OAGCT Newsletter
November 2019
OAGCT Conference 2020
Learn more @ http://www.oagct.org/2020-oagct-conference.html
Register @ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oagct-annual-convention-tickets-74746561979
Parents
Conference +Lunch+ Parent Membership $120.00
Individual Educators
Register through January 31st:Individual OAGCT Membership, Conference Registration & Lunch - $135
Institutional Member Conference Registration & Lunch - $95*
*Institutional memberships must be paid at http://www.oagct.org/membership.html
Institutional Members
Register after January 31st:
Individual OAGCT Membership, Conference Registration & Lunch - $165
Institutional Member Conference Registration & Lunch - $125*
*Institutional memberships must be paid at http://www.oagct.org/membership.html
Paying by PO
Individuals - If you are paying by PO, register on Eventbrite. When it asks for payment, choose change pay, and then choose pay by invoice. Enter all the required information and complete the order. (You may also choose Pay at the Door.)
Institutional Members - Each attendee from the institution needs to register on Eventbrite following the instructions above for individuals paying by PO. Choose the Conference Institutional Registration plus lunch choice. Make sure the "company" name matches the institution name on the PO.
Staying Overnight
Room Rates at Stoney Creek Hotel are only $114 per night.
Use the code / Group Attendee 2002OKLAHO to get the special rate.
See http://www.oagct.org/hotel-reservations.html for more information
Call Stoney Creek Hotel @ 918-416-8100.
Friday, Feb 7, 2020, 08:00 AM
Stoney Creek Hotel & Conference Center 200 West Albany Street Broken Arrow, OK 74012
Conference Keynote Speaker: Tamara Fisher
Tamara Fisher is a K-12 gifted education specialist for a school district located on an Indian reservation in northwestern Montana and past president of the Montana Association of Gifted and Talented Education. With Karen Isaacson, she is co-author of Intelligent Life in the Classroom: Smart Kids and Their Teachers. Her Education Week blog, Unwrapping the Gifted, covered developments in the gifted education community and advice for teachers on working with gifted students.
Call for Conference Proposals
Building Safety and Community in the GT Classroom
Cynthia DePalma
We know that deep learning happens when students feel safe. For many gifted and talented students, the GT classroom is their refuge, their happy place, and the only place at school where they feel that they are understood and appreciated for their unique qualities. This is why community building in your GT classroom is so important.
Community building is something that is cumulative--every little bit counts. The effort spent is more than worth the return when your students seek you and their GT peers for a safe haven. The world is a scary place, and gifted kids often feel overwhelmed by fear. In response, we can teach them to shine some light and make the world feel less scary.
Oklahoma Recognized at NAGC
I was honored to represent OAGCT at the National Association for Gifted Children Annual conference in Albuquerque. I attended a pre-conference seminar on Native American Students, and I am happy to report that Oklahoma is recognized by researchers from Purdue University as one of the top states in identifying Native students as gifted and talented. Congratulations, Oklahoma teachers of Gifted and Talented!
Advocacy Connection
By Elizabeth Albright
Last newsletter I posted some ideas and suggestions for parent advocacy groups. It is my belief that teachers and parents must band together to advocate for the education of our children. I know that the State Department of Education has moved forward with training sessions related to parent groups in districts. It is my hope that, as I type this, there are parent groups across the state organizing together to champion appropriate education opportunities and practices for all Oklahoma students.
Given the controversy that some districts have faced over the past several months, I found the attached statement to be timely. I have a few bullet points pulled from the article:
· Eliminating gifted programs does not level the playing field. Students with high risk factors suffer most from gifted program cuts.
· Equity and Excellence are not mutually exclusive. (They have a symbiotic relationship)
· Use of only 1 test resulted in exclusion of students who would otherwise be identified.
· We can find ways to expand gifted education to meet the needs of more students.
· Schools alone cannot solve the issues of inequality.
Reframe the Problem as a Challenge to Find Ways to Expand Gifted Education Services
August 27, 2019
A Statement by NAGC Board President Sally Krisel
In response to The New York Times article, “Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York” (8-26-19), the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) strongly disagrees with the panel’s recommendation to eliminate gifted education programs in our nation’s largest school district.
