Greetings, everyone! Thought I'd pass on some information for all of you about some great new learning opportunities.

Last fall, I mentioned the Webinars on Wednesday series hosted by NAGC (the National Association for Gifted Children). They are continuing the series this spring with a line-up of topics such as "RTI for Gifted Education" (a three-part series beginning tonight), "The Creative Underachiever," "Resource Roundup," "Talent Development within the DMGT Framework," and "New Concepts of Creativity and Giftedness." The presenters are all nationally-recognized within the field of gifted education. Each webinar takes place on a Wednesday evening and will be one-hour long. A relatively small registration fee is now required, but registering will also gain you access to an archive of the webinar a few days after it has aired. To learn more, and to register, click here.

Among the other great organizations also offering webinars this spring is SENG, Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted. Their webinars take place on Thursday evenings, last 90 minutes, also require a small registration fee, and are also presented by well-known people within the field of gifted education. Upcoming topics include "The Social and Emotional Benefits of Cluster Grouping for Gifted Students" and "The Gifted Child: Superachiever or Underachiever--Parents and Teachers Make the Difference." You can also purchase past webinars, among them a great line-up of titles such as "Developing Creativity in Gifted Children and Youth," "Asynchronous Development: A Paradigm for Parents and Professionals," "Living in the Gifted Family," "Common Misdiagnoses and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: What Parents, Educators and Psychologists Need to Know," and many others.

Additionally, the University of California @ Irvine's Extension program is offering four free webinars on gifted education topics this spring. Topics include "Gifted and Talented Instruction on a Budget," "Implications for Educators of Gifted Minority Students," "Troubleshooting Today's GATE Programming Obstacles," and "Classroom Applications of 21st Century Skills." Each of the free UC Irvine webinars lasts one hour. To sign up, visit this page.

This Saturday, the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development is hosting a two-hour webinar on "21st Century Learning: Above-Level Assessment as a Tool for Understanding Gifted Learners." A DVD of the webinar is also available for purchase.

Additionally, the Center for Talented Youth offers webinars that explain their program offerings, including their Talent Search program and their incredible summer and online classes for gifted students.

I also found a free webinar (available for any-time, online viewing with registration) about curriculum differentiation for gifted students. This last webinar, hosted by the Summer Institute for the Gifted, provides a great overview of important strategies, such as curriculum compacting, enrichment, and assessing prior mastery. To sign up, just click here. You can also sign up for the upcoming webinar on summer learning opportunities for gifted students.

Happy Learning! :o)

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 6:43 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

"It's really thinkable." ~ Cal, 1st grade ~

My gifted students have fun in my classroom and I'm not ashamed to admit it... because I know what they really mean.

The concept of "having fun in school" is an interesting one to debate. On the surface, it's easy to be cynical about kids having fun in school when school should be about learning important academic skills and concepts, not fun & games or entertainment. Some teachers even worry that kids have become so accustomed to being entertained in their daily lives that they expect (and only respond to) the same level of whiz-bang theatrics in school. Some people think if kids are having fun in school, then they aren't really learning, they're just being entertained.

Whether or not what I'm about to talk about here applies to all students, I can't say. But I can say with confidence that it does apply to the gifted students I work with.

I am not an entertainer. Frankly, I'm a rather low-key teacher. I don't do theatrics or whiz-bang lessons. I rarely take kids on field trips. And I'm too genuine of a person to put on an act, not even for the sake of my students' enjoyment. I take my job seriously and the kids know that. (When they tell me something is hard, I tell them, "Good, that means I'm doing my job right and it means you are about to learn something.") And yet the kids consistently tell me, year after year, whatever their grade level, that they have fun in my class.

I have always instinctively known that what they really mean is they enjoy being challenged in my class. "Fun" to them is eight pages of analogies and getting to use the unabridged dictionary to solve them. "Fun" is spending half an hour on the same problem and still not having it solved yet. "Fun" is spending ten hours on Saturday writing the next four chapters in the book they're writing... writing for "fun," not for some assignment. "Fun" to these kids is reading Tolstoy and then debating his ideas during lunch. "Fun" is volunteering to organize the teacher's desk. "Fun" to gifted kids is THINKING and CREATING and WORKING HARD on something challenging.

But I had a moment of doubt: Maybe I am just unintentionally entertaining these kids? We do, after all, occasionally play (gasp!) games. And some people (some of my colleagues, some of the other students in school, some parents) only perceive the "fun" we have in my classroom, not the grander purpose at play (despite countless efforts on my part to dispel these misconceptions).

Something at NAGC triggered my ponderings on this topic. I don't remember just what. It was perhaps a random comment someone made or perhaps a random observation I made while listening to a presentation. But it's been on mind since that time. In part, I think it's been persistently rattling around because such a big piece of what I tackle every day (in my job, plus here at "Teacher Magazine," plus as President of Montana AGATE) is the pile of misunderstandings that our broader society has about gifted kids and gifted education programs. People notice that these kids have fun in their gifted classes (it's hard to miss... they're so intensely enthusiastic!) - but they rarely dig deep enough to uncover what's actually at the root of that fun. And of course, if these people only think it's about "fun," then they're more likely to continue to see the GT class as a "privilege" or "reward" for "the good students." It means they're also more likely to see it as something that isn't truly necessary. "Fun fluff" isn't serious learning, after all, and therefore can be cut in lean times.

