Skip to main content

Home/ wcsgifted/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by Eric Calvert

Contents contributed and discussions participated by Eric Calvert

Eric Calvert

Personal Learning Networks Are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids | Edutopia - 0 views

  • Constructing a PLN is the essential skill that moves my students into the driver's seat of their own learning. It helps them sort through and manage the proliferation of online materials that jam the information superhighway.
  • Tony Wagner, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, lists assessing and analyzing information as one of the seven survival skills in the new world of work.
  • An RSS reader is a Web site that puts together all this information in an easy-to-read format. Google Reader, netvibes, Pageflakes, Bloglines, and my preferred reader, iGoogle, are all examples of sites providing RSS readers. The RSS reader is the raw material for building a PLN.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • How Does a PLN Work? RSS technology enables the students to create a PLN. The RSS button, often called a chicklet because of its resemblance to a piece of Chiclets chewing gum, contains all the programming required to add customized sources of news and information to a PLN with just a click. These buttons are on just about every blog, wiki, and mainstream media Web site.
  • I think the ability to create a PLN is a fundamental information-management skill that will help my students succeed in the future.
  • Like an empty locker, the RSS reader starts off as a blank Web page, and students must learn how to seek out sources of information to fill the page that will make up their research. The PLN is never complete, but it evolves to meet the changing needs of each individual project.
  •  
    Personal Learning Networks are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids
Eric Calvert

Diigolet | Diigo - 1 views

  • Diigo Toolbar Diigolet Post to Diigo Enhanced Linkrolls Tagrolls Send to Blog Auto Blog Post Import Bookmarks Import Google Notebook Export Bookmarks "Add to Diigo" Widget Save Elsewhere Install Facebook App Diigo API Diigolet Diigolet is not as feature-rich as the Diigo toolbar, but it can be set-up by simple drag-and-drop - no download or installation needed, and it works for all major browsers. Much more powerful than bookmarklets offered by other social bookmarking sites, Diigolet is a "super bookmarklet" that allows you to highlight and add
  • Right click this button: Diigolet and click "Add to Favorites..."
  • Make sure your "Favorites Bar" is visible
    • Eric Calvert
       
      Don't forget this. Important!
  •  
    This is the intro page for Diigo.
Eric Calvert

ELA Content Standards - 1 views

  •  
    Link to download the English Language Arts Academic Content Standards (as of January 2010.)
Eric Calvert

Diigo Educator Accounts - 2 views

  •  
    Information about free "educator accounts" on Diigo. Educator accounts allow teachers to create student accounts for an entire class (with or without e-mail.) Special privacy settings are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with each other. Teachers can create "groups" for each class.
Eric Calvert

http://educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf - 0 views

  •  
    "7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking" from Educause, 2005.
Eric Calvert

Lessons Learned About Educating the Gifted and Talented: A Synthesis of the Research on... - 0 views

  •  
    This article discussed five lessons the research on the education of the gifted and talented suggests. Although several of the considerations derive from traditional practice in the field, some reconsideration is warranted because of more currently researched differences in how the gifted learner intellectually functions. It is argued that thinking of the gifted learner as idiosyncratic, not necessarily one of many classified as "the gifted," requries a reconceptionalization of how to appropriately and fully serve this unique learner.
Eric Calvert

Toward Best Practice: An Analysis of the Efficacy of Curriculum Models in Gifted Educat... - 0 views

  •  
    This article provides an overview of existing research on 11 curriculum models in the field of gifted edu- cation, including the schoolwide enrichment model and the talent search model, and several others that have been used to shape high-level learning experiences for gifted students. The models are critiqued according to the key fea- tures they contribute to student learning, teacher use, and contextual fit, including alignment to standards and use with special populations of gifted and nongifted learners. The authors also provide a set of key principles derived from the research studies on what has been learned as a field about curriculum and instruction for the gifted. The article concludes with a set of practical considerations for educators in implementing any of the curricula analyzed and specific district applications of the Integrated Curriculum Model (ICM) that illustrate effective implementation over time.
Eric Calvert

wcsgifted / An Introduction to Social Bookmarking with Diigo - 2 views

  • Diigolet
    • Eric Calvert
       
      Works with any browser
  • Toolbar
    • Eric Calvert
       
      Update: a version for Explorer has also been released
    • Eric Calvert
       
      Part of the Diigo add-on for the Firefox and Safari Web browsers.
  • social bookmarking?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Through Others
    • Eric Calvert
       
