Aspire Higher
@HAPPYINDIANA
Volume 2, December 2018
Wishing you and yours a wondrous holiday season!
Indiana Association for the Gifted Conference 2018: Gifted Cornerstones
YOU are the gifted cornerstones, building strong foundations for new heights in high ability education. How incredible and invigorating for nearly 1,000 high ability teachers, parents, and administrators from across the state to come together to share insight, learn, and collaborate!
IAG Rocks!
High Ability Leaders stopped by the IAG Advocacy Booth, painted rocks, and learned how they could be a part of the foundation of support for gifted programming. For more information about how you can be involved with advocacy, please contact Ginny Burney @ ginnyburney@gmail.com
ROCKing IAG Together: Please Share YOUR Ideas!
Gifted Cornerstones: Together, we are so much stronger building the foundation to take our students' learning to new heights. Share your insight and ideas with this high ability community through this site: Padlet to Share High Ability Ideas! K-12
Wayfinder
IAG Parent Night
High Ability learners have unique affective needs, and Dr. Outcalt offered practical strategies for navigating the often choppy waters of asynchronous development and emotional intensity.
Snow Much Fun Unwrapping the Gift of Wonder!
New Grant Amendment Process
Are you wondering if you need to make an amendment?
You only need to submit an amendment if you significantly want to change the scope of the grant or desire to make a change greater than 10%.
The new process is very easy!
1. Fill out the Jotform: Amendment Form, 2018-2019
2. Provide a rationale for the change in the designated box
3. Enter your new revised budget
4. Wait for approval via email from Cindy Schuler
5. Re-submit your cash request form, if needed: High Ability Cash Request Form
Twice Exceptional Students~ Strategies to Help Solve the Puzzle and Paradox
Do you have high ability students who seem to struggle with some learning activities? High ability students with disabilities are hard to identify and serve because their strengths are often masked by their challenges. Since their learning profiles are so uneven, basic strategies that maximize their assets and minimize their deficits are critical. Please enjoy Mary Beth Coleman's article, Academic Strategies That Work for Gifted Students With Learning Disabilities , which provides theories and insight as to how to best serve these bright, yet complex students.
Join the High Ability English Learner Committee!
●Join the team that is piloting a framework for serving English learners who have high potential and who are gifted.
●The goal of this framework is that it will serve as a basis on which to develop research-based training.
●This framework is being shared with EL and High Ability educators in IN to gather their input.
Please contact Dr. Donna Albrecht if you are interested: dalbrec@ius.edu
Here are two great resources for identification tips and strategies to best serve our English learners:
Link to resource: EL/High Ability Strategies
Empower Your Staff & Students: Design the IDOE High Ability LOGO!
The Indiana Department of Education’s High Ability Department is seeking your insight, creativity, and input! Have you noticed all of the amazing new logos at the IDOE? There is such incredible talent in Indiana, and now it is the field’s turn to design the next IDOE logo, the High Ability Logo.
Official Rules: The purpose of this contest is to design the High Ability logo which will be an easily recognizable and reproducible design to communicate the essence of Indiana High Ability education. This logo will become the official visual representation of High Ability education in Indiana. It may be used in all media, including online, print, and other visual formats.
All current Indiana high ability students, teachers, and administrators, grades K-12, are eligible.
- Only one entry permissible per individual or team.
- Work submission must be the original work of the artist(s), not based on any pre-existing design.
- All entries will become the property of the IDOE.
- The IDOE will hold the exclusive right to use the winning logo.
- The individual or team submitting the logo design understands that at the time of submission to the Selection Committee they relinquish all personal, professional, and ownership rights to the design.
- The individual or team submitting the logo design also understands that after submission they no longer retain any rights to use, modify, alter, replicate, reuse in the future or borrow, any previous/current version of their submitted logo.
- IDOE reserves the right to modify the winning logo, if necessary.
- The relinquishment of rights to the logo also includes a relinquishment to any possible variations made to the winning logo by the IDOE at a later time.