But when gifted kids have fun in their GT and advanced classes, it isn't about any of that! I decided to survey my students with an open-ended question to help illustrate the point. I didn't tell them what I was up to (other than that their responses might be used here), but just gave them this simple open-ended statement to complete:

"When I say that something in school or in GT is 'fun,' what I mean by 'fun' is..."

And here are their responses. (As before, all names are student-selected pseudonyms.)

"It's really thinkable." ~Cal, 1st grade~

"It's fun when you're solving. It's fun because it's a hard job." ~Tallen, 1st grade~

"If everything you did was easy all the time, you wouldn't learn anything. But learning is fun, so being challenged is fun." ~Dorothy, 1st grade~

"Fun means you get to learn something that is outside of the school box." ~Bubba, 5th grade~

"What I mean by 'fun' is it's challenging." ~Sally, 5th grade~

"If something is fun, it's mind-boggling, awesome, and hard. You get to use strategic thinking to solve things." ~Margaret, 5th grade~

"GT is fun because it's challenging and you have to keep a steady working pace. You have to keep working and not give up." ~Carol, 5th grade~

"Fun to me really means that I like the challenge of something. I like knowing I'm not as smart as I seem and that I can get things wrong. That's the best part! Yes, finding my limits is fun!" ~Laine, 5th grade~

"Fun means I am actually challenged. In other classes I'm basically automatic, which is very boring." ~Lillian, 5th grade~

"To me, if something is fun it means it is a challenge that I can enjoy, not like the challenge of doing loads of easy work or the challenge of staying awake in boring parts of school." ~Jelly, 5th grade~

"Fun means it's challenging and you're going to have to think." ~Goldilocks, 5th grade~

"When I say that GT is fun, I mean that it stretches my mind and lets me be myself. It also teaches me that it is okay to make mistakes so I don't get frustrated and can relax and learn at the same time." ~Onyx, 5th grade~

"Fun means it's challenging but not too challenging. It means something is in my 'just right' zone." ~Annie, 5th grade~

"If something is fun, it means it challenged me in a fun way or proved my ability or showed me a different way to think about something that I hadn't realized before." ~Michelle, 7th grade~

"It means it is challenging, enjoyable, and worth the time I put into it." ~Ailie, 7th grade~

"Fun means you always have something interesting to do." ~Charlotte, 8th grade~

"What I actually mean by 'fun' is that it was challenging. When I get it, I have a sense of victory and growth." ~Keegyn, 8th grade~

"What I mean by 'fun' is that the projects are intriguing and they challenge my thinking. I feel this class allows me to move at my own pace and be in control of my own destiny. We are able to solve real-world problems and conjure up new ways of thinking." ~Lorelai, 8th grade~

"It means I have experienced something that made my brain work and challenged me. When I say school or GT is fun, it means I have completed an ongoing task or I was challenged or I had to use my brain in some way to communicate. For example, writing poems is 'fun' to me." ~Olive, 9th grade~

"I am happy that I can achieve what is set in front of me and this in turn is fun to me. Normally this involves a challenge, which makes me strive to beat the challenge. In essence, it's just proving to yourself you can do it." ~Andrew, 10th grade~

"Fun means that it is something that makes me think. It's a puzzle, situation, or debate, etc., that challenges me to look at something in a new way. It also encompasses looking at something through another person's perspective." ~Stewie, 11th grade~

"This class is fun because I am allowed to pursue my unpopular interests." ~Scribblenaut, 12th grade~

"It means I can be myself in this class. I have more freedom here to use my brain to its full power. I get to think for myself here." ~Larson, 12th grade~

"Fun is a rating of accomplishment. When an activity is fun for me, it is usually a challenge that I had to think through and defeat. Doing 40 math problems with little change between them, though accomplishing something, is drab and not fun because I didn't have to think and therefore did not feel challenged." ~Garrett, 12th grade~

Letting others continue to see gifted education classes for these students as "a fun reward for the good students" means we aren't helping them understand why the kids are actually having fun there. My challenge to you this week: Help someone understand what's really at the root of all that fun going on in the GT room!

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 1:35 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Many of you, like me, are huge fans of the Rush Hour games. Kids of all ages love them and they are an excellent tool to use with gifted kids (really, any kids... or adults!) to help them develop a desire to persist through a challenge, to "stick with it" when it's hard rather than cheat or give up. Anyone out there who has worked with gifted kids knows that things often come easily to them. Well, Rush Hour is one excellent tool for helping them learn how to hang with a task long enough to complete it (rather than expecting themselves to always be able to solve something the first or second time they try).

I'm excited to break the news to you today (if you haven't already heard) that the ThinkFun company (creators and producers of the ORIGINAL and best Rush Hour games) has created a Rush Hour iPhone App! It also works on the iPodTouch, which I happened to purchase for myself about a week before their App became available. Perhaps some of you recently found an iPhone or iPodTouch in your stocking and you're wondering what are some great Apps to add? Head to the ThinkFun website and click any Rush Hour link which will include a link to add the App.