      Try searching for some groups in Diigo about gifted education, middle school, or your content area.
  • Check this out.
Eric Calvert

NMSA - NAGC Position Statement: Meeting the Needs of High Ability Learners in the Middl... - 1 views

  • MEETING THE NEEDS OF HIGH ABILITY AND HIGH POTENTIAL LEARNERS IN THE MIDDLE GRADES A JOINT POSITION STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL ASSOCIATION AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR GIFTED CHILDREN
  • The National Association for Gifted Children and the National Middle School Association share a commitment to developing schools and classrooms in which both equity and excellence are persistent goals for each learner. Equity refers to the opportunity of every learner to have supported access to the highest possible quality education. Excellence refers to the need of every learner for opportunities and adult support necessary to maximize his or her learning potential.
  • In light of the inevitable variance in middle school populations, it is critical that middle school educators develop increasing awareness of and skill necessary to address the full range of learner needs—including needs of those who already demonstrate advanced academic abilities and those who have the potential to work at advanced levels.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • IDENTIFICATION All middle school learners need educators who consistently use both formal and informal means of recognizing their particular strengths and needs. In regard to advanced learners, identification requires specific plans to seek out students with advanced abilities or advanced potential in order to provide appropriate educational experiences during the transition into adolescence.
  • ASSESSMENT Ongoing assessment is critical to informing classroom practice. Preassessment, in-process assessments, and post assessments should give learners consistent opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding, and skill related to topics of study. Assessments related to student readiness, interests, perspectives, and learning preferences provide educators with a consistently emerging understanding of each learner’s needs in the classroom. Middle level educators should use data from such assessments to modify teaching and learning plans to ensure that each student—including those who already perform well beyond expectations—have consistent opportunities to extend their abilities.
  • CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
  • Advanced middle grade learners thus require consistent opportunities to work at degrees of challenge somewhat beyond their particular readiness levels, with support necessary to achieve at the new levels of proficiency. In addition, educators should address student interests and preferred modes of learning in planning curriculum and instruction that is appropriately challenging for individual learners. Educational resources should be of a sufficient range of complexity to ensure challenge for advanced learners. Flexible pacing and flexible grouping arrangements are important instructional adjustments for many highly able middle level learners.
  • AFFECTIVE DEVELOPMENT
  • Students benefit greatly from learning environments that reinforce their worth as individuals and simultaneously support them in becoming more powerful and productive. For advanced learners, this may require helping students affirm both their abilities and their need to belong to a peer group. Middle level educators need to understand and address the unique dynamics that high-ability and high-potential young adolescents may experience as they seek to define themselves and their roles among peers.
  • EFFECTIVE PARTNERSHIPS Building a middle school culture that supports equity and excellence for each learner requires sustained attention to partnerships among all adults key to the student’s development. This includes partnerships between home and school, specialists and generalists, and teachers and administrators. Middle level schools should assist parents in recognizing, understanding, and nurturing advanced abilities and potential in young adolescents. Partnerships among team members and between classroom teachers and gifted education specialists should ensure appropriate challenge for advanced learners and appropriate attention to the particular talents of advanced learners. Administrator/teacher partnerships should define what it means to accommodate the individual needs of learners and develop conditions that lead to such accommodations for all middle level learners—including those who demonstrate advanced performance or potential.
  • PRE-SERVICE AND IN-SERVICE STAFF DEVELOPMENT
  • Teachers with training in gifted education are more likely to foster high-level thinking, allow for greater student expression, consider individual variance in their teaching, and understand how to provide high-end challenge. Appropriate staff development for middle level teachers will continually focus on high-quality curriculum, understanding and teaching in response to individual as well as group needs, and developing a repertoire of instructional strategies that support and manage flexible classrooms. Central to the success of these endeavors is shared responsibility for meeting the needs of each learner, evidenced in systematic and consistent planning, carrying out of plans, and evaluation of effectiveness of plans in terms of individual learners and small groups of learners as well as the class as a whole.
  • Teachers, Gifted Education Specialists, and Support Personnel Should: 1. Be knowledgeable about students with advanced academic abilities and those who have the potential to work at advanced levels. 2. Meet regularly to discuss the needs of all students, including those with high ability. 3. Provide curriculum, instruction, and other opportunities to meet the needs of students with high ability. 4. Use a variety of developmentally appropriate instructional practices to enable each student to experience a high degree of personal excellence. 5. Collaborate with colleagues at elementary and high school levels to ensure a smooth transition as students progress throughout the grades. 6. Keep parents informed about their children’s growth and invite parent participation in educational planning for their children.
Eric Calvert

