'The Fridge'
We have a place in my classroom that we call "The Fridge". It's a place where students can tape up any work or pictures that make them happy and show success. It helps to encourage the growth mindset we have in my classroom. Any success is success! A student who generally is lower in my class may increase a quiz grade by a few points; we celebrate that! Another student may have won a soccer game over the weekend; we celebrate that!
In reality, it is a big white machine that helps purify the air in our classroom. It's clunky, it's annoying, but we decided to make lemons out of lemonade and now there is a rotating supply of fresh student successes.
Here on my "fridge" I share some of my successes, those things that helped me to grow and learn, along with a commentary for the journey.
In reality, it is a big white machine that helps purify the air in our classroom. It's clunky, it's annoying, but we decided to make lemons out of lemonade and now there is a rotating supply of fresh student successes.
Here on my "fridge" I share some of my successes, those things that helped me to grow and learn, along with a commentary for the journey.
Wired to Create
Wired to Create (Scott Barry Kauffman & Carolyn Gregoire) was one of the critical books I read throughout my 6300 GIFT grad course. I have a strong urge in life to "go against the grain" and when Doc suggested certain books I thought "No, I'm going to do this MY way!" (Thankfully, she supports and celebrates that mentality!)
Wired to Create was a pivotal book for me in that, it showcased all of the skills my gifted students should be developing. In reality, as a general education grade-level teacher, MOST of my students could grow in the skills discussed in the book. What started as a viral article in Huffington Post, has turned into a book that is now inspiring creativity across the world.
While reading (and listening, thanks Audible!) through the book, I started to jot down idea maps. Again, going against traditional ideas, I decided it was more appropriate for my brain and my comprehension to create these idea maps, which then turned into a Jamboard. The idea is that, perhaps long-term, this creativity resource can be utilized in the classroom with students where we all just write down our thoughts on something; no right or wrong, no judgement, just a free dump of ideas. Having this free "dump zone" of ideas get kids starting on the creative path, prepares them for learning and gives a non-confrontational way to just, DUMP!
Wired to Create was a pivotal book for me in that, it showcased all of the skills my gifted students should be developing. In reality, as a general education grade-level teacher, MOST of my students could grow in the skills discussed in the book. What started as a viral article in Huffington Post, has turned into a book that is now inspiring creativity across the world.
While reading (and listening, thanks Audible!) through the book, I started to jot down idea maps. Again, going against traditional ideas, I decided it was more appropriate for my brain and my comprehension to create these idea maps, which then turned into a Jamboard. The idea is that, perhaps long-term, this creativity resource can be utilized in the classroom with students where we all just write down our thoughts on something; no right or wrong, no judgement, just a free dump of ideas. Having this free "dump zone" of ideas get kids starting on the creative path, prepares them for learning and gives a non-confrontational way to just, DUMP!
| wired_to_create_jamboard.pdf |
A Problem Solving Podcast
One of the challenges we had while learning was to analyze our school districts gifted education policy. While I did decently well on my assignment (darn it, I missed the fine print on sources again...), what was more important was that I realized just how flawed our gifted programming is in Pennsylvania.
When thinking about what students need from a gifted front, there are SO many states that don't have the funding needed to appropriately identify and teach our gifted students. While I am still new to the gifted world, I am learning that advocacy is such a huge component of what we are accomplishing within our work.
Advocacy in its own right, is a creative juncture. What works in one district, may flop in another district. Each area has different stakeholders, values, and interests. So while gifted education is not only isolating within the district you are in, it is also potentially isolating from a regional front due to the inconsistency between school districts. This then forces a gifted educator into a world where they have to use their own ideas to create solutions to problems, while multitasking their responsibilities as an advocate for their students.
*Creating a podcast had its own growing pains and I can see where long-term this could be an incredible problem-solving project for students!
When thinking about what students need from a gifted front, there are SO many states that don't have the funding needed to appropriately identify and teach our gifted students. While I am still new to the gifted world, I am learning that advocacy is such a huge component of what we are accomplishing within our work.
