1. An article by Dr. Tomlinson called “Differentiating Instruction For Advanced Learners” http://bit.ly/9fJMQc
2. MoreWords.com is a great way to find words with greek and latin roots. Here’s words containing “soph” - http://bit.ly/9MMb1T
3. “Differentiating Curriculum For Gifted Students” an article by Sandra Berger http://bit.ly/bkGRq1
4. Awesome roundup of story-based instruction from @ThinkThankThunk http://bit.ly/b1RBl2
5. A dozen math myths. Could provide interesting opening to a lesson.http://bit.ly/bquHsL
6. Interesting writeup about divergent thinkers, common in a gifted classroom http://bit.ly/dBJzKK
7. Gifted education myths from National Association for Gifted Children. http://www.nagc.org/commonmyths.aspx Found via RT @SeaburySchool.
8. Inductive language puzzles, could be interesting openers. Found via @jkottke. http://bit.ly/9vhTZW

Twitter: Math Myths, Gifted Myths, Language Puzzles is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Language Arts Needs Of Gifted Learners
2. Differentiating Math Lessons For Gifted Students
3. Uplevel Grammar By Examining Another Language

111 Greek and Latin Word Parts

To differentiate spelling and vocabulary for my gifted students, I incorporate words with Greek and Latin origins. This list is a compilation of 111 Greek and Latin roots with meanings and an example English word.

Groups of Five Related Words

In addition to the list of 111 word parts, I made 35 groups of 5 related words. For example, in the “cred” group, I listed the words: accredited, incredibly, incredulous, credible, and creditor. These groups are designed to expose your students to word families one set at a time.

Five Task Cards

I also developed several activities for working with these words parts. These are fun tasks that lead to interesting products. Included are:

• Think Like An Inventor
• Greekymons!
• Greek And Latin Spellbook
• Phobiaology
• Philadelphia

Immediate Download

Comes as a zip file with both PDF (for printing) and Word versions (in case you want to make changes).

111 Greek and Latin Word Parts is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Vocabulary Skills For Gifted Students
2. Mega Homophone List
3. Twitter: Math Myths, Gifted Myths, Language Puzzles

320 Homophones

This list is brimming with 320 homophones grouped in tens and (generally) ordered by difficulty. It features homophone pairs and triplets with simple vocabulary such as “be/bee” as well as more  challenging words like “mustered/mustard” and “descent/dissent.”

Five Task Cards Included

I also developed a few creative tasks to go with the homophone list. These make great independent work activities and lead to some fun products.

• A Very Punny Jokebook
• A Misunderstanding
• Poetic Pun
• Double Homophone Sentences
• Homophone Restaurant

Immediate Download

Comes as a zip file with both PDF (for printing) and Word versions (in case you want to make changes).

Mega Homophone List is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. 111 Greek and Latin Word Parts
2. Vocabulary Skills For Gifted Students
3. Language Arts Needs Of Gifted Learners

We introduced the idea of promoting creativity and curiosity through student-led research and experiments. In parts two and three, students developed guiding questions and created hypotheses for experimenting.

Finally, they are ready to dig into resources, find answers, ask new questions, and report what they’ve learned.

As the teacher, you’ll need to:

Be a guide

You’re facilitating a classroom full of curious kids engaged in self-directed research. This may be your most challenging assignment yet! During this time, remember to remain a vigilant guide. Help students stay on track, but don’t nag. Constantly conference with students, but allow them to explore their topics at a natural pace. Above all, keep this time authentically exciting and interesting for your kids.

Provide appropriate and varied resources

Some classroom computers and a printer makes this less of a challenge. Ask students to visit the public library. Since this is difficult for some families, I tell students I’m making a trip to the largest library in the area. Anyone who needs a resource gives me the title and I pick it up for them. Remember that video, audio, interviews, and periodicals are all possibilities.

Keep track of student progress

It’s fine if students move at different rates. Anyone who “finishes” with a topic can present and move on to a new puzzlement. However, it’s probably wise to have a progress chart to monitor the class and be aware of stragglers and rushers. These types of students may need you to help by:

Narrow the scope of overwhelming topics

Students who have stalled out may be overwhelmed by a topic. Help these students to refine their topic to something more manageable. “Who was the best baseball player” could become “Who was the best baseball player from the 1950s.”

Increase the complexity of topics

On the other hand, you may need to increase the complexity of a topic that is being skimmed. The tools of depth and complexity provide an easy way to differentiate in this way.

