Using Bibliotherapy with Gifted Children - Unwrapping the Gifted Hopefully we’ve all had that experience of reading a book that powerfully “spoke” to us, a book whose characters we could relate to, and whose struggles and triumphs we identified with. Taking this experience a step farther is the strategy of bibliotherapy, the process of helping the reader learn about and cope with any social or emotional struggles or developmental needs by identifying with a character in a book who shares a similar struggle or need. The reading is typically followed up by discussion with a trusted adult. Bibliotherapy of course can be done with all students, particularly students who might be experiencing a divorce in the family, a learning disability, adoption, etc. Today I want to talk a bit about using developmental bibliotherapy specifically with gifted students. A fair amount has been written already (see links at the bottom of this post) about what bibliotherapy is and why it's important to do with gifted students. * Who in the book do you identify with and why?
Ways To Differentiate Instruction - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo (This is the first post in a two-part series on differentiation) I posed this question last week: "What is the best advice you can give to a teacher about differentiating instruction?" I've shared my response in an Ed Week Teacher article that I've co-authored with my colleague, Katie Hull Sypnieski. I'll limit my contribution here to sharing a useful link to The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction. Experts in the field, though, have agreed to share their responses here, so today I'm pleased to publish answers from Carol Tomlinson and Rick Wormeli. Response From Carol Tomlinson Carol Tomlinson is an internationally-recognized leader and author in the field of differentiated instruction. My journey with differentiation began in my middle school classroom when it was quite clear that my one-size-fits-all approach to teaching was, in fact, not fitting many of my students. So some colleagues and I began to ask ourselves some fairly straightforward, if daunting, questions.
7 Tips for Better Classroom Management In my mind, the first and most basic obligation of a teacher is to see the beauty that exists within every student. Every child is infinitely precious. Period. When we start from this vantage point, classroom management -- and its flip side, student engagement -- comes more easily. This video, shot in the first few days of my classroom in 2010, and the seven tips below will show how I try to put these ideas into practice. 1. Love them -- and stand firmly against behavior that doesn't meet your expectations or reflect their inner greatness. Our students know how we feel about them. 2. If a student chose not to meet one of my classroom expectations, they needed to know that I loved them but not their misbehavior. For instance, a minute and a half into the first day, I gave one student a verbal warning for whispering to another student as he was searching for his seat. 3. Call attention to the things your students are doing that meet your expectations. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Differentiation - tools, tips and resources Differentiation is an important aspect of education. Students learn differently, have different needs, different backgrounds, different skills, different ability levels, different interests and more. As educators, we try to create engaging lesson activities that provide a variety of learning experiences and allow students to demonstrate their learning in different ways. Differentiation should occur in both how students learn and gain knowledge and skills, and in how they demonstrate and are assessed on what they have learned. “In the practice of education, differentiation is defined as working to address the abilities, interests, and needs (both perceived and real) of individuals. Here are some resources, tips, and tools on differentiation: Digital Differentiation - ideas and tools for differentiating with digital resources Tools for Differentiation - helping teachers meet the needs of all learners Differentiating with Web 2.0 Technologies
Differentiating the curriculum The Policy and implementation strategies for the education of gifted and talented students: Support package: Curriculum differentiation (2004) (pdf 1345kb) provides an introduction to curriculum differentiation for gifted and talented students and is suitable for all stages of schooling. It needs to be read in conjunction with the Policy and implementation strategies for the education of gifted and talented students (revised 2004) and its companion document (2004) (pdf 270kb). The purpose of differentiating the curriculum is to provide appropriate learning opportunities for gifted and talented students. Three important characteristics of gifted students that underscore the rationale for curriculum differentiation (Van Tassel–Baska, 1988) are the capacity to: learn at faster rates find, solve and act on problems more readily manipulate abstract ideas and make connections. The creation of a differentiated curriculum requires some pre-planning. Definitions Article (pdf 25kb) Acceleration Web page
Teaching the Gifted and Talented: 33 Websites Where You Can Find Good Resources I wish the Internet was available to me as a kid in elementary school. In New York City, where I attended kindergarten through sixth grade, they called the gifted and talented class "SP". I remember being put into a class to learn French, but very little else. I figured out how ahead I was only when I entered junior high school in New Jersey. The French language I had studied for three years allowed me to coast through French class for the next four years. LESSON PLANS41 Ways to Go Beyond the Book Report Edsitement- from the National Endowment for the Humanities Gifted and Talented Education Lesson Plans Helpful Sites for Gifted Students Lesson Plan Resources- from Davidson GiftedMrs.