Differentiating Instruction For the Gifted - 1 views

  • In a differentiated class, the teacher uses (1) a variety of ways for students to explore curriculum content, (2) a variety of sense-making activities or processes through which students can come to understand and "own" information and ideas, and (3) a variety of options through which students can demonstrate or exhibit what they have learned.
  • A class is not differentiated when assignments are the same for all learners and the adjustments consist of varying the level of difficulty of questions for certain students, grading some students harder than others, or letting students who finish early play games for enrichment. It is not appropriate to have more advanced learners do extra math problems, extra book reports, or after completing their "regular" work be given extension assignments. Asking students to do more of what they already know is hollow. Asking them to do "the regular work, plus" inevitably seems punitive to them (Tomlinson, 1995a).
  • Four characteristics shape teaching and learning in an effective differentiated classroom (Tomlinson, 1995a):
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Instruction is concept focused and principle driven.
  • On-going assessment of student readiness and growth are built into the curriculum.
  • Flexible grouping is consistently used. In a differentiated class, students work in many patterns. Sometimes they work alone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in groups. Sometimes tasks are readiness-based, sometimes interest-based, sometimes constructed to match learning style, and sometimes a combination of readiness, interest, and learning style.
  • Students are active explorers. Teachers guide the exploration.
  • Adjustments based on learning profile encourage students to understand their own learning preferences.
  • Readiness-based adjustments can be created by teachers offering students a range of learning tasks developed along one or more of the following continua:
  • Concrete to abstract.
  • Simple to complex.
  • Basic to transformational.
  • Fewer facets to multi-facets.
  • Smaller leaps to greater leaps
  • More structured to more open.
  • Less independence to greater independence.
  • Quicker to slower.
  • Among instructional strategies that can help teachers manage differentiation and help students find a good learning "fit" are the following: use of multiple texts and supplementary materials; use of computer programs; interest centers; learning contracts; compacting; tiered sense-making activities and tiered products; tasks and products designed with a multiple intelligence orientation; independent learning contracts; complex instruction; group investigation; product criteria negotiated jointly by student and teacher; graduated task- and product-rubrics.
  • Teachers moving toward differentiated instruction in an inclusive, integrated middle school classroom find greater success if they (1) have a clear rationale for differentiation, (2) prepare students and parents for a differentiated classroom, (3) attend to issues of classroom structure and management as they move toward more student-centered learning, (4) move toward differentiation at a pace comfortable to both teacher and learners, and (5) plan with team members and other colleagues interested in differentiation
  • If middle school students differ in readiness, interest, and learning profiles, and if a good middle school attempts to meet each student where he or she is and foster continual growth, a one-size-fits-all model of instruction makes little sense. Rather, differentiated instruction seems a better solution for meeting the academic diversity that typifies the middle school years.
1 - 10 of 10
Showing 20 items per page