Distinguished Lecture Series 2011-12

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STEM with Stemples
October 22, 2011
October 29, 2011

Richard Abbondanzio,
Science Chair, Hockaday
Because good teaching makes learning relevant and exciting to students, the STEM workshops offered at SMU will specialize in instructing teachers how to engage students in STEM inquiry learning and how to have them succeed without the need for expensive or elaborate lab facilities.

These day-long workshops are designed to introduce elementary and middle school teachers to the world of technology and engineering as a first step in preparing students to become technologically proficient. Through real-world connections, teachers will have the opportunity to see how technology, science, mathematics and engineering are part of their everyday world. The professional development and curriculum are grounded in Project 2061’s Benchmarks and Grant Wiggins’ “Understanding By Design” paradigm. Workshop participants will experience lessons with proven methods for teaching STEM concepts that easily cross the four disciplines while addressing the appropriate TEKS.

Elementary School Teachers (October 22, 2011)
STEM is a relatively new interdisciplinary area for elementary schools and their teachers. To nurture mastery of technological and engineering content with the goal of teaching creative problem solving, these workshops offer professional development and resources for elementary school teachers. This session introduces educators to engineering concepts and the engineering design process, while reviewing the structure and function associated with particular manipulative materials. There will be an emphasis on instructional planning. Participants will go home with practical lessons using common materials and aligned with the technology and math benchmarks of AAAS’s Project 2061 and the National Center for Technological Literacy.

Middle School Teachers (October 29, 2011)
STEM should be a priority at middle schools. The SMU STEM workshops provide an excellent intellectual endeavor for middle school teachers to hone their skills and practice their pedagogy. Participants will engage in activities using the core subject areas of science and mathematics to solve problems in the world of technology and engineering. This workshop will guide teachers to introduce their students to the world of technology and engineering as a first step toward becoming technologically literate citizens. Participants will use the engineering design process to solve problems that require the application and integration of STEM disciplines and concepts. New and old materials/manipulatives will be explored as tools to provide students with greater understanding and skills in the STEM fields. Participants will go home with ready-to-use lessons aligned with the technology benchmarks of AAAS’s Project 2061 and the National Center for Technological Literacy.

6 hours Teacher--Differentiated Curriculum
6 hours Administrator Awareness--Additional Study

Administrators Conference
November 8, 2011

Carol Horn, Ph.D.
Fairfax County Public Schools
Finding and Nurturing Young Scholars

Gifted potential in students from diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds is often overlooked and unrecognized. Young Scholars is designed to find students with advanced academic potential from diverse backgrounds at an early age, and to nurture their potential so that they will be prepared to engage in advanced learning opportunities as they progress in grade level. Beginning in Kindergarten, gifted and talented resource teachers collaborate with classroom teachers to provide appropriate levels of challenge through a continuum of gifted services. Early identification coupled with early intervention allows each school to provide learning experiences that increase the students’ self-efficacy and prepare them for successful participation in gifted and talented programs, K - 12. The Young Scholars model has two goals: to identify giftedness in children from diverse cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds as early as possible; and to nurture, guide, and support the development of their exceptional potential so that they will be prepared to participate and succeed in advanced academic programs in middle and high school. Participants will examine this comprehensive district-wide approach to the issue of underrepresentation and will have opportunities to consider applications of the model in their own schools. Information on a video, online course, and handbook designed to guide school districts who wish to implement the model will be provided. Research on the impact of the model on the demographics of gifted programs in Fairfax County Public Schools and the academic achievement of the Young Scholars will also be shared.

Dr. Carol V. Horn is coordinator of Advanced Academic Programs for Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia. She has worked in gifted education for over 20 years and is a National Board Certified Teacher. Carol has a Master of Education in Educational Psychology with an Emphasis on Gifted from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in Teacher Preparation and Special Education from The George Washington University. She is the 2002 recipient of the Hollingsworth Award from the National Association for Gifted Children for outstanding research study in the field of gifted education. Dr. Horn has worked extensively to develop and implement the Young Scholars model, a comprehensive approach to finding and nurturing advanced academic potential in young learners from underrepresented populations. In 2010 she received the first Outstanding Leader Award by the Center of Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary.

6 hours Administrator Awareness--Nature and Needs of G/T Learners
6 hours Teacher--Identification and Assessment

Changing Behavior: Changing Bullying
December 6, 2011

Cathryn Berger Kaye, M. A.,
CBK Associates, International Education Consultants

All members of the school community have roles in creating a safe and respectful environment. Let’s take a new approach to replacing bullying behaviors with kindness and collaboration. Learn specific strategies that can be used with school faculty and with students to examine and transform how we think and choose to behave.

During this highly interactive session:

--- explore how words matter
--- embrace change as a means to discover new ideas and possibilities, and
---experience service learning as key to youth engagement while connecting academics to positive social behavior.

As part of the journey, hear examples of scenarios from other schools. Enjoy a wealth of literature, both fiction and nonfiction, that become key in community building. Take away ideas you can use immediately!

Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A., a former classroom teacher, is president of CBK Associates—International Education Consultants. She provides program development, and engaging workshops and keynote addresses that inspire and promote vibrant school communities and student civic participation. She has extensive experience in K-12, university settings, and youth serving organizations. Cathryn weaves critical education issues into her presentations, that include service learning, student leadership, literacy, respectful and safe school communities, and effective teaching strategies, all toward creating a dynamic experience for students, teachers, administrators, and families. Cathryn’s program Strategies for Success with Literacy: A Learning Curriculum that Serves has been implemented as part of the Los Angeles Unified School District dropout prevention plan reaching over 40,000 students, and is a hallmark program for improving school climate and culture. Cathryn is the author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning: Proven, Practical Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility, Academic Curriculum, & Social Action Second Edition (Free Spirit Publishing, 2010), and Going Blue: A Kid’s Guide to Protecting Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands with Philippe Cousteau and EarthEcho International (Free Spirit Publishing, 2010). Cathryn speaks around the world over 100 days a years, however you can find her at www.abcdbooks.org and contact her in Los Angeles at cbkaye@aol.com.

6 hours--Social and Emotional Needs
6 hours Administrator Awareness--Nature and Needs of G/T Learners

Self-Regulated Learning for Advanced Performance
December 8, 2011

Angela Housand, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina Wilmington

Gifted students tend to be more self-regulated then their average performing peers, yet there is tremendous variation in the use of self-regulated learning strategies among our brightest students. This variation is highlighted when important deadlines are missed, lack of attention leads to careless errors, or underachievement becomes the status quo for a gifted individual. The frustration teachers and parents feel when a gifted student fails to achieve their potential can be immense, but gifted students can learn how to be more productive, organized, and goal-oriented by developing and effectively using self-regulated learning strategies; a set of strategies that aid students in being metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally engaged in the learning process.
So, how can we, as educators and parents, help students take personal initiative in the process of learning? How do we shift the responsibility of learning to students? How can we help students achieve their potential by effectively self-regulating their behavior toward learning?
Given the current zeitgeist in gifted education that relies on flexible grouping practices, differentiation, and individual project work, combined with the vast knowledge available on the Internet, it is imperative that students be given the necessary support and structures to create their own learning success. Drawing on research conducted by Martinez-Pons, Pajaras, Reis, Renzulli, Zimmerman, and others, this session explores the explicit self-regulated learning strategies, domain specific strategies, environmental influences, and individual behaviors that have been associated with increases in academic performance. The goal of this session is to demonstrate how appropriate environmental structures, classroom procedures, explicit strategy instruction, and the provision of choice and complexity can lead to increased student learning and behavioral regulation while empowering teachers, coordinators, administrators, and parents to recognize, engender, and create learning environments that support autonomy and encourage student-initiated success.
Specifically, participants in this workshop will: (1) Learn about the theories that underlie self-regulated learning, (2) Critically examine various structures and procedures to increase self-regulated learning in classroom settings, (3) Learn to apply strategies that can be used to increase student autonomy and ownership of learning, (4) Utilize organization skills to avoid information overload in our modern digital environments, and (5) Make connections between environmental influences and students’ behavioral outcomes. Administrators, coordinators, and teachers can expect to walk away with specific knowledge about self-regulated learning, and concrete strategies to use with gifted students as they face the challenge of becoming life-long learners.

Dr. Angela M. Housand is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington (UNCW) where she develops, coordinates, and teaches courses for the Academically and Intellectually Gifted (AIG) Teacher Licensure Program. Prior to her work at UNCW, Dr. Housand was a research associate at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Over the years, she has presented at local, state, national, and international conferences on topics related to gifted education and self-regulated learning. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, as chapters in edited books, and in research reports. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Housand actively serves in elected positions for both the American Educational Research Association’s Research on Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent SIG, and the National Association for Gifted Children.

6 hours Teacher--Nature and Needs of G/T Learners
6 hours Administrator Awareness--Nature and Needs of G/T Learners

Mapping Mindsets: Using Dweck’s Work to Reinforce Effort and Reflection in the Classroom
January 12, 2011

Jennifer Beasley, Ph.D.
University of Arkansas

Many high-achieving students are preoccupied with grades. How do we, as teachers, keep them focused on the learning process? Due to their label, gifted students are susceptible to behaviors that lead can to underachievement such as: opting out and avoiding challenges. What messages are we sending our students about intelligence and achievement?
Carol Dweck (2000) identifies two intelligence “mindsets” that influence how people respond to challenge. The growth mindset considers intelligence malleable and, thus, modified through effort while the fixed mindset defines intelligence as a rigid construct that cannot be changed. Dweck (2000) found that holding a growth mindset leads students to focus on the process of learning and boosts motivation to engage in tasks requiring hard work and triggering intellectual growth. On the contrary, those who subscribe to the fixed mindset are primarily concerned with whether they appear smart, not whether they are learning. As a result this thinking can prevent them from rising to intellectual challenges and growth.
This session will focus on classroom practices that support or undermine the growth mindset and how to infuse elements of the growth mindset into the curriculum. Participants will be guided through sample lessons that promote the growth mindset. Time will be provided for participants to apply the principles learned while mapping out their own curricular ideas. Finally, participants will leave with a list of classroom practices and behaviors that support or undermine a mindset for growth and how teachers can infuse curriculum to support growth mindset.