10 Social Media Skills for The 21st Century Teachers January 11, 2014 Digital social networking is a game changer in the learning landscape. It is an invention that amounts in its importance and usefulness to the big inventions that marked all mankind history. In ancient times, cultures, in the absence of any established sign language to encode its content, were orally based. Storytelling was the major vehicle to pass on the human legacy from one generation to the other. Stories constituted the basis of collective learning and now with this rapid uptake of social media networks and their widespread , the notion of collective learning has been revived. There are several communities and affinity spaces where people get to meet and learn from each other irrespective of their geographical locations, race, ethnicity, and gender. The potential of social networking sites in education is huge and we need to capitalize on it to enhance our professional development and consequently improve the quality of our instruction.
10 Free iPad Creativity Apps for Young Learners Teaching our kids to be creative is just as important as teaching them critical thinking skills.Creativity open up students mind to new learning horizons and makes them capable of tackling new and novel situations way better than any explicit instruction would do. We, in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning , strongly believe in the importance of creativity in education and we have dedicated a whole section in this blog to articles covering this topic. We have also reviewed some web tools that teachers can use to integrate creativity in their instruction and today we are going to introduce you to an awesome set of iPad apps that can do the same job but this time for young learners in primary schools. 1- Draw Free for iPad This is a great free iPad app that lets users create beautiful drawings. 2- Pic Collage This is an app that allows you to create awesome collages of your friends and favourite stars using stickers, text, web images and many more. 3- Our Story 4- Scribble Press 7- j2e
Differentiating Instruction Differentiating Instruction ... One Size Doesn't Fit All Effective Strategies to Improve Student Performance ! We have students in our classrooms who struggle academically and others who learn at an advanced level and accelerated pace. Testimonials about the workshops -- Fran McAleer is a valuable contributor to our work, training to create a new and better workplace in our schools. More! Franny McAleer has been providing staff development for teachers in the Berwick Area School District for the last four years, including whole staff workshops with the Six Thinking Hats as well as focused workshops detailing best practices with instructional strategies for gifted and honors students. AWESOME! Franny did a tremendous job of inspiring and engaging participants in a one-day training session on differentiation. The presenter knew her topic and was open to all questions. Franny McAleer is a dynamic presenter. "This workshop got nothing but rave reviews." Teacher and parent links are blue.
The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction My colleague Katie Hull-Sypnieski is leading a February 1st Education Week Webinar on differentiating instruction, and I would strongly encourage people to participate. Katie’s the best teacher I’ve ever seen…. In addition, Katie and I have co-authored a piece for Education Week Teacher on the topic that will be appearing there soon (it’s appeared: The Five By Five Approach To Differentiation Success), and an upcoming post in my blog there will be talking about it, too (that two part series has also appeared). I also did a second two-part series in Ed Week on differentiation. Also, check out The Best “Fair Isn’t Equal” Visualizations. Given all that, a “The Best…” post was inevitable, and here it is. Here are my choices for The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction: The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels” Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction is by Rick Wormeli. Reconcilable Differences? Deciding to Teach Them All is by Carol Ann Tomlinson.
15 of the Best Brain Breaks | Continually Learning Brain breaks are a great classroom management tool to use regularly in your classroom. Brain breaks are short, 1 to 2 minute, activities that can give students a break from school work. Brain breaks give students a chance to get up and move around. Brain breaks can even happen in the middle of a lesson. I love to use brain breaks as a way to break up the subjects. This is a list of my favorite 15 brainbreaks. I hope you enjoy this list of my favorite brain breaks! 1. Choose 2 options. This was my fourth grade students’ favorite brain break. Sometimes, I would make up the choices. 2. Pick a category. This is a really simple brain break. Another spin to this brain break is to make it a game. 3. 20 Jumping Jacks This is a really easy and fast brain break but it allows the students to get up and move. 4. Students pair up, clap hands above heads, then squat and clap hands below knees. This is a favorite of students. 5. 10 Push Ups This is another one of those super simple and fast brain breaks.
20 Must-Have Educational Resources For All Teachers Edudemic often features posts providing a list of top resources for a particular category. Recently, the site gettingsmart.com posted the names of the LAUNCHedu finalists chosen by the SXSWedu® Conference, offering even more resources for the Edudemic staff to consider! On March 7, 2012, they will choose winners after a full day of presentations by the finalists. There are so many sites and programs on the Internet already, but this competition just goes to show that the need for educational resources is still great. I thought and pondered, considered and reconsidered, and researched and revised a list in my head this week. First, however, I created a wordle using some of the lists the editors have created recently. I divided my resources into categories, based on my interests as a teacher. Devices iPad – The iPad provides access to e-texts and incredible educational apps. Resources for Lesson Planning Classroom Resources Learning Management Systems Cloud Resources What about you?