Curriculum and Strategies for Gifted Learners
Artifact/Evidence #1See this page's Header for my word cloud
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Above image (the header) is a wordle or word cloud created from an analysis of my documents & reflections on Curriculum and Strategies for teaching gifted learners. A wordle is a visualization of understanding though an analysis of words. This word cloud is evidence of my learning because the larger the word, the more times the word was used and discussed in my documents and reflections. Thus the big words that stand out (besides the basics of students, lesson, and learning) are choice, pre, task, questions, rotation, checklist, model, risk, metaphorical. This is followed by hook, cer, rubric cycle, assess, learning style. Thus, not only does this artifact show my understanding in a quick snapshot, but it also shows one unique way I use assessment in my classroom through technology (google word cloud add on and polleverywhere.com
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Evidence #2
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Student ArtifactsTask Rotation Artifact A. (For task list scroll down0
Task Rotation Artifact B
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Artifacts/Evidence #3: Student Work CHOICE MATTERS! By experimenting with new gifted lessons and strategies, I have learned that as a teacher I strongly believe in providing students with choice. As a result of this class, I have implemented a “View of the Universe Task Rotation Lesson”, 3 lessons using a learning-style choice menus, and one extension lesson with a “Tour of the Universe Dessert Menu”. All of these choice based activities have been very well received by my students as detailed with a google form, thumbs up/thumbs down and class discussion assessments. Basically students said that choice has helped motivate them (especially when completing note taking, webquests, and independent learning opportunities). Quotes from students “I liked that we got to be creative in the way of showing people what we learned.” and “I liked having the choice of expressing what we learned.” Basically, I not only believe in providing students with choice based on learning style, readiness and interest, but have been successful at implementing multiple opportunities to do so in the classroom.For more reflection on Choice Tasks click on grey button below.
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NAL includes multiple question strategies to aid in memory and student learning. these Student Artifacts are from choice understanding questions in NAL
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Windows Notes: It surprised me was that I was already incorporating research-based gifted strategies in my classroom, like the Windows Notes Strategy. When I show a video I usually ask students to record facts, questions, and draw a model in a chart. Now as a result of this class, I have added a feelings box to the chart so as to connect with different types of gifted learners (per the Windows Notes strategy). I should not have been surprised by how much students enjoyed talking about their feelings about the Big Bang Theory in our Astronomy Unit. By just adding a place for students to record their feelings (and 30 seconds of “silent silence to require them to complete it), we had a richer class discussion. Students talked about feeling “SMALL” and this led into a discussion of scale. It was a perfect connection into a mini-lesson on scale.
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Student Artifact WNS Feedback: Strong responses. I really like your question about the needs of life on other planets. You seem to be inferring that with different needs, then there would be different characteristics of planets in the goldilocks zone. Your answers highlighted your IB learner trait of thinker. Keep up the good work
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Website Table of Contents
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My Reflection on Curriculum and Strategies for Gifted ChildrenTwo strengths of my planning for gifted learners are
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Multiple Learning Styles (Strength 1): I am good at planning for and using strategies that address the needs of multiple learning styles (across Mastery, Understanding, Interpersonal, and Self-Expressive learning styles). This can be seen in my implemented task rotation lesson where students researched early astronomers views and then choose a task from a learning-style choice menu to show their learning of how science changes over time. I developed the learning style choice task (for M,U,IP, and SE) because students in the past did not put much effort into his/her independent learning. This choice task gave students a reason/motivation to take notes and the ability to show their learning in a way comfortable and individualized to them (creating their own model, developing a time-line, drawing a poster, writing a comparison chart of scientific views). Student engagement doubled from the previous year and I had all positive student responses (with 2 neutral responses) on the activity.
