of having to reinstate formal language study in the English curriculum. This includes vocabulary programs, formal academic writing, poetics, and grammar. It has become clear that students who do not know grammar cannot be taught to write correct formal academic prose, which depends upon the conventions of traditional grammar. But many teachers who once took pride in teaching grammar have retired, and many new teachers entering the force have never learned grammar themselves, much less a method of teaching it. It is time to reinstate grammar and use it as a foundation for correct writing.
This session will present four-level analysis: a method of grammar instruction that really works, taking students beyond the stereotypical notion of grammar as tedious to grammar as an exciting form of higher order thinking about language.
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K) Developing curriculum for the gifted with the three r's: Rigor, relevance, and reasoning
Joyce VanTassel-Baska, College of William and Mary
This session will focus on how we can build more powerful differentiation practices into existing curriculum to make it more challenging for gifted learners in each subject area. The session will focus on core areas of the curriculum and demonstrate strategies for differentiation that work in math, language arts, science, and social studies. The arts will also be integrated into each area.
Participants will leave with a plan for modifying content-based curriculum in their school and at their grade level.
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