Head over to a gifted department or a state association’s website and look for the “Resources” page. Scroll down the list. Click a few links. Now ask yourself: Is this information immediately helpful to the teachers using this page? Or does every single teacher who clicks that link have to spend time figuring the page […]
Year: 2020
How To Get A Kid To Read
I frequently receive questions like this: How do I get a student to read more challenging books? They only like “Book Series X”… I have always been a voracious reader. So, when I get this question, I think back – what led me to become a lifelong reader? Why do I love to read as […]
Words Within Words
How many words can you find that are made from the letters in the world “soldier”?
Talk To Your Past Students
Are you ignoring the most cost-effective feedback about your program’s effectiveness? Talk to some past students!
“Priority” is Singular
You can only have one priority. Anything else is a cop-out.
Rewriting a Sentence With Different Coordinating Conjunctions
The first unit in our writing program was always teaching the coordinating conjunctions. It always felt goofy teaching this to 6th graders – especially a gifted magnet class. I mean… do they really not know the difference between “and” and “but”?
How Clear Is Your Program’s Purpose?
If someone asked you why your gifted program even exists, how well could you explain its purpose? Could you do it in 30 seconds? How about one sentence? Do me a favor. Open up the homepage for your district’s gifted program. This is the first place that parents, teachers, community leaders, and even students would […]
Running A Gifted Program: Parent Nights
I’ve been to over a hundred parent nights and my main takeaway is this: use the time to build a community and get to know your parents’ needs. And stay away from PowerPoint!
Which One Is Not Like The Others
When we ask kids “which one is not like the others”, our cleverest students love to find ways to pick the non-obvious answer. So why not use this as a framework for pushing students deeper into our content.
Writing A Story About Equivalent Fractions
Cross disciplines by writing a story about fraction equivalence.
