Transcript Gifted 201 - Merton Primary School

Sarah Kasprowicz
President, Wisconsin Association for the Talented and Gifted
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Roadblocks to differentiation
Training students to operate efficiently in a
differentiated classroom
Management Strategies
Grading Issues
Working with colleagues and district staff
Communicating with parents
•Teacher Training
•Fear of chaos
•Time to work with multiple groups
•Student behavior
•Grading practices
•Others…?
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Classes about meeting the
needs of gifted students
are not required to earn a
teaching license.
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The vast majority of
classroom teachers were
not taught how to
differentiate for gifted
students in their university
education courses.
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Chapter 35: Special Ed
class
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Teachers want to help the children in their
classroom.
Teachers were taught in college how to meet
the needs of students with learning
disabilities and why it is important.
Given the benefit of the doubt…teachers will
do the same for gifted students when they
are informed about gifted education.
Responding to Roadblocks:
•Fear of chaos
•Time to work with all students
•Student behavior.
I include differentiation as a classroom
expectation on the first day of school in fifth
grade.
•Read Hooray for Diffendoofer Day
by Dr.Seuss and Jack Prelutsky
•Discuss the differences between
Diffendoofer School and
Flobbertown
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Differentiation is:
 Fair
 Appropriate
 Up to the students to “handle” it and do their job
 More interesting than Flobbertown
▪ “Class, everyone turn to page 14 number 3…”
▪ Everyone on the same page, all of the time
▪ No choice
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Differentiation looks like:
 At any one time there could be students working
in any of the following situations:
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Whole class
Alone at a desk
In the library with a partner or small group
At a classroom computer
ALL COMBINATIONS ARE RESPECTFUL TO EACH OTHER AND
THE CLASSROOM CULTURE OF DIFFERENTIATION
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Expectation of Differentiated Curriculum
 Fair
 Normal
 Makes sense
 If a student abuses the situation or can not adjust
to working in an alternate setting they can be
returned to the regular class and make up what
they missed.
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Teach students to recognize signals and
transitions
Time Management
 Calendars
 Work / Project logs
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Classroom Management
 Alternate project documents and work logs are
stapled to the wall or posted on my website for easy
viewing and management
 Students need to be respectful and not disrupt the
teacher or other students
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Each student knows that the class needs to be
able to handle the differentiation in order for us
to continue with multiple activities at once.
Students help each other and police each other
to make sure no one is disruptive or causing a
breakdown in the system.
If a student can’t handle it, then they return to
the regular class for the current project and are
given another chance to work on an alternate
project next time.
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The project was not a good match for the
student.
The student needs more background
knowledge on study skills and self-monitoring.
The partner or small group dynamics of the
alternate project could not work independently.
Next time the students are either placed with
other partners, or the group is given more
instruction on group dynamics and
responsibility before proceeding with a new
topic.
•Merton Community School District (Waukesha County)
•5th and 6th Grade ~ Looping
•21 students
•11 students on our district’s Strengths List
•1 student with an IEP for a language-based
learning disability
•I teach all subjects except social studies ~ I
switch with another teacher for science and
social studies.
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Fifth Grade Reading / Language Arts
 Taylor: Working on her R-Word website and pledge
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campaign
Henry: Working on his video blog about
skateboarding
Gabby and Jorja are working on their blogs and news
articles for our district website.
17 students having literature circle meetings with Mrs.
K circulating and listening
1 student working with our LD teacher on language
arts
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Interest (Taylor and Henry)
Past performance on reading assessments
(Jorja and Gabby)
Students are allowed to sometimes “pass” on
alternate projects
Responding to Roadblocks:
•Grading
•Fear of chaos
•Time to work with all students
•Time to do anything…anything at all! 
Release Yourself!
Teachers don’t need to:
Fill in each space in our grade book
Assign practice that some
students don’t need
 Manage every detail
 Create every project
 Write every rubric
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 Collaborate with your students, another teacher or
find a rubric online to use or modify to fit your
purpose.
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GT students will have fewer grades.
GT students are excused from daily work
grades.
GT students will have scores for:
 Pretests
 Post-tests
 Alternate projects
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Leave the excused boxes BLANK.
Use different colors of ink to code tiered
assignments and projects.
Use Webgrader features to assign students to
assignments and excuse students from daily
work.
Keep a separate class list in your grade book
to keep track of alternate project grades
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Communicate classroom needs to:
 Librarian and library staff
 Technology department
 Principal
 Gifted and Talented Coordinator
 Curriculum Coordinator
 Team members: There are possible partners for
your students in other homerooms
 Parents
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Parent / Teacher Conferences
Feedback from parents on possible interests
and strengths of their child
Webnotes
Email
Ask parents to sign proposed alternate
project descriptions, calendar, rubrics before
students participate
Ask parent volunteers to work with small
groups in the library or computer lab
The Pyramids
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Wisconsin Pyramid Model for Gifted and
Talented Programming
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Response to Intervention (RtI)
In Addition
Tier
3
District
Curriculum
Tier
Tier2
2
Tier I and
Level 1
“All” students experience
differentiated lessons
Universal Screening
Robinson and Kueht 2008
Instead
Level
2
Level
3
The GT Advocate
Model
 Classroom-based
 Gifted and Talented
Student Strengths Lists
 Several years of
professional
development
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Press Room website
Meet with teachers
during their prep
Meet with students
during the day to
design alternate
projects
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Communicate needs
to our GT
Coordinator
Monitor Strengths
list and match
opportunities to
students
Publish GT
Advocate Updates
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Send links
Offer to collaborate
on project/rubric
design
E-mails asking if
teachers are
concerned about
students
Offer to attend
parent/teacher
conferences
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E-mail students
directly
Share differentiated
units/curriculum you
are using and offer
to help modify for
different grade
levels
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Be available before
or after school to
share information,
resources, handouts
from conferences
Ask your principal to
cover your class
while you meet with
staff or students
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Teach a class in your
district
Create an online
class and share
access with your
teachers
Hire subs for
collaborative
planning time
Responding to Roadblocks:
•Fear of chaos
•Time to work with all students
Advantage
•Solves the problem of “I’m done. What do I do now?”
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Google Sites
Voice Thread
Skype
Forums
Wikis
Blogs
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A paradigm shift is
needed from “pull out”
to “classroom based”
approach. This can take
years.
University Courses
District initiative
CESA
Conferences
Consultants
The Press Room
The Merton Community School District Press
Room is a district-wide opportunity to
integrate all subject areas and involve students
K-8 in promoting and publishing the work of
Merton students.
Press Room Website
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What are your questions?
What kind of resources do you have
available?
Questions?
Please feel free to contact me.
Sarah Kasprowicz
WATG President
[email protected]
[email protected]