- All decisions of the Logo Contest Selection Committee will be final.
How to Enter:
To enter the High Ability Logo Design Contest, eligible participants must:
Complete the Official Entry Form found at: Official High Ability Logo Contest Entry form by Monday, December 31, 2018.
Selection Criteria:
A Selection Committee comprised of IDOE staff members will evaluate all entries based on originality, quality, and dynamic visual message.
Considerations:
- Does the design align with Indiana’s High Ability education ideals?
- Is the logo creative, original, and aesthetically pleasing?
- Is the logo distinctive, leaving a lasting positive impression?
Advanced Placement and PSAT NEWS
PSAT TRAINING BEING OFFERED IN JANUARY!
College Board & the Indiana Department of Education are pleased to invite you to the 2019 Indiana PSAT/NMSQT & PSAT 8/9 Data & Report
These 2-hour workshops will enable educators to effectively understand the use of grade-appropriate assessments and discuss how to measure student progress over time, allowing teachers to accelerate students according to their levels of achievement. The workshops will also engage participants in accessing the Online Score Reporting Portal and provide an understanding of how to navigate and use the features of the portal to effectively utilize the data and reports. In addition, information on the enhancements to the Official SAT Practice with the new Coaching Feature for educators will be discussed.
Dates and Locations
1/22/2019 Hobart High School; Hobart, IN
TBD New Albany High School; New Albany, IN
1/23/2019 Fort Wayne Family and Community Engagement Center; Fort Wayne, IN
1/24/2019 Kokomo High School; Kokomo, IN
1/25/2019 Indiana University - South Bend; South Bend, IN
1/28/2019 Ivy Tech Community College Conference Center, Indianapolis; Indianapolis, IN
1/29/2019 Ivy Tech Community College-Richmond; Richmond, IN
1/30/2019 Ivy Tech Community College - Evansville; Evansville, IN
To register, please click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/indiana-2019-psat-data-and-reports-workshops-tickets-53348217956
NEW! Amazing new Advanced Placement Curriculum being released for 2019-2020: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/about-ap/news-changes/ap-2019
FREE Training dates will be released soon!
Meet the Social Emotional Needs of High Ability Students
FREE Professional Development: SENG Facilitator Training Offered
For more information: SENG Flyer
Space is Limited; Register by March 8!
SENG, April 10th: April 10 SENG Training, Fort Wayne, Region 8
SENG, April 11th: April 11, SENG, Indianapolis, CIESC
SENG, April 12th: April 12, SENG, Jasper, SIESC
K-12 ELA curriculum units and math resources
Grades K-10 Indiana High Ability ELA Curriculum Units
Since 2007, Indiana Code has required Indiana school corporations to identify and serve students with high ability in the general intellectual and specific academic domains, K-12. To help better support students and staff, the Indiana Department of Education funded a high ability language arts curriculum project wherein the IDOE contracted with Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska to lead Indiana teachers in writing Indiana ELA Curriculum units.
Using the National Association for Gifted Students’ Standards for Curriculum and Assessment, a team of teachers worked under Dr. VanTassel-Baska to develop language arts curriculum unit for each grade level, K-10, that emphasizes both the Common Core Standards and 21st Century Skills. By so doing, the project is designed to address all aspects of state requirements, differentiation issues for the gifted, and future needs of students in preparing for the world of the professions.
Curriculum Professional Development Offered on March 6, 2019 at SIEC. Register now!
Curriculum unit training, SIEC
Click here to be directed to MOODLE for ELA unit and K-5 Math Resources access:
Congratulations, Award Winners!
Outstanding Middle School Student
Congratulations, Kaia Webb, from Southwestern Middle School, Tippecanoe School Corporation, in Lafayette, IN. Kaia has so many talents; she truly embodies the title- gifted. She is an award winning speller, has been selected for Honor Choir, Circle the State Singers, and her peers unanimously elected her as the outstanding 7th grade Student Council member. Further, she uses her talents to serve others and excels in the Wildcats for Change Service Group.