While we share Mayor de Blasio’s concern about “reducing inequality” in classrooms, eliminating gifted programs will not level the playing field. In fact, the children whose families cannot afford to send them to private schools or supplement their education with extra-curricular opportunities are hurt the most when gifted programs are cut.
Equity and excellence are not mutually exclusive. You cannot have one without the other, and as is the focus of the Giftedness Knows No Boundaries campaign, we must find better ways to identify gifted and potentially gifted children from underserved populations.
Despite New York City’s well-intentioned efforts to identify all gifted children, the use of one test actually exacerbated under-identification, which led to the elimination of gifted programs where not enough students met a prescribed cut-off score.
Rather than eliminating gifted programs, there is great opportunity in New York City to reframe the equity issue as a challenge to find ways to expand gifted education services for all who would benefit from them. We have learned much in the field of gifted education, including the power of training teachers to recognize giftedness in diverse populations and about using multiple strategies such as universal screening and appropriate use of local norms in the identification process, and classroom instruction to introduce children who have not had prior access to challenging curriculum to prepare for more rigor.
We can achieve both equity and excellence in our schools. As former New York City Chancellor Rudy Crew, a champion of gifted education, said, “Schools alone cannot solve the issue of inequality, but with the right combination of passion, commitment, and sound policies, we can build a runway that will give many children the opportunity to aim high, dream big, and excel.”
Using Picture Books to Prompt Ethical Discussions
One of the most memorable discussions my class ever had was about ethical issues in the middle grade novel, Tuck Everlasting. The students debated whether it was right to drink the magical spring water that granted immortality, considering the potential consequences of that choice. Additionally, when Mae Tuck committed a deadly crime, they struggled with how the character’s choice to do a bad thing might have been the best possible option for her and the world, too. I’ll never forget the enthusiasm my students showed as they got to decide what THEY thought—not what their parents or friends believed. Discussing ethical issues and experiencing other perspectives was empowering for them.
Examining ethical issues is one way to add depth to a lesson. A simple way to think of ethical issues is looking at different perspectives of an issue—often controversial—in order to consider things like right versus wrong or pros and cons. Like an attorney, the students can defend whichever side they are assigned (or choose). You could have them write an “article” or provide a “defense” in the context of whatever content you choose.
Let the Children March
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018
Bunny Bear
by Andrea J. Loney, ill. by Carmen Saldaña
Albert Whitman & Co., 2017by
A Bike Like Serio's
by Maribeth Boelts, ill. by Noah Z. Jones
Candlewick Press, 2016
Ethical Discussion Prompts:
Let the Children March
Do you think it was right for Dr. King and the children’s parents to allow the children to march, knowing the children would probably get sent to jail? Why or why not?
If you’d been a child in the book, would you have marched? Support your answer.
BunnyBear
Is it fair for the other bears to expect BunnyBear to act like them? Why or why not?
Where do you think BunnyBear should live? Support your answer.
A Bike Like Sergio’s
Is Ruben a bad person for keeping the money (at first)? Why do you think so?
Would you have kept the money? If the lady in the blue coat were rich, would that fact cause you to change your answer? Explain why.
A few more suggestions:
At the Mountain’s Base, by Traci Sorell, ill. by Weshoyot Alvitre
Julian is a Mermaid, by Jessica Love
The Wall in the Middle of This Book, by John Agee
Gaston, by Kelly DiPucchio, ill. by Christian Robinson
The Digger and the Flower, by Joseph Kuefler
Goal Setting and the Power of YET
By Andrea Schafer
Book: What Do You Really Want? How to set a goal and GO FOR IT! By Beverly K. Bachel
This past week I had the privilege of attending the National Association for Gifted Children Conference. It was a great opportunity to network and learn from the best in the field. One of the presenters was Dr. Karen Brown. She spoke about the Power of Yet. As she was speaking I connected her topic to one that I had been working on with my students – Goal Setting. These two topics fit very well together.
When creating goals, students should focus on the acronym of SMART. This stands for the following:
S- Specific –Ask the 5 W’s: Who, What, When, Where, Why
M-Measureable- Can you track your progress?