The FREE version of the Rush Hour App contains 70 total challenges at four different difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard, and expert). The "buy" version is only 99 cents and contains a deliciously full package of 2500 challenges!!! (625 at each of the four difficulty levels)

A new feature that makes solving them even more fun and challenging is the "perfect score" challenge which involves solving each puzzle by moving the cars the minimum possible number of squares.

I'm totally addicted. As a matter of fact, my sister, brother-in-law, and I bought our parents an iPodTouch for Christmas, and today, after showing them the Rush Hour App, I now have my whole family addicted to it, too! There's five of us fighting over two iPodTouches... Everyone wants to play the game and solve the challenges! Here is my sister demonstrating how frustrating (yet thrilling, too, I promise...!) Rush Hour can be:

Better yet, if you solve - with a perfect score - all 25 of the Easy level challenges in the Free version of the App by December 31st, you can enter a drawing to win a basket of free games (worth about $250) from ThinkFun! Yes, I know, telling all of you about this awesome contest has now decreased my own chances of winning, but that's okay. You can read "the fine print" about the contest and how to enter at this link on the ThinkFun site.

For those of you who are fascinated, as I am, by the whole development process behind creating these puzzles, I highly recommend that you read "the inside story" at ThinkFun's site. It's really amazing just how much goes into making Rush Hour possible.

Entering the contest involves sending a picture to prove that you have solved all 25 of the Easy challenges with a perfect score. Here's me with my almost-perfect record on the Medium level:

Happy puzzling!

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 3:20 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Greetings and apologies for not getting my Day 4 Report up sooner. After NAGC, I returned home to four nights of parent/teacher conferences, work on my garage that I'm building, giving a couple of presentations, a five-day trip over Thanksgiving, and a five-day family trip to Iowa (in addition, of course, to my job!) Needless to say, I'm working on getting caught up with myself! ;o)

Day 4 (Sunday) at NAGC was a shorter day with two early morning break-out sessions followed by a closing keynote. I didn't attend this year's closing keynote because doing so would've meant getting home at about 1:00 a.m. - and since I had to work two 12-hour days that Monday and Tuesday (parent/teacher conferences), I opted for being a little more refreshed rather than being even more wiped out.

The Sunday breakout sessions were just as wonderful as the other days. The first session I attended on Sunday was about mood and creativity. The presenter, Elizabeth Fairweather, is researching whether or not there is a connection between the two - and if so, what it might be. She's been examining high and low levels of positive and negative mood elements (contentment, surprise, fear, sadness, etc.) and if/how they affect a person's creativity. I realized, through her presentation, that I could be doing more for my students in the way of helping or encouraging them to examine their own moods and how (if at all) they affect their creativity. In particular, I think this would be important to do with my 7th - 12th grade students who work on independent, self-directed projects in my class. Some days, their progress (or lack thereof) on their projects appears to be impacted by their mood. I'm going to encourage the kids now to keep track of their moods and their progress on their projects so that they can determine for themselves which factors and moods are more advantageous (or crippling) to their creative process.

The second breakout session that I attended on Sunday was about a three-credit undergraduate introductory course on gifted & talented students at the University of Toledo. (The person giving the presentation, Jeanine Jechura, teaches the course, if I'm remembering correctly.) Our local tribal college here on the rez usually invites me to speak to the Education majors in their Exceptional Needs class. But I only get about two and half hours with them, rather than an entire semester, so my question after the presentation at NAGC was, "So how do I condense this all into two hours?" I'm well aware that in Montana, those two(-ish) hours of information about gifted students that they get from me might very well be the only exposure/information those future teachers ever get on the topic, so I feel a bit of pressure (self-imposed, I admit) to be as efficiently effective in that short time as possible. I left the NAGC session with a short list of key points and then took that list with me last week when I met with those pre-service teachers at the tribal college. Essentially I gained three overarching goals for my time with those soon-to-be teachers: 1) That they leave with some understanding of key topics/issues in gifted education (social and emotional needs, identification, creativity, school accommodations, mythology, special populations, etc.), 2) That they leave with some empathy for gifted kids and what they sometimes experience in life and in school due to being gifted, and 3) That they leave with a desire for action - to do something for the gifted students who will enter their classrooms someday. And really - I think those are three important and realistic goals for the type and length of presentation I was called upon to give because if they can leave with those three goals more or less accomplished, then they are much more likely in the future to take it upon themselves to seek out any or all of the thousands of pieces of information I didn't have time to impart to them that night.

An additional piece that I add to my presentation at the tribal college is a student panel. With parent permission, I brought in about a dozen of my students, ranging from a 1st grader to a high school junior, to talk from the kid's point of view about being gifted. That is definitely an effective way to accomplish goal #2 (empathy)! The kids (and a few of their parents who stuck around to watch and also talked a bit) really "brought to life" everything I had been talking with the pre-service teachers about during the previous two hours. And the kids appreciate having the opportunity to help future teachers develop some understanding about kids like them before they even get to a classroom.

While I missed the closing keynote at NAGC, I did attend the opening keynote with Josh Waitzkin. (Someone asked in the comments section that I talk about it - so sorry I forgot to in a previous NAGC Report post!) On one hand, I wished the three kids on the stage with him would have had more opportunity to ask Josh questions (they were part of a panel that posed questions to Josh) as well as to speak more themselves. But that aside, what most impressed me about Josh was how he has so thoroughly examined the principles that led him to success in chess and how he then transferred those principles to other areas he wanted to be about equally successful in. He seems like a highly analytical person (makes sense for a chess master!), as well as intense and relatively down-to-earth.

Plan ahead! Next year the NAGC convention will be in Atlanta, Georgia, November 11-14.

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 4:25 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Greetings, once again! :o) I'm home now and here is the report for Day 3. With all the learning and all the fun that I squeezed into these very long days, I hit my limit that night and couldn't maintain my energy to stay awake and write. It's therefore a tad belated, but here is (my) Day 3 in a nutshell:

1) Saturday began quite early for me with the Affiliate Breakfast. The Affiliates are all of the state gifted associations and each year NAGC has a breakfast get-together for the affiliate leaders. As President of Montana AGATE, that meant me this year.

No people appear in this picture because I somehow managed to show up 20 minutes early (6:40 a.m.)! It's always interesting to meet people in leadership positions in their own states and to "compare notes" and share ideas.

2) Next came Howard Gardner's keynote, a reflection on his ideas (particularly that of multiple intelligences). He talked about the importance of individualizing as much as possible for students and reaching them via multiple avenues.

3) Just prior to each keynote, local kids provided entertainment as everyone walked into the giant room. Well, just before Gardner's keynote, a girl from the Missouri Scholars Academy blew everyone away with her poetry slam. Her delivery was well-polished, the content of her poem was highly relevant, and her message was crafted with remarkable creativity. The wowed audience of nearly 3,000 teachers and parents gave her an instant cheering standing ovation the moment she finished. It was phenomenal and I saw people with tears in their eyes, too. They told us she was on YouTube, so I found the clip and here it is for you to see (although this version shows a classroom performance that isn't quite as polished as she was on Saturday - but it's still great). Click the image to view the video -

The text of her poem is posted at the Missouri Scholars Academy website. Way to go, Taylor!

4) NAGC President Ann Robinson was interviewed on a St. Louis morning TV show and we saw the clip before the keynote, too. I'm really impressed with how thoroughly St. Louis reached out to NAGC during our time in town. We were welcomed in a variety of ways by many friendly people :o)

5) Saturday, NAGC conducted its first Virtual Convention, which was a series of that day's sessions being dually offered online, live, so that participants who couldn't make it to St. Louis could still participate to some degree. What a timely idea! If any of you participated in the virtual convention, I'd be interested in hearing about your experience. (The Virtual Convention was graciously sponsored by Prufrock Press.) Here you can see the computers that were set up to broadcast each presenter's voice and PowerPoint slides live over the internet:

6) After the keynote, I attended a session about building work ethic and resilience in our students and why they don't have much of either any more. Our "microwave, disposable society" is full of quick answers, quick fixes, and quick eliminations of what we don't want. Plus, a lot is given to or done for kids nowadays that they used to have to earn or work for themselves. The presenter suggested building the following traits in kids in order to foster their development of resiliency and work ethic:
* social competence
* communication skills
* autonomy
* sense of purpose and future

7) Next, I listened to a few researchers talk about their study of friendships and gifted kids, including the role (if any) of competition in those friendships. They found evidence that indicates gifted kids' friendships are perhaps more specialized (they have certain friends for certain reasons, rather than all-purpose friends). Their research also indicated that gifted kids' friendships were more likely to include "competition for fun" rather than competition to "beat" the other person.

8) "Procrastination: Pathways to Productivity" was a fascinating presentation by Joanne Foster. I remember hearing Maureen Neihart once say that perfectionism was a bit like cholesterol - there's a good kind and a bad kind. And that was essentially a good piece of what Joanne was saying about procrastination, too - that there's a good kind and a bad kind. (She didn't put it that way, but it struck me as an element of her message.) She talked about reasons people (especially gifted kids) procrastinate:
* they don't know how to ask for help when they're stuck (because they so often don't need to ask for help - and then when they do need to they don't know how to or are afraid to look "stupid")
* they're overwhelmed by too much to do or by the bigness of the task
* they see it as an unpleasant or uninteresting task
* they are more energized or inspired by a looming deadline
* they are afraid they won't be able to do it perfectly or to the level they so easily do other things.
And she also talked about ways to help gifted kids overcome their unhealthy procrastination - by helping them learn how to do the following:
* focus attention on what matters
* develop persistence
* learn relaxation techniques to help manage stress
* develop and nurture a mastery orientation (rather than a "always the best" orientation)
* analyze and harness what their own approaches to productivity are
Why do you procrastinate? What motivates you?

9) Sshhh... Don't tell anyone, but I skipped a session on Saturday so I could dash off to go up the arch!

