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1. Good Morning! Please complete the questions at your table while you are waiting to begin

2. Differentiatingfor Gifted Learners Presented by Lynne Henwood Educational Consultant, Pique Gifted Consulting Teacher of the Gifted, Washington Township Schools, Long Valley President, New Jersey Association for Gifted Children (NJAGC)

3. Who are my Gifted Learners?

4. Guess Who?? • Did not speak until age 3 • Had difficulty with math in school • Was thought to be simple minded EINSTEIN!

5. Guess Who?? • Was negligent about personal hygiene • Was disorganized • Compulsively rocked in chair; displayed autistic behaviors BILL GATES!

6. Guess Who?? • Learned to read two years after all of his classmates •  Was bullied so much that he dreaded going to school •  Was diagnosed as dyslexic STEVEN SPIELBERG!

7. Who might be in YOUR class??

8. Misconceptions • Gifted students will be fine on their own • Gifted students are gifted in everything • Gifted students always turn in all of their homework • All gifted students are well behaved rule-followers

9. Gifted students have unique learning needs. They…. • Learn at a much faster pace (after 1-2 exposures) • Highly curious-loves to learn but may not love school • May have very unconventional ideas • Thrive on complexity

10. Workshop Goal…. …to provide you with tools that you can use to ensure that ALL of your students are engaged, learning, and growing every day.

11. Environment Learning is social! • Teacher/student relationship • Teachers who have EMPATHY for their students have students who perform better academically • Differentiation foundation starts here • Start from Day 1!

12. A Supportive Community of Learners! • Safe • Supportive • Challenging Environment

13. Celebrate failure as a path to success! Environment

14. Environment

15. What holds gifted kids back? Fixed Mindsets • Belief that basic intelligence is a fixed trait • Will spend time documenting their abilities rather than developing them • Think that talent alone creates success • Will stay in comfort zone Environment

16. How can we support a growth mindset? • Teach it • Model it • Practice it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElVUqv0v1EE&list=PL4111402B45D10AFC Environment

17. Flexible Learning Environment • Time • Space • Furniture • Materials • Groupings • Strategies Addresses Student Needs Environment

18. Learner-centered • Students are responsible for their own learning • Teachers systematically study students and focus on/respond to their needs • Teachers use the textbook as a tool • Scripted texts DO NOT allow for personal connections • Teacher is a guide, facilitator Students develop an intrinsic love of learning Environment

19. How do we create a challenging environment? Environment

20. Find the ‘sweet spot’! Vygotsky’s ZPD Environment

21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUsOCR1KKms Environment

22. Start with…. A Rigorous Curriculum Standards based doesn’t limit creativity The standards tell you the destination, but you choose the JOURNEY. Environment

23. What can happen when students are bored? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA Boredom, apathy, perfectionism, underachievement, acting out, risk averse behaviors Environment

24. A Stimulating and Rich Curriculum • Provides many opportunities to ignite curiosity and grapple with robust content The brain is a pattern seeker-looking for ways to weave new and past learning into a conceptual pattern that: • Makes sense • Has meaning Environment

26. Brain scans have shown that in this sweet spot, there is more cerebral activity and dramatically improved retention of material.

27. The brain LOVES to be curious! • Confusion and Curiosity Expose ALL students to high level curiosity. Some gifts and talents may be hiding! Try this!

28. All students have the right to learn something new every day. • If not: • Neurons may not make new connections • Students may disengage • Students will not develop tools for perseverance • Students may develop a fixed mindset Environment

29. What Differentiation is NOT • More of the same (even in “Challenge” workbooks) • Teaching others • Not learning anything new • Teaching is hard!! Especially for gifted kids • Do it again, but neater! • Fluff projects that are fun but aren’t rigorous

30. So What IS Differentiation? It’s changing the pace, level, or kind of instruction you provide in response to individual learners’ needs, styles, or interests. It responds to their best ways of learning and allows them to demonstrate what they’ve learned in ways that capitalize on their strengths and interests.

