Teach to the Top
October 2016
Meg Strnat
HSE High Ability Coordinator
13485 Cumberland Road
Fishers, IN 46038
317-594-4100
Congrats to Holly Miller
Holly Miller at RI was recognized as a Mike Neden STEM Champion Award recipient during the STEM Expo 2016 in Branson, Missouri on October 10 - 11, 2016. She is "...one of only six recipients of this award during the October 11th Awards Session at the conference. The Mike Neden STEM Champion Awards program honors public and private elementary, middle, high school teachers and teacher educators that have served as a champion for integrated STEM education in their school and/or community. This awards serves as a standard of excellence for individuals who promote integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education." Way to go, Holly!
No Junior Great Books Required
Thanks to SCE for the above display of deep student thinking when discussing the macro-concept balance in one of their classrooms. Notice how students connected balance to friendships, family, emotion, disasters, culture, architecture, age, power, the human body, science, etc. Pretty exciting! Please email me at mstrnat@hse.k12.in.us with photos of how you are using a macro-concept in your classroom and I'll share the pictures in my next newsletter.
October HA Elementary Coordinator Meeting Update
Ask your high ability coordinator for more details about this month's Coordinator Meeting agenda:
- Funding for the HA Grant 2016-2017 has been delayed, but will not affect high ability teachers attending the Indiana Association for the Gifted Conference in December.
- CogAT testing for all K and 2 students is scheduled for January 16th-27th. Webinar training is planned for January 2nd.
- Schools shared first attempts at using macro-concepts in classrooms. Macro-concepts are fundamental to a high ability classroom. It will be exciting to see how students and teachers use their chosen macro-concept over the school year.
- The DOE's model for highest high ability achievement was evaluated. Teachers then created a rough draft of a high ability golden circle.