October 2011 Archives

The bulletin board above my desk was getting a wee bit cluttered.

I've mentioned here before the "independent project" class I teach for my middle and high school gifted students. Advanced Studies is basically a "blank slate" on which they can pursue studies, topics, and projects of their own choosing. No, it's not a free-for-all. Whatever they do/learn must be school-appropriate, have academic value, and be connected to our state standards. Within that range, though, they have tackled a wide variety of topics over the years, and they frequently come up with ideas I never would have thought of. They also frequently prove to me just how much they are capable of when given a chance to "break free" of the type of teaching where the teacher tells them everything to do and how to do it. For example, over the years I have had students write novels, learn computer programming languages (such as Python), learn complex graphics programs (such as Blender), build computers, learn how to develop film ("the old fashioned way"), create movies, design apps, study specific topics (such as how different cultures view and deal with death, corporate law, electromagnetism, and others), conduct science experiments (one learned how to use an electrophoresis machine), learn languages (such as Latin and Navajo), and building things, such as the boy one year who designed and built an electric guitar from scratch:

(Interesting side note: About 2/3 of my students go into a future college major and career that is somehow related to at least one of the independent projects that they did through Advanced Studies.)

Over the fifteen years I've taught this class, I have been collecting useful websites for the kids to use for their various projects. It started gradually when the internet was still young. At first it was just a helpful site or two that I knew from memory and would suggest to a student as a resource. Then the internet grew and I began scratching the addresses of a growing number of sites down on scraps of paper and thumb-tacking them to my bulletin board. And then the internet really took off and my students were helping me discover all sorts of great places they could use and my bulletin board looked a bit ridiculous.

Then this summer at Edufest when I attended a session by Brian Housand, I learned of Symbaloo. A symbaloo (also called "webmix") is a place where you can collect a plethora of links on various topics and organize them however you want. So I began creating a symbaloo of all these wonderful online places that have been or could be great resources for my students to use while pursuing their independent projects. Yes, I've been working on this for months! It's still not done (it never will be because there will always be great links to add), but it's finally "done enough" that it's at a point I feel comfortable sharing it with the world now - so you and your students can make use of it, too, if you want. Here is a screenshot of what mine looks like (so far):

I have organized it by verb, so the students click on a link (blue box) that says what it is they want to do (such as "Compose" or "Create Graphics" or "Program" or "Collect & Show Data"). Clicking a blue box link then takes them to a new symbaloo containing links of sites that fit that topic or task. At that level, when they click a box, it will open that site in a new web browser. Clicking the red "HOME" box at a sub-page will take them back to my symbaloo homepage.

A few highlights from my symbaloo for you... The "Share" box will take you to a collection of links to places where students can share their creations with others. (I require them all to have a "real-world" audience in some form.) Some of these are online places to share (such as Instructables), and some of them link to tools that students can use (such as Prezi) when sharing with a face-to-face audience. The "Learn" box contains links to mostly-online learning opportunities, such as MIT Open Courseware and Omega Math. The "Write, Blog, Publish" box links to a collection of sites where students can self-publish their writing (such as my students' favorite, Blurb), learn writing tips (such as the Snowflake Method), and blog (such as Posterous). The "Organize Information" section contains links to sites that help (yes, it's obvious) organize information, such as LiveBinders and SpiderScribe.

And the green "Gifted Education" box will take you to my still-growing collection of favorite Gifted Ed links.

When you go to a symbaloo, a white box appears above the link boxes that asks you to "Add this webmix." If you click that (you don't have to to use the symbaloo), it might pop up a "create a symbaloo account" box, but just click cancel or the red X (unless you actually want to create a symbaloo account). It's entirely possible to use the webmixes without having an account. Clicking the "Add this webmix" box will eliminate the big white box at the top. It will then give you a version of the webmix with tabs to other webmixes, such as "News Highlights" and "Major News" and "Webmix Collection." I have NOT created those other webmixes and I haven't yet figured out how to eliminate those tabs from showing up on my own webmix. (Symbaloo is a relatively new thing and it seems its creators are still working out some kinks. Minus those kinks, I love it - and so do my students.)

Before you click the "Add this webmix" box, note the new webmix's url (address) at the top. You can jot that down to directly link to it again in the future, or to help point someone directly to that specific webmix. The direct address for my symbaloo is www.symbaloo.com/mix/thethinkteacher.