Since implementing this lesson, I created two additional tasks (not required by my endorsement) incorporating learning styles (i.e. Tour of solar system project and an energy extension project) . To continue to grow in this area, I am planing a bulletin board about learning styles for my room. Basically, I find myself often mentioning the different learning styles (M,U, IP, and SE) in class and I wish to have a visual in the room to reference when I do. |
Task Rotation Student Sheet
Climate Change Solutions - Research and choice task
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Formative Assessment (Strength 2): A second strength is that I regularly (and often unconsciously) using strategies to formatively assess students for understanding. It has become a habit. First, I give a pre-assessment for each unit and or new concept. I then review pre-assessment data (e.g. Astronomy pre-test data, class warm up question “Describe or draw your view of the solar system. What convinces you that your view is correct?”) to identify who is ready, who needs support, and/or where weaknesses are in a given unit/content standard. For example, after our recent Astronomy pre-test, I identified 24 students who already had a strong understanding of the learning target- S6E1c.Analyze and interpret data to compare and contrast the planets in our solar system. As a result, I differentiated their learning project task to give them choice to research non-planetary objects (e.g. comets, dwarf planets, etc.) inside or outside of our solar system and compare their characteristics to Earth. During their work on the project, I walked around to individuals and asked questions to assess understanding “How does the size and surface of the dwarf planet Ceres compare to that of Earth?” or “Where is that object located relative to our Sun and relative to our Earth?” and “Which is the dwarf planet more like Earth or Neptune and why?”. If a student struggled to answer a question, I tasked them with finding out the answer and including it in their project. Each day, students had ticket out the door questions to complete (e.g. compare and contrast two objects in the solar system, or what is one new fact you learned today?} Next, 4 days into the project, all students were given a google formative quiz to assess their understanding of the characteristics of objects located in different areas of our solar system. I then differentiated for students who scored as developing or beginning (60% or less), by having them sit with me in a group to go over their notes to look for patterns. Finally, all projects received a peer review assessment using the same checklist provided at the beginning of the assignment. This peer review was planned for additional feedback and learning opportunity from each other (see how others wrote and think deeply about strengths and weaknesses of it). After peer review, students had one day to edit their final and hand it in for teacher feedback using the previously provided checklist and rubric. Thus, at all steps of the process, students were asked to show their understanding, they received feedback and were given a chance to refine their understanding. This example shows my strength of using pre-tests, questions, ticket out the door, and rubrics to assess for student understanding.
Preparing Students: Because I teach using a variety of strategies, my students are excited and prepared to try something new. Students know to come into class each day and read the board for directions since I rarely plan the same thing/strategy two days in a row. I also regularly ask students open-ended questions that have no answer and I always preface discussions with “Take a risk, there are no wrong answers here.” or “I am looking for ALL ideas: right, wrong, and in-between” and. “This is what hypotheses are made of.” By making these things regular occurences in the classroom, my students have become comfortable with activities outside their comfort zone and are therefore prepared for new lessons.
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Connecting with Colleagues: After implementing the task rotation lesson in my classroom and it having gone so well (shown by student survey, listening to group discussions, and reading CERs), I took the risk of discussing and sharing the lesson with my science colleagues in 6th grade. I told them about students’ responses, showed them the student learning products and how easy it was to implement. The lesson was very well received and all my fellow teachers implemented it. Afterward, all of us agreed that by giving the students a reason for taking notes (completing the choice synthesis), the students were more engaged and bought-into the process of research. Teachers agreed that we should do this again in the future.
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In truth, I was surprised my implemented lesson was so well received by my fellow science teachers in 6th grade AND that they wanted to implement it. This was a win for our students and made me happy to know I could contribute to our team.
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Future Growth: As a science teacher, I am working to incorporate more creativity* into my classroom. I believe I struggle to incorporate creativity in my classroom because, as a scientist, I tend to see things very logically. I don’t traditionally consider myself creative (despite the TEDx talk by David Kelley), so it feels wrong to assess someone’s learning based on their creativity. Specifically, to address this, I have started using whiteboards for individuals and groups to draw a thinking model of vocabulary, concepts, and processes (and hold up as formative assessment). I also am including creative elements in my choice tasks. I am trying to reduce my anxiety in this area by creating and using a rubric to assess for understanding in my choice task and task rotation assignments (each incorporated a creative element). The rubric takes away the qualitative feeling of the assignment and helps all involved understand the expectations. I am hoping my comfort level will increase (and weakness will decrease) with more use of self-expressive tasks and their assessment with rubrics in my classroom.
Although I planned a 6 thinking hat lesson and a metaphorical expression lesson (both of which incorporate creativity), I did not feel comfortable in writing/planning either (despite this, I modeled risk making and did both). Both lessons involved multiple rewrites and give me anxiety when I thought about implementing them in my classroom. I believe the problem is that the multistep process necessary for each, feels unwieldy in a gifted inclusion classroom with on-level and struggling students. Despite this, the six hat lesson was a success as way to teach IB Reflecting on Science Standards. When implementing it again in the future, I would work on being more explicit with expectations for group work and with classroom interactions (to aid in classroom management). If I could implement either lesson in a class of only gifted students, I think the management of it would be easier and therefore I would be more comfortable with it. |
White board/desk chalk drawings
Creative Choice task
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