That last photo is the arch's full shadow as seen from the top. I can't take credit for noticing it. A boy looking out the window next to me tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, lady, look! You can see the whole shadow!" I complimented him on making such a great observation :o)

10) The late afternoon session on Saturday was a conversation between Dean Keith Simonton and Howard Gardner about creative lives and their different opinions on the nature and nurture of creativity. I was struck by Simonton's engaging nature and easy laugh and it was fun to watch the two of them "rib" each other good-naturedly about their respective ideas. (This session was graciously sponsored by the Scholastic Testing Service.)

11) I enjoyed dinner on Day 3 with three of my classmates from our Masters program at UConn. We talked for a few hours, sharing ideas about what we're doing with our students and discussing what we had learned so far at the conference. One of them is a state department coordinator of professional development for teachers in Illinois and she recently developed a new 45-hour PD course for Illinois teachers that will give them a very comprehensive basis in information about and strategies for gifted students. In addition to awesome content, I was blown away by the format of it. It is a radical transformation of PD and I've never seen anything like it before. Combining new technologies and multiple adaptable features, it adjusts to the participants, records their thoughts and lessons, and incorporates both computer-based and face-to-face interactions for each activity. It's AMAZING and I regret that my description can't do it justice. I have the kind of job where I get blown away quite often, but this had my jaw hanging on the floor. It might even still be lying on the floor by her computer. Watching her demonstrate the program for us, I felt like I was witnessing the birth of something BIG. Illinois teachers, you are in for quite an experience!

And that was all just ONE DAY! I think I need some rest, especially after returning to two 12-hour work days (parent/teacher conferences Monday and Tuesday until 8:00 each night) on the heels of the convention. But, as Helen Hayes once said, "If you rest, you rust."

Check back for a report on Day 4! Remember to answer the question under #8 above about procrastination if you're interested...

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 10:37 PM | Permalink | 6 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Has it really been just two full days that I've been here?! It already feels like a week! (That's a good thing - it's just intense!) I'm typing at a table in a restaurant with some friends from other states because they peer pressured me into staying out later with them rather than going back to my room to write. I so love re-connecting with everyone here and meeting great new faces, too.

My day in a nutshell:

1) I learned some great tips about approaching legislators about gifted education issues from a former gifted specialist who is now a member of the Missouri legislature. Here's a sampling:
* Condense your information into about three simple and compelling talking points.
* If they can't read it in 90 seconds, it won't be read. (one sheet of paper with points bolded)
* Build relationships - find something you have in common to initially connect with them on.
* They need to like you and see you as influential.
* Connect with the decision makers and those who represent you.
* Focus on services for gifted children, not programs (because the purpose of programs is often misunderstood)
(Thank you, Sarah Lampe!)

2) Spent some time shopping in the Exhibit Hall...

3) Marveled at origami created with paper plates...

4) Learned about executive functioning processes in the brain...

5) Learned about American Mensa via lunch conversation...

6) Gathered ideas for a student of mine who is building a Rube Goldberg contraption. (One of the presentations focused on strategies for teaching thinking skills, simple machines, and engineering & physics principles to kids via the building of Rube Goldberg contraptions.)

7) Pondered what gifted kids really mean when they say something is "fun" ...

8) Attended a couple different receptions (face-to-face social and professional networking!)

9) Discussed the state of gifted education in Montana with a handful of other Montana GT specialists (there are only a handful of us anywhere...)

10) Talked with a doctoral student about her dissertation and shared ideas...

11) Had a photo op with four of my classmates from UConn -- the first time all five of us have been together at the same time since 2003.

12) And in the last session I attended this afternoon, I watched a really fired up presenter, Susan Rakow, give a feed-it-to-them-straight presentation about all those things in gifted education we all know deep down but rarely are gutsy enough to actually say (especially to people outside of gifted education). Her top 10 list of "things you can't say in gifted education" included "anti-intellectualism is the norm in the U.S." and "all children are NOT gifted." I found myself jotting down lots of gems she was saying, such as "giftedness is real and we need to stop apologizing for it" and "the glorification of stupidity." She talked about this "placation polka" we dance in order to soothe people's feelings or not step on any toes. And she said, "well sure, we retard them [gifted kids] for five years" in response to the common misperception that "the other kids will catch up."

Although my style is not quite so feed-it-to-them-straight, I think she's right that we have elephants in the room and don't confront or acknowledge important realities in our field. What do you see as the "things we can't say in gifted education"?

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 11:35 PM | Permalink | 5 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

My first full day of the NAGC convention has concluded and I already have enough ideas to take home to keep me hopping for a while! (Yet there are still three days to go!) I'm hoping to squeeze in enough time to share some of what I'm learning with you during the week while I'm here.

The view from my hotel window is gorgeous :o)

And the city of St. Louis has done a great job of welcoming us here. The restaurant I ate at tonight was a fair number of blocks from the Convention Center and even there (all over, really!) we found one of the little "Welcome NAGC" signs:

And about every other street light has a little welcome sign on it too:

Today (Thursday) were the Board Institutes, which are in-depth sessions presented by NAGC Board members. This morning, I attended the session by Julia Link Roberts on product assessment and this afternoon I attended the session about NAGC's new Mile Marker Series (which I plan to write about in more depth in a future post).