I have done my best to make sure that the places I'm linking the kids to are kid- and school-appropriate; however, the internet can change fast and I haven't had time to explore every last sub-page within each site. I'm about 98% confident that all of these are safe places, but because some are places where people can post their own content, I make no guarantees. (And actually, our school's filter will block those sub-pages anyway.) So when I showed this to the kids, I told them that there are dark alleys on the internet, too, and that if at any of the sites they discover a dark alley, to let me know and I will "unlink" it from my symbaloo. So far that hasn't happened.

Access to some of these sites is blocked to all students within our district. (As many of you know at your own schools, even reasonable places are sometimes blocked!) But I have been able to secure getting individual sites unblocked for individual students if they need that site for their project. (This is possible because in our district every middle and high school student has a unique login and profile).

Some of the sites I've linked to (such as Scratch and others) are good resources for elementary level students, too, but if your child/student is younger than 5th or 6th grade, you may want to explore this symbaloo yourself first and see what it's like before sending them there (or you can use it to find sites to then recommend to them). Again, I'm nearly totally confident that it's all just fine, but I have to make this caveat just in case.

Do you have suggestions of great sites I could add? Please let me know!

Happy link exploring :o)

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 6:52 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A couple of months ago, as part of my encouragement to you to help a teacher "see the light" regarding gifted students, I suggested giving a regular classroom teacher a book about gifted education. Some of you asked for specific suggestions, and today I have that list for you. This is by no means a complete list of great options; rather, it's a list of many good possibilities with which I happen to have some familiarity. Anyone who has another book to recommend that I don't have on the list below is certainly welcome to mention it in the comments section. In most cases, I have linked the book's title to the publishing company's webpage where you can purchase it.

For teachers who want ideas of in-class strategies they can implement to differentiate for their advanced learners:

Advancing Differentiation: Thinking and Learning for the 21st Century, by Richard Cash. Along with the enclosed CD-ROM, this handbook is an excellent resource for those teachers who are ready to take their differentiation strategies to the next level.

Assessing Differentiated Student Products: A Protocol for Development and Evaluation, by Julia Roberts and Tracy Inman. This resource offers a multitude of ideas for how teachers can offer and assess a variety of types of student products.

Curriculum Compacting, by Sally Reis, Deborah Burns, and Joseph Renzulli. This book is widely recognized as the complete guide to modifying the regular curriculum for high ability students.

Curriculum Compacting: An Easy Start to Differentiating for High-Potential Students, by Sally Reis and Joseph Renzulli. This is a "compacted" version of the original, more in-depth version mentioned directly above.

Differentiating Content for Gifted Learners in Grades 6-12: A CD-ROM of Customizable Extensions Menus and Study Guides, by Susan Winebrenner. This CD provides detailed information about how to differentiate content for gifted and high-ability learners in the middle and high school grades. It includes more than 140 customizable forms and templates for teachers to adapt to their own purposes and needs. All academic subjects are covered, along with relevant examples.

Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom: How to Reach and Teach All Learners, Grades 3-12, by Diane Heacox. Together with the included CD-ROM of customizable forms, this handbook outlines the principles behind differentiation along with multiple strategies for classroom implementation.

Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum, by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Caroline Cunningham Eidson, and Cindy Strickland. These handbooks, one designed for grades K-5, one for grades 5-9, and one for grades 9-12, are the ultimate resource on differentiation strategies and philosophy.

Helping Gifted Children Soar: A Practical Guide for Parents and Teachers, by Carol A. Strip and Gretchen Hirsch. A widely-renowned favorite in the "gifted books" collection, this all-in-one handbook covers every aspect of information about parenting and teaching gifted children.

Making Differentiation a Habit, by Diane Heacox. Together with a CD-ROM of customizable forms, this teacher-friendly handbook offers a plethora of tools and strategies to help teachers make differentiation a habit in their classrooms.

A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students, by Nicholas Colangelo, Susan Assouline, and Miraca Gross. A thorough compilation of 50+ years of comprehensive research on student acceleration. It contains articles, research statistics, and an important discussion of the nuts and bolts of acceleration issues. In particular, the material documents the overwhelming evidence that appropriate acceleration has positive benefits for gifted students. Available for download at the title's link.