Advocacy in its own right, is a creative juncture. What works in one district, may flop in another district. Each area has different stakeholders, values, and interests. So while gifted education is not only isolating within the district you are in, it is also potentially isolating from a regional front due to the inconsistency between school districts. This then forces a gifted educator into a world where they have to use their own ideas to create solutions to problems, while multitasking their responsibilities as an advocate for their students.
*Creating a podcast had its own growing pains and I can see where long-term this could be an incredible problem-solving project for students!
A Co-Teaching Unit
Though I previously mentioned our school district is lacking in the gifted education department, there was an opportunity to create a co-teaching unit for grad work. I LOVED this assignment, because I got to think in the hypothetical, that is, to dream up ideas. This too, is a necessary component for creativity for our gifted students. Being able to visualize and plan new ideas is crucial to the development of critical thinking and boosting creative thoughts. You are literally able to keep those ideas in your head and create all sorts of scenarios, trialing them out, and then when you feel solid in the direction of your plan, you can get it out on paper.
With this assignment, I significantly went out on a limb, because ELA is *NOT* my favorite subject, in fact, if I never had to teach ELA again, I would probably stage a happy little flash mob.
For this assignment, I wanted to challenge myself, beyond the ideas of gifted education, into also the realm of ELA where my brain just sort of... flops. This then pushed me into a zone where I had to accomplish my own problem-solving, collaboration (with other teachers), and then research ideas based on what I gathered.
The good news is, I learned a lot and was able to really creatively explore different co-teaching strategies. The bad news is... I still really dislike ELA. Some things never change.
With this assignment, I significantly went out on a limb, because ELA is *NOT* my favorite subject, in fact, if I never had to teach ELA again, I would probably stage a happy little flash mob.
For this assignment, I wanted to challenge myself, beyond the ideas of gifted education, into also the realm of ELA where my brain just sort of... flops. This then pushed me into a zone where I had to accomplish my own problem-solving, collaboration (with other teachers), and then research ideas based on what I gathered.
The good news is, I learned a lot and was able to really creatively explore different co-teaching strategies. The bad news is... I still really dislike ELA. Some things never change.
| 6300_m4_challenge.docx |
What's Going On In This Picture?
For our Module 2 Challenge, we were tasked to come up with a lesson plan that incorporated critical thinking. While I flopped at that part, I did find the initial prompt incredibly helpful for use within my own classroom. All in all, I'd consider this one a win, simply because of the long-term incorporation into my classroom.
The New York Times posts a new picture each week, entitled "What's Going On In This Picture?" When the picture is posted on a Monday, there is no caption. Instead, readers are tasked with coming up with some sort of caption or idea of, you guessed it, what is going on in this picture?
I teach 6th grade Social Studies and Science. This was RIGHT up our alley in terms of getting creative juices flowing in a non-confrontational way. I set up a separate Schoology folder for students that they could look at the picture of the week and post their own response to a discussion prompt. Though I did not make it a permanent part of our curriculum this school year, it will be integrated next year. Really, it could be used for either social studies (from a current events lens) or science (from an observation, inferencing, developing hypothesis lens). I enticed students to explore this in their free time by giving extra credit based on the quality of their responses. We used a series of "W" questions to fine tune responses: What?, Why (do you think that?), Where?, When?
This was also a differentiated opportunity for my lower students and ELD students who could still share their ideas using talk-to-text. At the end of the day I would have one student go through all the comments and summarize what the general consensus was, then I would allow a trusted student to use my iPad to post on the New York Times page under my name, with our class name.
There was one week that New York Times missed putting a picture up and my students came to me before I even realized it, upset that there was no picture! After a few weeks, they started to pick up on minute details that they previously would have missed. The answers they came up with showed an incredible amount of creativity and showed what their background knowledge was for each subject covered.
Again, overall, a win, simply because of the subconscious skills that this activity taught. Though I want to incorporate it into our curriculum for 23-24, I think I may keep it in the capacity of being an "extra" current events activity, which keeps it low-stress (a skill needed for creativity).
