It’s so helpful to see ideas from real, live teachers. I’m so excited to share these ideas with you for differentiating for the unique nature & needs of gifted students. The teacher I’m highlighting is Susan Day, a teacher at Fairview Middle School in Bremerton, Washington. I think we can
Even without the intensities/overexcitabilities so common in our gifted population, kids can be overly emotional. What do I mean by overly emotional? I mean that they: overreact to even mild stimuli; and/or base decisions on emotions rather than reason at a level inappropriate for their age; and/or engage in a
Not long ago I tweeted out a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. Deciding to find the full text of the speech, I went hunting. I thought it was well worth sharing because it is so timely and so provocative. It’s also very difficult to find in full text, and I’m sharing
In my travels speaking with parents, facilitating with teachers, and working with gifted kids, I hear and see a lot of things. Some are truly great. I can’t believe the dedication I find, the heartwarming stories that are shared, and how much investment there is in our children. It’s awesome.
Most people have something they say they’d run back into a burning house for. For some, it’s photos or mementos. For others, it’s something of great monetary value. As a teacher, I have a few pedagogical tools I’d (figuratively) run into a burning house for, and the most precious is
The students are the core of what we do, and I think it’s critical that they are also able to be the corps, or body, of what we do. A gifted student wrote an essay for assignment at school, and she gave me permission to share her thoughts about being
In the article about creating a differentiated lesson plan step-by-step, I shared a lesson plan on landforms that used a cloud-based Jeopardy! game as a pre-assessment tool. I thought I would share a little more about how and why I do that. Jeopardylabs.com First, let me introduce you to Jeopardylabs.com.
I’m going to share a differentiated lesson plan from start to finish. In the article Begin with the Highest Level Learner in Mind I promised that I would share the process, and here it is. I decided to do a 5th grade lesson on landforms. To be more specific, I
There’s a YouTube cooking channel called Chowhound that has a series called “You’re Doing it All Wrong.” They take fundamentals of cooking (mashed potatoes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, etc.) and show how you’re making them the wrong way. Of course, they show you the right way, and then you,
When I was the Youth & Education Ambassador for Mensa, I started a program called the Young Mensan Book Parade. I asked publishers for books I thought gifted readers might like, and then I asked kids in Mensa to read and review them. We published all of the reviews on
Sometimes gifted kids can move much more quickly than the system is ready for. Sometimes gifted kids can move much more quickly than they are ready for. What do you do when you have a child whose cognitive abilities exceed the opportunities available? How do you handle it when it’s
I’m in a lot of schools on a pretty frequent basis, and I’m noticing a disturbing trend: a focus on what is called “leadership” in a way that is hurting, not helping. I saw it most closely when a friend of mine taught at a school last year that even