The Practical Strategies Series in Gifted Education, edited by Frances Karnes and Kristen Stephens. All 25 of the books in this series can be purchased individually. Each is a condensed handbook on a specific gifted education topic, excellent for someone who is wanting to begin learning about a specific gifted education topic or someone who wants an easy-to-use handbook for getting started.

Primary Education Thinking Skills: A Curriculum for Higher Level Thinking (four book set), by various authors. Created for K-2 classrooms, these books include hundreds of activities that promote the development of convergent, divergent, visual, and evaluative thinking skills. Books can also be purchased individually.

Raising a Gifted Child: A Parenting Success Handbook, by Carol Fertig. Despite its title, this book is an excellent resource for teachers, too. It covers every angle of information about gifted children together with a comprehensive list of suggested resources.

Re-Forming Gifted Education: How Parents and Teachers Can Match the Program to the Child, by Karen Rogers. From her analysis of research that spans a full century, the author describes various types of gifted children, as well as options for school enrichment and acceleration and the effectiveness of each option. Also shown are practical ways to design ongoing programs that best meet the needs of bright children. (For teachers who would want a very in-depth resource.)

Scamper Combined Edition, by Bob Eberle. Adaptable to any grade level, these activities promote the development of creativity and imagination.

Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom, by Susan Winebrenner. This book offers strategies and techniques every teacher can use to meet the academic needs of gifted and talented students in the regular classroom. It includes information on curriculum compacting and contracting for various subject areas, cluster grouping, characteristic behaviors of gifted and talented students, and ways to create more challenging activities for gifted students, plus more. A CD-ROM of customizable forms in the book is also available.

Teaching Young Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom: Identifying, Nurturing, and Challenging Ages 4-9, by Joan Franklin Smutny, Sally Yahnke Walker, and Elizabeth Meckstroth. This excellent resource provides information on identifying the young gifted child, creating a challenging learning environment, compacting the curriculum, promoting creativity, discovery, and critical thinking, and understanding and meeting a young gifted child's social and emotional needs, plus more.

For teachers who want to learn about the social and emotional needs of gifted students:

Coping for Capable Kids: Strategies for Parents, Teachers, and Students, by LeoNora M. Cohen & Erica Frydenberg. A thorough look at many issues and problems common to gifted kids, plus strategies for how to deal with them. Includes chapters on perfectionism, boredom, underachievement, drug and alcohol use, anorexia and bulimia, depression and suicide, developing social skills, metacognition, emotional development, goal setting, coping with change, family functioning, dealing with feeling different, and many others.

Intelligent Life in the Classroom: Smart Kids and Their Teachers, by Karen Isaacson and Tamara Fisher. This book highlights the traits and characteristics of gifted students, told through narrative, real-life examples and with healthy doses of humor and insight.

A Love for Learning: Motivation and the Gifted Child, by Carol Strip Whitney and Gretchen Hirsch. De-motivating factors can lead to underachievement and even depression in gifted students. With the four C's (Challenge, Commitment, Control, and Compassion) and the strategies described in this book, parents and teachers can pro-actively help gifted students to maintain their motivation.

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Asperger's, Depression, and Other Disorders, by James Webb, Edward Amend, Nadia Webb, Jean Goerss, Paul Beljan, and Richard Olenchak. The traits and characteristics of giftedness share some similarities with various disorders, yet the psychologists who diagnosis these disorders receive no training in their educations about the various manifestations of giftedness and their similarities with these disorders, nor how to distinguish between the two. As a result of their slim knowledge of the gifted, psychologists around the country have mistakenly misdiagnosed many gifted children and adults as having one of these (or other) disorders. This important text is the first to differentiate how giftedness and these disorders - though at first blush similar - are actually separate and distinct. While it is possible for an individual to be gifted and also have one of these disorders (some do), it's important for parents, teachers, and psychologists to know the differences so that a mistaken diagnosis is not made and so that accurate diagnoses are made.

On the Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Children, by Tracy Cross. With insights for both teachers and parents, this collection of in-depth chapters provides a thorough examination of the complexity of social and emotional challenges faced by gifted children.