A-Actionable – Is your goal something that can be accomplished in a short period of time?
R-Relevant – Is your goal based on something you really want to accomplish?
T-Time Based – Do you have a start and end date for your goal?
Here is a YouTube video from Kahn Academy about how to write a SMART goal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4IU-y9-J8Q
In order to get students thinking about what they want to write now that they understand what a SMART goal is, you might consider using a YET board. This board is based on Growth Mindset and the understanding of the Power of Yet. Growth Mindset is the belief that students can learn anything if they put in the work, practice and effort to learn it. Many find the motivation to accomplish this is by adding the word “YET” to something they can’t do. For example, a student might say, “I can’t do multiplication!” By adding the word “YET” to that statement they can turn their thought from a Fixed Mindset belief to a Growth Mindset belief. “I can’t do multiplication, YET!” This often rewires the brain just enough to encourage our students to have that Growth Mindset.
For the activity, ask each student to get a plain white sheet of paper. They will write the word YET in the middle of the paper. Next, give the students about 5 minutes of think time to come up with different ideas of things they can’t do “YET” and write them around the YET in the middle of the page. Once students have finished this task they then need to write a SMART goal for each of these items and write them on a sticky note.
Once they have several SMART goals written on sticky notes students should have another piece of paper that is folded in half, the left side should say YET and the right side should say YES. Students place their SMART goal sticky notes on the YET side of the paper. Every student will then choose a SMART goal and put it on the YET board that you will have created a space for in your room. Each week, as a class, you should check in on your YET SMART goals. If students have achieved them they may take it off the class board and put it on their paper on the side that says YES. They would then remove another YET SMART goal sticky note and put it on the YET board and allow the cycle to continue.
Parent Engagement
(Adapted from Eight Ways to Engage Parents by Heather Wolpert-Gawron; NEA 2019; 24-25)
by Linnea Van EmanAs educators we understand that parent-teacher-school relationships positively impact student achievement. But how do we encourage families/single parents/grandparents to participate in their child’s education when they are already burdened and stressed and many are in survival mode.
Last year our gifted education and talent development department was tasked with creating a three year strategic plan. Realizing the importance of community and family, we decided to focus on designing opportunities to be adaptive and responsive in providing excellent learning experiences for students and families as one of our priorities. Parents of gifted and talented students typically aren’t aware that their gifted students’ academic or social/emotional needs are significantly different from other populations of students.
Several ways we engage our families: communicate with parents through email, newsletters, phone calls to give a positive report;semester progress reports; parent meetings on and off campus with translators and often with food; providing learning opportunities to teach parents about cognitive and social-emotional development as well as strategies to help advocate for appropriate educational experiences. We work to be transparent about gifted services and to encourage families to engage in the process to ensure that the level and type of gifted services their child receives is appropriate.
Studies reported that students whose parents were actively involved in their child’s education have higher grades, higher test scores, more sophisticated social skills, are better behaved, adapt more easily to school, and show greater persistence in post-secondary educational opportunities. And not surprisingly, parent engagement also had a direct impact on student engagement.
Robbyn Glinsmann our state gifted director recognizes the importance of family involvement. This fall Robbyn invited gifted and talented teachers to participate in a book study on Family Engagement as their PL focus for the school year.
Wolpert-Gawron identifies eight Ps for Parent Engagement below. Her premise, teachers often know that they need to create opportunities to increase parental involvement but not necessarily exact steps to make it happen.
Understanding & Working with High-Potential Students on the Autism Spectrum
Although estimates differ on the numbers and percentages of gifted students with disabilities (known as twice-exceptional students or 2e students), researchers and practitioners agree that there are students identified as gifted who can and do have various learning disabilities, and that students identified as learning disabled can be gifted. These students can be hard to identify because of what is called the “double-masking effect.” In other words, the students’ high abilities mask their learning disability, and their disabilities mask their giftedness. Thus, they may appear to fit into neither category, gifted nor LD, and their achievement may look average.