31. Differentiating for Gifted Learners • Depth-slow it down and go deep • Complexity • Preassess and adjust work accordingly • What does the professional do? • Choice (learning styles, interests, strengths, etc.) • Use technology • Authentic projects • Independent Projects • Choice menus • Give them relevant, authentic, respectful work

32. Differentiating for Struggling Learners • Slower pace • Adjust the amount of work • Change the content-find holes in learning • Teach to their learning styles: visual, tactile, etc… • Use technology: talk to type, audio stories, spell check • Teach to their strengths/interests • Give them relevant, authentic, respectful work • Scaffolding • Graphic organizers

33. Differentiating During Whole Class Instruction Piquing Curiosity Questioning Adding Depth and Complexity: Adding a Venn layer (perspectives) Adding layers to a Time Line

34. QUESTIONING Math Examples Turn-around questions: turn your closed, convergent thinking questions into open, divergent thinking questions. Example: Instead of asking: To which fact family does 3 x 4=12 belong to, ask an OPEN question, such as: • Describe the picture below by using a mathematical equation. • X X X X • X X X X • X X X X Adapted from Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction by Marian Small

35. QUESTIONING Teacher gives the answer instead of the question • Example: What is half of 20? • Instead: 10 is a fraction of a number. What could the fraction and number be? Asking for similarities and differences • Example: How is the number 85 like the number 100? How is it different? Replacing a number with a blank • Example: How many students in all if there are 25 in one class and 40 in another? • Instead: Students choose the 2 numbers for the two class sizes and determine the total number. OR you can slip papers with different numbers on individual students’ desks. • Adapted from Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction by Marian Small

36. QUESTIONING Asking for a number sentence • Example: Teacher provides students with some numbers and words such as: the numbers 3 and 4, and the words ‘and’ and ‘more’. Students must come up with a number sentence (3 and 4 are more than 2; 34 and 26 are more than 34 and 20) Changing the question • Example: The question in the text is: Rodney has 4 packages of pencils. There are 6 pencils in each package. How many pencils does Rodney have in all? • Instead: Rodney has some packages of pencils. There are 2 more pencils in each package than the number of packages. How many pencils does Rodney have in all? Create your own personal number story • Students write a story about their life, which includes numbers • What mathematical questions can be asked about this story? • SCAMPER Adapted from Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction by Marian Small

37. Personal Number Stories • In my family, I have 4 children. Each child plays on 2 sports teams, one recreational and one travel. Rec teams practice once a week for one hour, and travel practices twice a week, for two hours at a time. The travel practices end up costing $25/hour. It takes 30 minutes to get to the practice field for each travel practice. The rec fields are 10 minutes away. • Math questions? • Hang up the stories around the room, and send groups around to SCAMPER the math questions.

38. Preassessment Data derived from preassessments are essential in driving differentiated instruction • Hardest question first • Mind map • End of chapter/unit assessment • KWL charts • Essay

39. Formative Assessment

40. Differentiate for: • Content-What are students learning about? What do we want them to know, understand, and be able to do? • Reflects essential and unit questions • Different content but same topic • Process-What level of thinking is required? • Reflects thinking processes and the level of challenge (depth, complexity) • Product-How will the results of learning be represented and assessed? • The end result of learning-how students show what they’ve learned

41. Content Gifted: • More complex numbers/number stories • Different lexile reading levels: Newsela, etc. • University websites • Newseaum Struggling: • Images to augment complex text • Demonstrations to show concrete application of abstract idea • Sit with small groups of learners (EL) and summarize key ideas

42. Process • Increase the depth and complexity of the learning • Based on learning styles and preferences

43. Depth and Complexity Encourage gifted learners to look for universal themes and concepts.http://envisiongifted.com/applying-universal-themes-throughout-the-year/ • http://byrdseed.com/differentiator/ • Sandra Kaplanhttp://envisiongifted.com/models-of-instruction/

44. Using Depth and Complexity

45. Product Technology: • Thinglink (https://www.thinglink.com/welcome) • BookCreator(https://bookcreator.com) • See list and explore! Choice!

46. Curriculum Compacting • Identify the learning objective • Give students time to examine the content being tested • Offer a pretest opportunity to volunteers • Have extension activities available • Eliminate all standardized test drill, practice, and review • Decide how you will keep accurate records • Devise a method for storing compacting documents (hanging folders?) • The Compactor

47. Tiering All students focus on essential understandings and skills but at different levels of complexity, abstractness, and open-endedness. • Teach to the whole group and then vary the follow-up for different students • Lesson goal remains the same • R.A.F.T. (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) • Venn Diagrams • Parallel Tasks

48. Flexible Grouping • To group students together by areas of interest, achievement level, activity preference, learning modality, or special needs

49. Menus • Students choose from an array of different tasks • May be used as follow up practice or replacement for whole group lessons • Can have different menus OR some groups of students have certain tasks they must choose before they go on to the other choices

50. Jigsaw! In small groups, you may choose to explore: • Technology • Compacting • Tiering • Whole group questioning/invoking curiosity • Menus • Depth and complexity • Flexible grouping Then we will regroup and share what we’ve learned!