Multiple Intelligences for Kids

Want a cool way to teach kids about multiple intelligences and different ways that people can be smart? Check out this website. Each alien represents a different intelligence. Which alien are you like? This website is a great way to teach kids that they can be smart in different ways!


http://www.ncwiseowl.org/kscope/techknowpark/LoopCoaster/eSmartz2.html

Amazing Video

I love this video! What an inspriation to anyone who works with children.

The Story of the Zax

I found this video while researching for my annotated bibliography project. The video is an old Dr. Seuss video titled "The Zax" and its underlying message relates to resistance to change. After watching the video, I thought about how the video relates to differentiation - the newest buzzword in education and the direction where education is going. Some teachers are very resistant to this new type of teaching and I think "The Zax" offers a humorous, yet eye opening reality that if you refuse to change, the world will still change around you.

2/18 Class Reflection

At our last class, we watched a video on differentiation. This video was the best video I have viewed on the topic. My school district has an account with a professional development website called "PD360". The website offers videos on a variety of topics and is vey useful for finding inforamtion and strategies. One downside to PD360 is that the videos often feature classrooms that are much different than the classrooms in our school. I remember one specific video about differentiation that showed a classroom with only about 15 students in it and the classroom was HUGE! I have 25 students in my classroom and not much space so it was a little frustrating watching the video showing how much success this teacher had in diffenentiating. With only 15 students and that size classroom, differentiating and centers would be no problem! This is why I really enjoyed the video shown at class. The video featured an English classroom with a "normal" amount of students and restricted space.

Online Community Reflection

This week I went back to looking at the posts in the Gifted and Talented Education discussion boards on Teachers.net. I read some recent posts from teachers trying to find ideas and materials for their gifted students. I love the idea of exchanging ideas but think it is unfortunate that many teachers, including myself, lack the "budget" to provide differentiation for gifted students in the classroom. I have found something that works for me in my building - I ask other teachers to borrow things. For example, on Thursday for Valentine's Day, I taught a lesson on the human heart (I cannot justify watching movies and playing games for an entire day - I have to do something educational!). I asked around and ended up borrowing a model of the human heart from a 6th grade teacher and some stethoscopes from a 5th grade teacher. After the lesson my gifted students wanted to examine the heart model and found some challenging books in my classroom library about the human body. They worked in a small group at creating a model of the heart on paper and shared their work with the class.

I enjoy browsing the discussion board because I have found a few great ideas from reading posts. It also makes me feel better that teachers all over the country have similar struggles in their classrooms.

Differentiated Portfolio Assessment

I started working on another piece of my portfolio last weekend - a differentiated, muliple-intelligence, portfolio assessment. I wanted to create something that I could actually use in the next few weeks so I could reflect on the experience before the end of my class. I chose to create a portfolio assessment for the current science chapter. The topic of the chapter is "Earth Science" - volcanoes, erosion, types of rocks, soil, etc.

I took a look at the state standards for science and created activties that both proved that the student had mastered the concepts but at the same time could be presented in a variety of ways.

Online Learning Environment for Gifted Students

After attending the NICE (Northern Illinois Computer Educators) conference yesterday, I am full of new ideas to use in my classroom! Today, I created an "online learning environment" for my gifted students. It is connected to our classroom wiki. This virtual space is a place for me to post challenging tasks, open ended questions, and for my gifted students to collaborate with each other. My students are very interested in technology and I am excited to see how they react when introduced to the environment. They are "authors" of the space and can post their own comments, answers, and questions.

Week Three - Discussion Board Reflection

There wasn't much activity on the discussion board I have been following (GATE), so I decided to check out another one on Teachers.net. I started reading posts from the "NCLB" discussion board and found that there were many posts regarding NCLB and gifted students. One particular post was from a parent who obviously researched the legislation and realized that her gifted student was being "left behind" at their school. Another post I read was written by a teacher who was concerned that the curriculum had been "dumbed down" and that gifted students in their school were not being challenged. Many parents commenting on this topic state that they have to find extracurricular activities and other resources on their own to challenge their children. I applaud these parents for being involved, informed, and upset about how their children are being "left behind".

http://teachers.net/mentors/NCLB/