The New York Times posts a new picture each week, entitled "What's Going On In This Picture?" When the picture is posted on a Monday, there is no caption. Instead, readers are tasked with coming up with some sort of caption or idea of, you guessed it, what is going on in this picture?
I teach 6th grade Social Studies and Science. This was RIGHT up our alley in terms of getting creative juices flowing in a non-confrontational way. I set up a separate Schoology folder for students that they could look at the picture of the week and post their own response to a discussion prompt. Though I did not make it a permanent part of our curriculum this school year, it will be integrated next year. Really, it could be used for either social studies (from a current events lens) or science (from an observation, inferencing, developing hypothesis lens). I enticed students to explore this in their free time by giving extra credit based on the quality of their responses. We used a series of "W" questions to fine tune responses: What?, Why (do you think that?), Where?, When?
This was also a differentiated opportunity for my lower students and ELD students who could still share their ideas using talk-to-text. At the end of the day I would have one student go through all the comments and summarize what the general consensus was, then I would allow a trusted student to use my iPad to post on the New York Times page under my name, with our class name.
There was one week that New York Times missed putting a picture up and my students came to me before I even realized it, upset that there was no picture! After a few weeks, they started to pick up on minute details that they previously would have missed. The answers they came up with showed an incredible amount of creativity and showed what their background knowledge was for each subject covered.
Again, overall, a win, simply because of the subconscious skills that this activity taught. Though I want to incorporate it into our curriculum for 23-24, I think I may keep it in the capacity of being an "extra" current events activity, which keeps it low-stress (a skill needed for creativity).
Conceptions of Giftedness
In my 6100 GIFT course, we created a resource that was sort of a "dump" to start our study on giftedness. As part of this, I created a word cloud. What I think it most unique about this is understanding that gifted education is a WIDE world of information. No two gifted students are alike, creating a crazy maze of identifying the best way(s) to help a student. There are multiple opportunities and resources, yet everyone is sort of doing their own thing.
In creating a word cloud, you are throwing out any word that strikes a cord in relation to the topic at hand: What is Giftedness?
What I think is interesting about this challenge is the creativity component in that there is some restriction as to what you can add (words only, no sentences), but everything has to somehow relate back to the topic. There's restriction, yet freedom, which cultivates critical thinking and problem-solving within the context of an assignment. This is similar to my previous format of a Jamboard, where you have sticky notes that only allow a certain number of characters.
In creating the word cloud, there needs to be research and exploration (which is important to encourage in our gifted students). From there, a component of connecting dots from the material read to how it might relate pushes an idea of versatility and perseverance, which is relative to Walberg's Studies of Eminent Men, Eminent Women, and High School Artists and Scientists (Rimm et al., 2018, p. 31). Throughout the project there is a high degree of self-motivation to learn and add as much as you can (ugh, who wants a word cloud with only 3 words?!).
This is a project that makes exceptional sense to implement in our gifted classrooms as a way to channel interests and background knowledge as well as help a student to organize their thoughts, see connections and grow their creativity skills.
In creating a word cloud, you are throwing out any word that strikes a cord in relation to the topic at hand: What is Giftedness?
What I think is interesting about this challenge is the creativity component in that there is some restriction as to what you can add (words only, no sentences), but everything has to somehow relate back to the topic. There's restriction, yet freedom, which cultivates critical thinking and problem-solving within the context of an assignment. This is similar to my previous format of a Jamboard, where you have sticky notes that only allow a certain number of characters.
In creating the word cloud, there needs to be research and exploration (which is important to encourage in our gifted students). From there, a component of connecting dots from the material read to how it might relate pushes an idea of versatility and perseverance, which is relative to Walberg's Studies of Eminent Men, Eminent Women, and High School Artists and Scientists (Rimm et al., 2018, p. 31). Throughout the project there is a high degree of self-motivation to learn and add as much as you can (ugh, who wants a word cloud with only 3 words?!).
This is a project that makes exceptional sense to implement in our gifted classrooms as a way to channel interests and background knowledge as well as help a student to organize their thoughts, see connections and grow their creativity skills.
| word_cloud.pdf |