This morning's session began with an important and thought-provoking question: "If during the first five or six years of school, a child earns good grades and high praise without having to make much effort, what are all the things he doesn't learn that most children learn during those years?"

(Take a moment to ponder that for a bit...)

In our ensuing conversation, we shared multiple possibilities, such as:
* the child might not be learning persistence
* the child might not be developing a work ethic
* the child might not be encountering struggles that foster resilience
* the child might not be learning healthy strategies for dealing with frustration (which I've talked about here a bit before)
* the child might not be learning how to maintain a sense of curiosity
* the child might not be developing an accurate sense of his/her true abilities/potential
* the child might not experience a sense of satisfaction when actually achieving
* the child might lose pride in his/her work
* the child might not be developing time management skills or study skills
* the child might not be learning how to break an academic sweat (and therefore doesn't grow or improve in the ways we do when we "break a sweat")
* (click here and scroll to page 17 for a great article by Tracy Inman on this topic)

Now, granted, kids can learn these life skills via multiple avenues -- it doesn't just have to be in school that they learn them. However, school is certainly a BIG part of kids' lives and can have a significant impact on their opportunities to learn (or not learn) these important life skills. We hurt kids in the short term and in the long term if we cheat them out of opportunities to learn these life skills. Providing appropriate academic challenge for each learner is one ideal way to help kids develop and nurture these skills.

What is your answer to the question? What do you think our gifted kids don't learn if/when we allow them to skate through school?

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 11:43 PM | Permalink | 7 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Awhile back, I posted a link to a little survey that many of you completed for me. The purpose of today's post is to update you on the results (as previously promised due to the problem I had getting the survey system to link the results for all of you). I've taken screen shots of the results page in my Advanced Survey account and cropped them into individual JPEG images, which you can view below. Thank you to those who took the survey!

I am intrigued that the percentage of parents reading this blog is so high. Granted, since I limited the responses to that question to just one answer per person, the results don't reflect the number of people who fill more than one role, and that likely is many of you. Still, I'm glad to know that there are so many parents out there reading because it helps me know that I perhaps need to gear things to the parents a little more often!

Interestingly, the results to the above question have changed over time. Initially, when the survey was first posted, the responses to Question #2 were running about 75% "Yes" for subscribing to this blog via RSS or a similar feed -- probably because as subscribers they knew right away that a new post was up, whereas the non-subscribers gradually found it over time.

Even though I did allow multiple selections for the answers to Question #3, most people who responded only chose one or two answers each, hence the low percentages of interested folks for each topic. I'm fairly surprised that there isn't broader interest for more topics. (Of course, for me they're all interesting, but I'm also a bit of a geek for this stuff!)

I was disappointed to not hit all 50 states, although there are a couple states not represented that I do know I have readers in because I know people there offline who tell me they read this blog (Alaska, Idaho, and North Dakota, for example). And to the handful of you who claim to be living at Antarctica, I'd be really curious to know why you're there! (assuming you weren't just giving a silly response)

Wow, most of you are regular readers. I appreciate knowing I have a consistent audience and I hope I can (continue to?) do my best at offering you interesting, thought-provoking, fairly regular reading. And welcome to the many newbies!

If any of you didn't take the survey and would like to add your two cents to it, just follow these easy steps:

1. Go to Advanced Survey
2. Type my survey # into the little "Take a Survey" box on the right side of the page. Survey # is 69305.
3. Click "Go" and answer the five easy questions. (*Thank you!!!*)

Have a great week! I'm excited to be heading to St. Louis for the national convention and I hope to see some of you at NAGC this week! :o)

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 7:25 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I presented at our annual state teacher's convention, twice on identifying gifted Native American students and twice on "Getting Started: A Gifted Program for Your School." With about 900 schools statewide, spread over 147,046 square miles and 56 counties, we have just over 40 FTE in Gifted Education positions in Montana. That's not even a whole person per county, let alone enough to cover all 900 schools.

So, needless to say, I'm often confronted with "square one" questions when I present in my state. And even though I should know by now what to expect, I still can't help but marvel at the "starting from scratch" situations people are in here.

Two gentlemen from a small town on an Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana came to one of my presentations and wanted to know where the closest place in Montana was to them that they could go to observe a gifted program in action, to get ideas and to see how it works. Although I was aware of a couple places closer to them that are also just getting started, the only "close" place I truly knew of that has (and has had for quite some time) a gifted program is a 262 mile drive for them - one way.

Easily half of the people attending my presentations last week were Special Education or Title I teachers from Class B or C (i.e. rather small, usually K-8) schools who had been "given gifted" for a class period by their administrators. Most of the other half were English teachers, Computers teachers, Librarians, etc., who had also been "given gifted" for a class period or two. All of them were at a bit of a loss as to where to even begin.

Yes, our state does have a very thorough Program Planning Guide available, in addition to other resources. Yes, Gifted Education is technically nothing new in Montana, with the founding of AGATE thirty years ago and a mandate in our state accreditation standards that schools identify and provide appropriate services for gifted students. Yes, we have come a very long way in the past three decades, thanks to a serious cadre of folks who came before those of us currently in the trenches. But geography, size, lack of funds, and misperceptions continue to plaque so many of our schools.