Participants will know:

How growth and fixed mindsets look in the classroom;
What teachers can do to support growth mindset;
Strategies that can encourage effort and reflection.

Participants will understand that:

The way our students view themselves influences their effort in class;
Educators and parents can have a direct impact on a child’s mindset.

Participants will be able to:

Identify characteristics of growth and fixed mindset;
Create curricular opportunities for supporting effort and reflection in the classroom.

Reference:
Dweck, C.S. (2000). Self-theories: their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

Dr. Jennifer G. Beasley has more than 17 years of experience in education as an elementary school teacher and a gifted facilitator. After receiving an M.A. in Education Administration and Gifted Education, Jennifer completed her doctoral work in Educational Psychology at the University of Virginia. She is currently Assistant Professor in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Arkansas. Her professional contributions include serving as a regular columnist for the National Association for Gifted Children’s publication Teaching for High Potential, serving as evaluator for the annual NAGC Curriculum Award, and facilitating workshops with schools and districts in the United States and internationally, specializing in gifted education, differentiation, and professional development.

6 hours Teacher--Nature and Needs of G/T Learners
6 hours Administrator Awareness--Nature and Needs of G/T Learners

Preparations for Creativity

As the 21st century ushers in a “creative age,” with its demands for a creative citizenry, educators everywhere face the uncertainty and the challenge of classroom preparation. What is creativity, really? How do we recognize it? Can it be taught or nurtured? Based on their ongoing studies of innovative individuals in many fields, Bob and Michele Root-Bernstein take a look at six different patterns of creative development, half of which rely on broad training in youth and almost all of which rely on mature breadth of interest. Such polymathy—the pursuit of a personally significant cluster of vocations and avocations—is, they argue, an overlooked yet fruitful creative strategy particularly relevant to gifted education. Just as Nobel scientists and others gain imaginative and creative skill from serious hobbies in the arts, for example, students may transfer knowledge and know-how between mathematics and poetry, poetry and physics, physics and visual arts, visual arts and biochemical invention, biology and electronic media and so forth. What connects these disciplines together in meaningful and productive synergy is imaginative skill. In their book Sparks of Genius, the Root-Bernsteins explore 13 skills or thinking tools critical to originality of thought and creative endeavor across the arts and sciences. Honed in cross-disciplinary classroom activity, these thinking tools promote imaginative and creative capacity in all a student’s endeavors. Preparing for creativity in life’s work begins with early training in the play of creative imagination and polymathy.

Tools for Thinking Application: Inventing Imaginary Worlds Workshop

How does the invention of imaginary worlds, as both a form of play and a creative strategy, open up understanding of imagination’s role in knowledge construction across the arts and sciences? In this workshop participants consider worldplay as a learning and discovery experience. Worldplay peaks in middle childhood, with residual practice into adulthood. Taking advantage of children’s enthusiasm for this kind of play, teachers can promote the artful modeling of real world elements in imagined settings. As an educational strategy, classroom worldplay can integrate visual and performing arts and diverse crafts with language arts, social studies, mathematics and other core subjects. After a brief introduction to worldplay research, participants invent their own imaginary worlds and in the process explore, discuss and reflect upon the links between play, creative imagination and knowledge construction.


Tools for Thinking Application: Patterning in Art, Music, and Math

Our minds are programmed to recognize certain types of patterns such as faces and we can learn to recognize patterns of patterns, too. Using the artwork of Gene Davis and Bridget Riley as a springboard, this workshop will explore some ways in which common patterns can be found running through visual arts, music, mathematics and even engineering. Participants will learn how to make Gene Davis-like designs and by doing so gain an understanding of the modern music of Aka pygmies, Steve Reich, Iannes Xenakis and the fundamental mathematical principles upon which this art and music is based.

Robert Root-Bernstein received his AB in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in History of Science from Princeton University. He did post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he was awarded one of the first MacArthur Fellowships. A Professor in the Physiology Department at Michigan State University since 1987, Bob studies the evolution of physiological control systems and autoimmune diseases, as well as science-arts interactions. In his spare time, Bob makes various forms of visual art, practices photography, and builds models. He has participated in several group shows.

Michele Root-Bernstein received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 1981. She has taught history, writing and creativity studies from grade school to college. She is a “Kennedy Center Teaching Artist” and an Adjunct Faculty member at Michigan State University. Currently, she is near completion of a book on the invention of imaginary worlds in childhood and the relationship of complex play to creative giftedness. Michele also writes haiku for journals across the U.S. and Canada. A selection of her poems appears in A New Resonance 6, Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2009).

Together, Bob and Michele are co-authors of Sparks of Genius, The 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) and numerous articles on imaginative thinking, polymathy and trans-disciplinary education.

6 hours Creativity and Instructional Strategies

For More Information

The Gifted Students Institute
PO Box 750383
Dallas, TX 75275-0383
Phone: 214-768-4383
Fax: 214-768-3147
gifted@smu.edu

The Gifted Students Institute office is located at 3101 University, Suite 172, Dallas TX  75275.