Experienced teachers and those who observe their students carefully, though, will notice puzzling inconsistencies in a student’s behavior and/or performance. For instance, a student whose written work is of poor quality in appearance and/or content might be the same student who picks up every detail of a lesson, learns quickly, remembers and applies previously learned concepts in new situations, or asks deep, insightful questions in class. In addition, a student may have reading skills that do not match his or her abilities to catch details, learn quickly, apply concepts or ask meaningful questions. These are the typical contradictory characteristics that are observed in gifted students with learning disabilities.
Gifted students on the autism spectrum (ASD for autism spectrum disorder) frequently appear to be good, even excellent, students, but their social skills and personal mannerisms stand out as odd and inappropriate. They often have what is referred to a high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome. Some common characteristics of gifted/ASD students include the following:
so-called “flat affect,” which is a lack of facial expression
inability to maintain normal eye contact during direct interactions with others
little tolerance for changes in routine and environment, noise levels, and moving on from one activity to another
very clear likes and dislikes in content topics, assignments, activities, as well as more personal things like foods, clothing, lighting, and noise levels; the student will often refuse to do things that fall into the “dislikes” category
difficulty making and keeping friends
inability to identify others’ emotions so that misunderstandings occur and the student offends others or is easily offended
inability to understand jokes, humor, irony or sarcasm; these students tend to take things literally
an intense and persistent interest in one or a couple of topics on which the student is an expert and about which the student wants to study and discuss to the exclusion of nearly everything else; these “junior professors” can bore others by going on and on about facts and details in the topic
tendency to be easily overwhelmed and to “melt down” (crying or screaming, running from the room, covering ears and head) when overwhelmed
Gifted/ASD students may not display all of these characteristics, but most will display some of them. Such students have often been identified with autism already, because it is so easily observable from an early age. Their giftedness, however, is often not identified.
If you observe a student with some or most of the above characteristics, as well as with high achievement or ability, advanced thinking skills, advanced vocabulary and other characteristics of giftedness, you should begin to document these. Take notes on behavior, keep work samples, and otherwise make a physical record of what you observe. Then start to collect a body of evidence for identification by doing the following:
Check the student’s cumulative records for
past achievement,
previous efforts at identification,
home-school interactions,
medical history,
professional diagnosis of ASD,
cognitive test results from school and/or a private psychologist,
records of previous social work,
social skills training at home or at school,
occupational or physical therapy to help the student overcome difficulties with balance, fine or gross motor skills, language skills, sensory integration, and
any other pertinent information from home and school.
Consult directly with specialized resource providers in the school such as
psychologists,
social workers,
nurses,
counselors,
aides and tutors, and
prior teachers from special and general education.
Collect as much existing information as possible from as many relevant sources as possible. Even vision and hearing test results may help to provide a more complete picture of the student.
Update as much information as possible with new testing if available, more recent evaluations and formal observations by specialized resource providers, and updated achievement results.
This work resembles the process for staffing a student for special education with good reason:
Twice-exceptional identification requires participation from educators and providers in special, general and gifted education.
Partnership and teamwork are essential to gain a complete picture of the student.
Participation with parents is preferable starting early on in the process. Some parents are opposed to identification of their child with giftedness and/or ASD. Enlist the help of others on the team to explain that identification usually leads to services that will meet the student’s needs.
Include an administrator on the team, even if they can only participate directly some of the time, because you will need administrative support and clout in some instances.
Meet face-to-face or virtually on a regular basis to gain new information, keep everyone current, and get the input and expertise of the entire team.
Keep parents informed of you team’s progress.
Once you have a detailed profile of the student, work towards formal identification. The link between identification and services will be most apparent to parents and school personnel by doing the following:
Gifted education services and general education accommodations – If the criteria for gifted identification can’t be met, work on an informal individual plan anyway that will address the student’s needs for acceleration, enrichment and differentiation. Make sure all the student’s teachers and providers know about it, and have your administrator stress that the plan should be followed.
Special education services and accommodations – Federal guidelines allow the inclusion of student strengths and strategies for addressing strengths in a student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). Students who have been identified with ASD will have IEPs. Read the guidelines yourself so you can advocate with special education for the inclusion of strengths on the IEP if necessary.