Removing the Mast: Giftedness in Poverty, by Ruby Payne and Paul Slocumb. One volume from Ruby's renowned collection of works on students from poverty, this book focuses on gifted students who live in poverty and how best to identify them. The book also provides a wealth of examples of the unique needs and issues of gifted students who come from a poverty background.

The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children: What Do We Know? edited by Maureen Neihart, Sally Reis, Nancy Robinson, and Sidney Moon. A service publication of the National Association for Gifted Children, this book summarizes and highlights all of the best and most current research regarding the social and emotional development of gifted children. Over twenty specific topics are covered.

To Be Gifted and Learning Disabled, by Susan Baum and Steven Owen. The gifted and learning disabled child exhibits remarkable talents in some areas and disabling weaknesses in others. This book covers the research behind this phenomenon and strategies to assist parents, teachers, and students who struggle with this challenge.

When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs, by James Delisle and Judy Galbraith. A comprehensive compilation for any adult who lives or works with gifted students, this book offers proven, practical suggestions for encouraging social and emotional growth among gifted kids. Based on classroom experience, survey data, current research, and contributions from students, it explains what giftedness means and how gifted kids are identified. It also focuses on ways to create a supportive environment for all gifted students, ways to advocate for gifted education, and covers many social/emotional issues common to gifted youth, including perfectionism, boredom, and underachievement.

Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades: And What You Can Do About It - A Six-Step Program for Parents and Teachers, by Silvia Rimm. Underachieving gifted students are a complex and confusing phenomenon to most adults. How is it that such capable children can sometimes not do well in school? This book analyzes the factors contributing to underachievement and outlines a plan for how parents and teachers can help get these students back on track.

You Know Your Child is Gifted When...: A Beginner's Guide to Life on the Bright Side, by Judy Galbraith. This book blends humorous cartoons with solid information on giftedness -its characteristics, challenges, and joys,- plus reassuring and insightful first-person stories from those who have been there. (Available as a PDF download.)

For teachers who want to challenge their students in specific content areas:

Challenge Math: For the Elementary and Middle School Student, by Edward Zaccaro. With chapters on statistics, probability, trigonometry, algebra, and much more, this great resource is full of challenging problems for students who crave harder math. Each problem includes challenging extensions in Level 1, Level 2, and the Einstein Level.

Plexers: Arithmetic, by David Hammond, Tom Lester, and Joe Scales. Perfect for Math classrooms of grades 6-12, this resource offers 270+ highly challenging word puzzles that all relate to mathematics.

Plexers: Science, by David Hammond, Tom Lester, and Joe Scales. Perfect for Science classrooms of grades 6-12, this resource offers 284 highly challenging word puzzles that all relate to science, including the areas of biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, and physics.

Plexers: Social Studies, by David Hammond, Tom Lester, and Joe Scales. Perfect for History and Social Studies classrooms of grades 6-12, this resource offers 273 highly challenging word puzzles that all relate to social studies, including the areas of anthropology, government, history, politics, and sociology.

Some of My Best Friends Are Books: Guiding Gifted Readers from Pre-School to High School, by Judith Wynn Halsted. This guide for parents, teachers, librarians, and counselors offers updated background information on the emotional and intellectual needs of gifted children, describes typical reading patterns of high ability readers and their need for reading guidance, and includes an annotated bibliography of over 300 books carefully selected to be useful in promoting the intellectual and emotional development of high-ability children.

Super Sentences, by Susan Winebrenner. With sections for different ability levels, this resource provides challenging vocabulary activities for grades 3-12.

The Ten Things All Future Mathematicians and Scientists Must Know (But are Rarely Taught), by Edward Zaccaro. Mathematicians and scientists have been closely tied to many famous disasters. The Challenger explosion, the failure of the Mars Orbiter, and the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse all involved thinking errors. This book presents the ten things our future mathematicians and scientists must know to prevent these kinds of tragedies from occurring. Because science and mathematics instruction is often dominated by facts and calculation, children are rarely exposed to these important concepts. Over 50 stories are included that show children the strong connections between mathematics and science and the real world.

(And even more great challenging math books by Edward Zaccaro...)

In addition to the options listed above, you can find many other suggested books in the National Association for Gifted Children online store and at the Hoagies site.

Happy shopping and gifting! :o)

Posted by Tamara Fisher at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend