For the recent study on eminent people, I used the books "Changing Tomorrow 1 and 2" by Joyce VanTassel-Baska. ANYTHING written by VanTassel-Baska is always brilliant and I use widely as a resource in the challenge centre.
The great thing about this book is that lessons on great leaders are provided: information about their lives and what they have done. As well, there is an entire focus on aspects of leadership and an investigation into
What leaders do...What skills leaders possess....What leaders believe...
The leaders covered are: Charles Darwin, Margaret Thatcher, Pablo Picasso, Emily Dickinson, Nelson Mandela (book 2) and Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Bill Gates, Tecumseh, and Ben Carson (book 1).
There is a good rubric for a student directed project on leadership which I usedfor evaluating the students in this cohort.
These two books are great resources for regular classroom teachers as well, and I would use a basis for any study on leadership.
I am hosting the "Images of Greatness Challenge Centre" for Grade 6 and 7 students. Every year the students create new and wonderful projects! This year the students have picked great leaders to do projects on: Napoleon, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, DaVinci... Walt Disney, Terry Fox, Shakespeare, and Einstein!!!!This year, I have had the students focus on leadership while researching their eminent person. How is this person a leader? In what area are they a leader? How did (does) this person contribute to society?
We spent the first day...looking at leadership, and figuring out how to do research on line; the students were able to figure out who they wanted to research right away, and they also were able to begin creating their own products of learning. I liked how original and creative their ideas are. Always a pleasure to see the focus and to experience their ideas coming alive.
I never have a student who can't think of a project. I also love how each student takes the project and learning to their own level. Although I provide an outline of what needs to be accomplished, I also keep the projects open ended so that the students have some freedom to go where they need to.
Tomorrow, the last day, students will be presenting their projects. The assignments are split between more traditional poster board projects and smart board/ powerpoint presentations. Many students are interested in designing quizzes to give to their classmates!
Great job, Grade 6 and 7's!
A great part of my job is reading applications, and creating and emailing personal invitations to the programs. This year, our team working in gifted education decided to have two deadlines for programs, instead of having them staggered throughout the year. We are hoping to make it less onerous for the teachers who have to fill out application after application on behalf of students.
So, what I received in late October, were hundreds of applications for programs. I have been working on sorting through them, and letting schools know whether or not students have been accepted. I have done that for the following programs: Images of Greatness which I am teaching right now, and the next two programs: Debating 7 and Debating 6.
Later this week, I am working on getting out the invitations for "Creative Think Tank", and next week, "Notable Novels". Finally, in December, I will be sending out invitations for "Mind Your Math" and "Engineering".
So, if you are a teacher at a school and you haven't heard back from me, keep in mind that I haven't figured out all of the class placements yet. However, if you submitted an application for Debating and Images of Greatness, and you haven't heard, then your student(s) didn't get in.
New this year: due to the time constraints, I won't be able to send out individual waitlist letters. So if you haven't heard by the time the program rolls around, then your student(s) did not get in.
Instead, I am going to send out summary letters to each school at the end of the year, listing who received a program and who did not. This will show you how we serviced students from your school, and you will be able to use it in the following year to figure out who to recommend for programs.
I hope this helps...if you need more clarification, you can call or email me. Thanks again, teachers, for your timely response to deadlines!
Working with a new group of Grade 6 and 7 students on Images of Greatness; we are looking at leadership, eminence, and studying some interesting people and the contributions they have made to society. We are learning from the masters, and applying these lessons to our own understanding of leadership.
The students are involved in research and are putting their ideas together. It is amazing how comfortable they are researching on line and brining in portable devices such as iphones and iPads and laptops to do their research.
We've had lots of class discussion on how to do effective research on-line. Although not new to this area, what is new is how I frame it for students. I have been using Internet Literacy in the Classroom
This resource has been helpful in identifying better ways to use google, and how to check websites for accuracy, and how to verify evidence. As well, this resource shows how to cite websites.
I am sure there are many other resources out there, and if you know of any, plese let me know! Happy researching, everyone!
Recently, I worked with a wonderful colleague teaching a program called "The Amazing Brain". In this program, we brought 19 students together to learn about the brain, and how we think. Our goal was to have the students learn about their thinking, how their brain works, and to help write their own Individual Education Plans. We asked ourselves the following guiding questions in our planning: - How can we make students more autonomous and responsible for their own learning?
- How can we empower them to direct their own learning?
One of our activities was to get them to think about what their own thinking would look like. My colleague asked this question of the students, and then has them draw, diagram, and collage what this looks like. This is a wonderful process to engage in, and gets the students to think about their thinking - a great way to engage in metacognitive processes. We should all think about how we think and what that would look like.
So I asked my 11 year old son, "What does your thinking look like?""My mind is separated into different sections. It is a city in my mind, with different ideas. Two cities, actually: one is my school and my Need City, for learning, and then there is my Enjoy city, the buildings there are about what I like to do in my spare time. Reading, which I like to do is in my Needs City, although I use it for enjoyment as well.
What does it look like?
"A city; a neon city, not like New York, but tall buildings made of light and different colours. The colours are compatible; red and green are together; like the colour wheel, complementing each other".
What does your thinking look like? I think this is such a great way to engage learners and to get them to conceptualize how they think. Is your thinking like a city, or a highway? Does it involve colour or is it black and white? It is organized or compartmentalized? The wonderful thing is that there is no right answer, but only insight into how we conceptualize our thinking worlds.
I am working with a group of grade five students and we are engaged in a book club. We meet once per week for 45 minutes, and we discuss novels. I assign a book, they read up to a certain chapter, and we discuss.
I came to the process with clear guidelines, but what I am enjoying most is having these seven students talk about each book. They discuss whether or not they like the characters, what they found moving, or disturbing, or enjoyable. I lead the conversation with questions, and I keep them on track, but they love to share their opinions and ideas.I assigned them the Garbage King by Elizabeth Laird, first, because it is such a great novel to talk about human rights and how kids may live in a different part of the world. Even though the novel has its dark parts, it also has a good ending, which the students really like. The main character is essentially sold into slavery, and escapes to live on the streets in Ethiopia. A really fantastic story.The next book I assigned was The Giver by Lois Lowry: a classic novel about a world that is very different from ours as well; a completely controlled society. This group did not like the novel. I thought that they would enjoy how different it was from "The Garbage King", but they expressed to me that they didn't like the ending...it was vague and open ended and it was up to the reader to interpret what happens to the main character.
The next book we are reading is "Out of My Mind" by Sharon Drapper; a favourite book of mine. I think the group is eager to read this, and I am looking forward to their ideas and what they felt about the book. Finally, I am ending with an entertaining book, with a great story, "Holes" by Louis Sachar. I think they will like the story and how it has a happy ending!
Once we read all four books (before Christmas), I will work with the students on completing a project based on the books. We are deciding this collaboratively. I am having a wonderful time reading, sharing, and inspiring these fantastic readers.
After a long break from blogging, I am back to it. It has been a really busy month and I just haven't been able to get to my computer, or find the necessary down time to focus.
Our VSB gifted programs are underway, and the next month will be busy with two programs: "Images of Greatness" and "The Great Debate".
Thank you for all of the schools who sent in their referrals for term one. To stream-line the process, we have two due dates this year for programs: Oct. 26th and Jan. 23rd. Over the last two weeks, I have been trying to place students in programs, send out invitations, and do all the paperwork involved in having students attend our programs. We are working on a way to stream-line this process. It seems like such an ancient process to have teachers fill out paper documents and then mail them to us; I hope that we can get this process on line and be paper-less in the future...I really want this to happen.
Finally, I have just sent out the invitations to "Images of Greatness". I am looking forward to working with students next week and I encourage them to start thinking about leadership and people who have made contributions to our society.
Students, see you next week!!!