So in moments like this I find myself torn between the past and the present, between how far we've come and how far we've yet to go, between excitement for the schools that are getting the ball rolling and ache for the gifted students in those schools that continue to think an AP class at the high school level is all the "appropriate services" these students will ever need. Part of me wants to mentor each and every one of these amazing, motivated, uncertain, curious teachers as they develop services for their schools' gifted students - and part of me knows I can't just dive in and do it all when my own job(s) await(s) me at home (not to mention the garage I'm building out back in every possible spare moment of time). And then I think of how much more exciting and how much more daunting these same struggles must have been for those who were in my shoes in Montana thirty years ago... I am so grateful to them and I marvel at what they accomplished with essentially no road map. Thank you, Pioneers.

Before she left, one of the ladies who came to my first presentation last week said, "I have hope now that I can do this - and that it might actually be fun, too. Before, I was overwhelmed by all of the unknown and uncertainty. I was worried and nervous and intimidated. But now that I have some idea of how to begin and where to go to access resources, I think I might even be looking forward to this new, open-ended aspect of my job!"

Welcome aboard to all of you newbies out there! :o)

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 7:24 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

"I think subject acceleration helps a lot. It challenges us and gives us what we need. I'd rather be challenged to where I'm learning - even if it means I don't always get straight A's. I think moving me up in Math was a really smart decision on the school's part."

"It's a way to be myself and get ahead and actually do what I want to instead of staying behind and reviewing. I actually get stressed out if I'm NOT accelerated. This way I get to learn. I'm more stressed when it's too easy because it's the same review over and over."

The above quotations are from two of my middle school students whom we have subject accelerated in math. Despite the overwhelming evidence of acceleration's positive effects for kids who are ready for it, many schools still shy away from providing these kids with what they need educationally. Why? Some worry that the kids really can't handle it, some worry that it will create social problems for them ("look what became of Ted Kaczynski, after all!"), some worry that removing those students from the class will remove the "sparks" that get discussions going, some think the advanced kids have to be in the regular classroom to provide a model for struggling students, some think giving them extra work (in addition to the regular work) in the regular classroom will fill their need for challenge, some don't think any kids should ever be "singled out" (except, of course, the kids on the Varsity team), and some worry about life event issues, like all the other kids getting to drive sooner than the accelerated child. (Ah, yes, in the grand scheme of school priorities, getting to drive at the same time as everyone else at school is so much more important than learning at school...)

Subject acceleration is the process of providing students advanced content in a given subject. This is typically accomplished by moving the student ahead a grade in that subject (sending a 2nd grader to a 3rd grade class for math, for example) or by providing advanced groups within the grade level that significantly accelerate the pace and content.

Subject acceleration is one of many forms of acceleration. Others include:
1. Early Admission to Kindergarten (i.e. starting K at age 4 instead of age 5)
2. Early Admission to First Grade
3. Whole-Grade Acceleration (a.k.a. "Grade-Skipping")
4. Continuous Progress (being allowed to "move on" when material is mastered, even if the rest of the class isn't ready to move on)
5. Self-Paced Instruction (independent study, independent projects, self-taught subjects)
6. Combined Classes (for example, a 2/3 combo class)
7. Curriculum Compacting
9. Telescoping Curriculum (condensing content into a shorter time-frame ... i.e. learning two semesters of material in one semester, or learning three years of material in two years, etc.)
10. Mentoring (learning from an "expert")
11. Extracurricular Programs
12. Correspondence Courses
13. Early Graduation
14. Concurrent/Dual Enrollment (i.e. being dually enrolled in middle school and high school or in high school and college)
15. AP (Advanced Placement) or IB (International Baccalaureate) classes
16. Credit by Examination (i.e. taking a test to prove mastery... Colleges more typically offer this, where someone can "test out" of a class)
17. Acceleration in College
18. Early Entrance into Middle School, High School, or College

We have been providing subject acceleration in our schools here for a number of years, some of it through advanced-level groups within a grade level and some of it through above-grade placement in a subject. Most of our cases of above-grade placement have been in math.

So how does it work? Well, these details can give you an idea of one way subject acceleration can work. Feel free to share your own ideas and strategies in the comments section.

First, it's important to note that acceleration is not necessarily right for all gifted kids, or even for the same gifted kid in multiple subjects. It is a case-by-case determination. That said, though, acceleration (in its various forms) has been shown by oodles of research to offer a multitude of benefits for kids who are ready for it. The links at the bottom of this post will take you to further information on the topic.

I began the long road of bringing subject acceleration to my district about a decade ago, with one student who was an exceptional math student and whom I knew otherwise would only be getting grade-level content in math. I honestly don't remember how I did it, but I somehow convinced the principal and teachers involved that this student needed to go down the hall to a 6th grade math class when the 5th grade was doing math. They agreed to the arrangement, although made me promise that it could be "undone" if the student floundered or was teased. No worries - He thrived, and even outshone every 6th grader in the class. The initial surprise from some of the teachers caused me to shake my head in wonderment a time or two, but it wasn't long before the teachers involved became believers that not only were there some kids out there who could do this, but that we should be doing more of it. (!) Each year since, we have fine-tuned the process, and each year since, we have increased the number of kids being subject-accelerated. This year, for example, we have determined that 15 of our 5th graders were ready for 6th grade math. They LOVE it. More specifically, they love being challenged at a level they're ready for.