In the meantime, don’t wait for formal identification or the completion of a plan to begin addressing the student’s needs. Some helpful strategies may include
familiarizing all students with characteristics of ASD using videos made by persons with ASD, groups that advocate around ASD, and others (check any book about ASD for trustworthy resources);
providing social skills training, preferably in a small group, or arranging for it with a social worker or psychologist to help students maintain eye contact during conversations, learn how to hold conversations, recognize humor, practice recognizing and responding appropriately to the emotions of others, gain skills in making and interacting with friends and peers, and overcome any other social deficits the gifted/ASD student exhibits;
reinforcing social skills with all students, reminding them of the characteristics of ASD.
giving the gifted/ASD student advanced warning of assemblies, fire drills, and other potentially troubling changes in routine to prevent a melt-down. If necessary, let the student practice appropriate responses to the noise and crowd of an assembly, the noise and procedures for a fire drill, or the change of schedule at semester or completion of a unit;
allowing gifted/ASD students opportunities to pursue their interest areas as often as possible. Negotiate and encourage compromise by setting amount of time or number of assignments when students will be permitted to engage with their passion are versus when the student must focus on a topic decided by the teacher. Work with home and other teachers to allow the student to do independent research, writing or projects on the topic as a choice or a goal the student works toward;
remembering that it is easier and less embarrassing for the student to prevent a melt-down than to deal with one after it happens. If a student reacts strongly to noise, get some noise-cancelling headphones; if the student prefers dim lighting, seat them accordingly or provide a shade of some type; students who want to work alone should be allowed to do so as often as possible. Try not to set classroom and assignment guidelines in stone; allow some flexibility so you can meet the needs of gifted/ASD students without singling them out any more than is absolutely necessary; and
providing transition planning with next semester’s or next year’s teachers and with parents so that smooth transitions can occur at semester, end of year, and especially at change of level and/or building (elementary to middle, middle to high, and graduation to higher education, advanced training or job). Secondary special educators are most likely to have experience and training in transition planning.
The key to understanding and working with gifted/ASD students is to seek the most complete information you can obtain to provide a clear and comprehensive profile of each student, because all specialized programming starts with the uniqueness of the student. Then, working in partnership with a team of relevant educators and with parents, design and implement a plan to address each student’s unique needs, both academic and affective. Evaluate and modify the plan as needed based on results. No twice-exceptional student is like any other – considering the many ways a student can manifest giftedness and the wide variety of characteristics and behaviors of a disability, the number of possible combinations is nearly limitless. This is why a comprehensive profile is absolutely necessary. Treat each 2e student as an individual and the student will experience success.
Be Internet Awesome
If you are looking for fun, age-appropriate learning experiences as a way to help your students become safe and successful citizens in our networked world, then the Be Internet Awesome curriculum is definitely worth checking out. Developed by Google in partnership with educators, researchers, and online-safety experts, this free curriculum is a multifaceted program designed to teach kids skills they need to be safe and smart online.
Be Internet Awesome is built around five fundamental topics of digital citizenship and safety:
Share with Care
Don’t Fall for Fake
Secure Your Secrets
It’s Cool to Be Kind
When in Doubt, Talk It Out
Through the use of this curriculum, students can learn how to think critically and evaluate websites, email, and other content online; protect themselves from online threats, including bullying and scams; get smart about sharing: what, when, how and with whom; be kind and respectful toward other people online, including respecting their privacy; and ask for help with tricky situations from a parent or other trusted adult.
Targeted for grades 2nd-6th, all the tools and methods necessary to teach digital safety and citizenship fundamentals is provided to educators. But don’t count out younger or older students as lessons can be adapted up or down for them as well through key vocabulary, class discussions and gameplay. One of the resources, Interland, is a browser-based game that makes learning these skills interactive and entertaining - just like the internet itself. And the curriculum has been updated this year with six new media literacy activities.
A plethora of resources and activities are offered for both educators and parents to use to encourage thoughtful online habits. There are ready-to-teach Pear Deck slides activities, video-based learning for educators, downloadable materials for the classroom, and a family guide and tips and all is located at g.co/BeInternetAwesome or check out https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us.
A collaboration between Google, The Net Safety Collaborative, and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe.org), this program has been recognized by the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) as a resource that prepares young learners to meet the 2019 ISTE Standards for Students.