Hazel-Feldhusen Award Winner
Congratulations to the Hazel Feldhusen Outstanding Teacher of the Gifted Award Recipient, Matthew Moliter. Matthew teaches at McClelland Elementary School in Wayne Township.
His colleagues highly recommended him for this prestigious award due to his innovative curriculum development and remarkable teaching of high ability students, where excellence, excitement, and creativity unite.
IAG Friend of the Gifted Award
Congratulations to IAG’s Friend of the Gifted Award, Winner, Theresa Schoon. Theresa Schoon is the Director of Primary Education and High Ability Coordinator for Lake Central School corporation. Theresa is an outstanding coordinator and champion for high ability students.
As her colleagues attest, Theresa has been instrumental in transforming the high ability program in her district.
Indiana Service Center Region One Spotlight
Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation is Aspiring Higher!
Differentiation
https://twitter.com/Staci_Herrin/status/1009487921064398850
This was a summer session for our HA teachers that would be in our cluster model schools. We are using "Teaching Gifted Kids in Today's Classroom" by Susan Winebrenner as a resource. One of the big takeaway for our teachers in this session was small/easy ways to differentiate the work for our HA students.
Mock Trial
https://twitter.com/MeredithRueger/status/1046793653300219905
This PD was provided by the Indiana Bar Foundation (Collin Gruver); it was for teachers in the EVSC and surrounding area that may want to participate in the competition. This will be the first year that there will be a regional competition in Evansville, and we wanted to make sure the teachers had a clear understanding of the competition and the prep. Collin Gruver is a great resource for all things Indiana Bar Foundation; he is the educational program director. I am sure he would be happy to share resources and PD opportunities for areas that wanted to join the competition.
Academy for Law and Justice
https://twitter.com/EVSC1/status/1052944734421954560
High School Options Fair
https://twitter.com/EVSC1/status/1050405651925602304
A special thank you to Meredith Rueger, Director of Humanities and High Ability, for this submission!
Washington Community Schools are Aspiring Higher!
A special thank you to Kevin Frank, Assistant Superintendent/Curriculum Director of Washington Community Schools for this submission.
High Ability Summer Camp
Students had to create a floating vehicle and compete to see which could hold the most weight. We partnered with our city pool for this activity.
Helpful High Ability Resources
Holiday Stress: What Parents of Gifted Children Need to Know
Parents of high ability students often experience some unique challenges during the holiday season. Due to many gifted children's heightened sensitivities, stressful situations may arise.
Here are some great tips and strategies to help parents better serve their children over the holidays.
Multi-Media in the High Ability Classroom
Are you wanting to spark students' creativity and passion by providing meaningful ways to integrate technology, inquiry, conceptual thinking, and interdisciplinary connections?
Lesson templates, rubrics, projects, products, and perspectives are included in the link below:
Visual Writing Prompts~ Unlock Thought-Provoking and Reflective Writing
Visual writing prompts are thought-provoking, encourage higher level thinking, and reflective writing.
Help bring your students' thinking to the next level with this strategy:
Math in the High Ability Class
“How can Rubik’s Cubes be used in education? Utilize these amazing tools to teach students the importance of productive struggle in the classroom!
This link provides resources and ideas on how you can push your high ability students to work through challenging tasks and also learn some great math connections using the Rubik’s Cube!
Rubik's Cube Math:
High Ability Coordinator Handbook
High Ability Coordinator Meeting Powerpoint
More IAG Fun and Collaboration!
Meet Indiana's High Ability and Advanced Placement Coordinator: Cindy Schuler
Please call or email me to schedule some time to meet. I am here for you and look forward to coming out and visiting with your district!
Keep Aspiring Higher~ Indiana is Going Places!
Email: CSchuler@doe.in.gov
Website: https://www.doe.in.gov/highability
Phone: (317)234-6792
Twitter: @HAPPYINDIANA