How do we decide which ones are ready? I seek recommendations from the 4th grade teachers (in particular from the teacher for our advanced 4th grade class) and I check every single 5th grader's score on the math portion of our state tests that they took in 4th grade and 3rd grade. Kids with the highest test scores and/or the highest teacher recommendations are selected for further screening (in most cases, they have both high scores and a teacher recommendation, although there is the occasional kid who only has one or the other). We give the kids a beginning-of-6th-grade assessment from our curriculum which targets the main skills the 6th grade teachers expect the incoming 6th graders to more or less have a good handle on. Any of the tested 5th graders who do well on the test (80% correct is a good target, although we always discuss each case and factor in work habits, desire for challenge, previous track record in math classes, etc.) is then placed into 6th grade math (which takes place at the same time as 5th grade math). So they leave their 5th grade classroom during math and walk down the hall to the 6th grade classroom for math.

We saved space for these kids in a 6th grade math class so that we could have a reasonable number of seats available for the number of 5th graders we were estimating would qualify. So some planning ahead in the schedule can be really helpful. But keep in mind, we started this here a decade ago with just one student. If what your school needs is a "test case" to "prove" to everyone that it can be done and the child CAN handle it well, then start with a test case. You can grow the process and the number of kids benefiting from it as you are able. (Yes, I agree, "but more kids need it now." In my case, I had to concede to myself that "starting somewhere" was better than "fighting the issue everywhere." And once we had "started somewhere," it didn't take long before I was no longer fighting the issue everywhere.)

Our middle school has grades 5-8, so yes, in 6th grade they walk down the hall for 7th grade math, in 7th grade they are scheduled into an 8th grade class (and by that point some of them are ready for the advanced 8th grade class), and as 8th graders they walk up the hill to our high school (it's essentially "next door") for either Algebra I or Geometry. And when they are full-time high school students, they continue to be placed according to their needs, which can mean an online AP Calculus course or other correspondence course or dual enrollment in a college course by the time they are seniors.

One of the most exciting outcomes of the process for me has been the enthusiasm by which (most) of the teachers view the process and the benefits for the students. They became so convinced of the need for subject acceleration for students who were ready for it that they developed their own procedures for subject accelerating kids in grades above 5th. If two weeks into the year, a 7th grader is blowing their socks off in their 7th grade math class, they assess the student and place her into an 8th grade class. When a new student comes and is assessed for placement, they put the child into whatever class he or she needs, basing their placement on what they're ready for as a learner, not on when they were born. I still coordinate the 5th to 6th grade acceleration process, but beyond that point, the process has evolved to take care of itself. Those who were once hesitant skeptics of subject acceleration are now enthusiastic supporters.

Mostly, today, I want to leave you with the words of the kids and teachers who have been a part of this process. The student quotations below come from a sampling of my 6th-11th graders, most of whom were subject accelerated from 5th to 6th grade math and a couple others were accelerated in a later grade level. I simply asked them for their thoughts on being accelerated - good, bad, or ugly. They took it from there:

"It was really helpful. It helped me improve my grades because I was no longer drifting off in an easy class."

"It's hard at first, but in the end it's worth it because you don't feel like you're held back. You can go above and beyond."

7th grader in advanced 8th grade class: "I like it because it gives me a challenge. It makes me work harder to get good grades."

"It's better to be challenged. I feel like I'm learning more. I'm doing better in school because I'm learning more and being challenged instead of being bored."

Teacher who has taught accelerated students: "Students express to me the relief of not being bored and under-challenged. They love to have their brains stimulated."

Teacher who has taught accelerated students: "The notion of keeping grades separate is a myth. I have 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in my '7th grade' math class. It's an intellectual class, not a social class. The 6th graders more than hold their own and the 8th graders tend to get it in gear when they see the 6th graders doing the work."

Teacher who has taught accelerated students: "It would be a shame to hold them back! Let them go on! They're usually even at the top of the class in the upper grade. They just want to learn and we need to let them."

Parent of a subject-accelerated student: "If they're ready for it, it allows them to take more in high school and not have to double up on classes in order to move on. My child is happier when she's learning and not repeating or reviewing information she previously mastered."

Homeroom 5th grade teacher who has had a few students subject-accelerated into 6th grade math: "Even if you try to accelerate in class, it's not the same. Try as you might, you just can't do for them what the subject grade acceleration can."

Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration

A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students (a summary of many decades worth of research on acceleration)

The Iowa Acceleration Scales (the most widely used method for determining acceleration placements)

Advice for parents whose kids might need acceleration

Synthesis of research on acceleration options by Dr. Karen Rogers (1999)

A statement on acceleration by Dr. David Elkind, president emeritus of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and author of The Hurried Child

More acceleration links from Hoagies' Gifted Education Page

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 7:51 AM | Permalink | 8 Comments | TrackBacks (0)