BMMS GATE Parent Meeting

1. BMMS GATE Parent Meeting Meeting the Needs of Your Gifted Child With Rigor, Challenge and Understanding Wednesday, October 5, 2011

2. District Goals for Gifted Learners • Provide challenging curriculum appropriate to unique needs and abilities of gifted students. • Promote academic excellence by providing advanced learning experiences to maximize individual student potential. • Promote responsibility and self-confidence through learning experiences that promote self-identity, leadership and sensitivity to others. • Cultivate independent thinking and problem solving. • Provide learning experiences that address the social and emotional needs unique to highly able students. • Provide opportunities for leadership, peer interaction, healthy competitiveness, and the development of the ability to think clearly and independently.

3. Learning Needs of Gifted Learners Differentiation of the core curriculum at a more appropriate, challenging level for the students: Acquisition of foundation skills with divergent thinking processes part of these skills Concept Development at a more abstract level: idea-based and involving mental manipulation of information Understanding complex ideas that require more originality and depth of thinking Growth and Application from single concepts or skills to a multifaceted approach: unifying ideas that cause learning to occur across disciplines Choice in approaching and presenting assignments, setting goals, meeting timelines, evaluating work Appropriate Pacing: less time to achieve basic concepts needed because repetition is not required

5. Habits of Mindfrom Costa, A. and Kallick, B. (2000) Habits of Mind: A Developmental Series Habits of Mind enable students to succeed in college and to get more out of their college education: • Demonstrate inquisitiveness and love of learning • Take risks, accept feedback, learn from mistakes’ • Persevere with difficult and ambiguous tasks • Think critically and analytically • Possess a questioning attitude • Think interdependently: ability to work in and learn from others in reciprocal situations

6. The surest path to high self-esteem is to be successful at something you perceived would be difficult! Each time we steal a student’s struggle, we steal the opportunity for them to build self-esteem. Sylvia Rimm, PhD. Psychologist, Author, Gifted Child Advocate

7. Rigor Defined A Learning environment in which students: • grapple with depth and complexity • explore and construct new knowledge • ask more questions than generate answers • develop the motivation and abilities to make connections • develop habits of mind, attitudes, & behaviors leading to success • acquire the ability for critical thinking in literacy with reading, writing, mathematical operations and conceptualizations

8. Differentiated Instruction Differentiated instruction dignifies each student with learning that is meaningful, relevant, and engaging. The core of what the students learn remains relatively steady. How the student learns-including degree of difficulty, working arrangements, modes of expression, and sorts of scaffolding-may vary considerably. Differentiation is not so much the ‘stuff’ as the ‘how.’ If the ‘stuff’ is ill conceived, the ‘how’ is doomed. Carol Ann Tomlinson, UVA

9. How We Differentiate Content: What we teach Quality, not quantity = more depth and complexity Standards-based curriculum as a foundation then enriching and differentiating with concepts and/or enduring understandings Process: How we teach Making sense of content using higher level thinking skills: analytical, inferential, interpretive, evaluative Processing content: focus on broad concepts & enduring understandings to connect ideas across time, space, and disciplines Pacing and compacting as needed Product: Output of learning through multiple assessments Assignments/projects/tests stretching thinking beyond the core content using higher level skills Learning Environment: Students may choose to be in one of two basic education classes: a cluster of 8-10 gifted students or a homogeneous class of all gifted students. Both environments provide differentiated instruction to appropriately meet the needs of advanced learners.

10. Social-Emotional Needs of Gifted ChildrenQueensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children, Inc., Gena Hogan, Adm. • Become bored and frustrated with repetition and shallow curriculum; hide abilities to gain acceptance • Learn quickly and easily; have the ability to abstract and reason critically; see relationships between ideas and events • Become frustrated with inactivity, lack of challenge or active inquiry • High energy level and curiosity • Set unrealistically high goals; feel inadequate; feel frustrated with others; fear failure, inhibiting attempts in new areas • Aim at perfection • Be seen as weird; feel stifled by lack of creative opportunities • Possess unusual imagination

11. “Paralyzed Perfection”Susan WinebrennerAuthor, Educational Consultant in Gifted Instruction • Paralyzed perfection: too much praise taking very little effort • Leads to kids expecting “to get great results with a minimum of effort” • Bright kids conclude that smart means “easy” • inhibits venturing into learning areas with more challenge • contributes to underachievement • Encouragement should replace praise • encourage when child working hard and long at frustrating task • encourage risk-taking, even when positive outcome isn’t guaranteed

12. Paralyzed Perfection (cont.) • “Intelligence does not equal effortlessness” • process and growth are more important than a grade, especially in K-8 • parent goals: teacher who provides challenging environment and expectations that teach child to not be fearful of hard work • “Intellectual quarterback syndrome”: • everyone in college freshman college in top 5%-10% of graduating class • most used to getting all A’s • many will get low grades for first time • Importance of child understanding “that real learning means forward progress from where one entered the learning curve of a particular subject”