Modify topics that have lost student interest

If students are losing steam due to lack of interest, either end their topic by pushing them towards a presentation or alter their topic using SCAMPER. A student who feels he has mastered “solar power” may become interested again when solar power is combined with space travel or underwater vehicles.

Encourage student creativity in developing a product

When a topic has reached a natural end, encourage students to present their new knowledge in the most authentic way possible. A student who has researched the evolution of video games shouldn’t read a written report. They should create a multimedia presentation or bring in examples of the evolution. Don’t let the presentation of information become a bland book report. Maintain excitement, interest, and an “I can’t believe I get to do this at school” mentality.

Provide feedback on completed presentations

A simple rubric completed by both student and teacher can serve as feedback on the student’s work. Require students to give a “practice presentation” to you in the beginning to catch incomplete or unsatisfactory products. Since this is a time for students to investigate their own interests, removal from the process can serve as motivation for uncooperative students or those putting in low effort. The more you are able to keep this time fueled by authentic curiosity, the less this will be a problem.

Curiosity Fridays – Part IV is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Curiosity Fridays – Part II
2. Curiosity Fridays – Part I
3. Curiosity Fridays – Part III

1. An incredible Magic Square. Great math puzzle for your gifted students - http://bit.ly/9Bb4l8
2. Using Books To Meet Social/Emotional Needs of gifted learners (via @SENG_gifted) http://bit.ly/ccfDfB
3. Even more homophones. Great for spelling & vocabulary lists! http://bit.ly/aGvIU9
4. A virtual conference on the “soft-skils” of education. Many great educators discussing an interesting topic – http://bit.ly/8ZafSD
5. Interesting! A slideshow about failed currencies. http://bit.ly/9z6U8c (found through @Larryferlazzo)
6. Teach creativity to your gifted class using this creative toolbox –http://bit.ly/cXwnez
7. Construct anything with these virtual Lego blocks - http://leocad.org/ (found through @marynabadenhors)

7 More Gifted Ed Resources 8-20-10 is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Ten Gifted Ed Resources – 7/23
2. Gifted Education Resources 8/13/10
3. 7 Gifted Ed Resources 7-30-2010

Here are my top five free tools to quickly discover (and easily keep track of) new ideas:

Google Reader

This is my number one way of stumbling across interesting ideas. If you’re unfamiliar with an RSS Reader, it keeps track of your favorite websites and shows you only new updates. Rather than checking twenty different sites, I just head to Google Reader and scroll through the latest from the sites I enjoy. I can ’star’ outstanding posts and skip past those that don’t interest me.

You can follow Byrdseed.com in Google Reader using the RSS Feed.

Delicious

Delicious stores your favorite websites as bookmarks online. Besides being a convenient way to access your own bookmarks from any computer, Delicious also lets you share and browse others’ bookmarks.

For instance, I admire the educator Dan Meyer and like to keep track of what he thinks is interesting. Since he shares his bookmarks, I can see what he’s saving on Delicious.

You can also view bookmarks based on their topic or tag. I watch for recent bookmarks tagged ‘gifted.’ If I want to know the most popular ‘gifted’ bookmarks, delicious offers that as well.

I can even follow just Dan Meyer’s bookmarks tagged with math.

The most exciting part is that each page has an RSS feed that I can subscribe to using Google Reader. When anyone adds a new gifted bookmark to Delicious, I see it on Google Reader.

Dropbox

After a hard drive fail, I realized that I needed a better backup system. Dropbox is simple and free way to keep your files safe. Anything you put into your ‘dropbox’ folder is automatically uploaded and safely stored on Dropbox’s server. Plus, if you install Dropbox on multiple computers (say your home computer and work laptop) Dropbox automatically makes sure you have the latest files on BOTH computers. No more carrying files in a flash drive.

Evernote

Evernote is like my digital notebook. I store webpages, PDFs, digital photos, scanned images, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Like Dropbox, Evernote syncs all of my information to multiple computers (and cell phones) and saves it all on their servers.

An amazing bonus feature is the ability to ‘read’ text in images and PDFs. So if I take a photo that has writing in it, Evernote recognizes the writing as text. This makes it very easy to search and find anything I’m looking for.

Evernote has a million uses, read their website for more information.

Twitter

Twitter is a way of communicating using tiny, 140 character messages. There is a thriving community of educators, parents and advocates supporting gifted children on Twitter. To get started, try searching Twitter.com for messages with the tag #gifted. Every Friday there is an online chat under the tag #gtchat led by Deborah Mersino of Ingeniosus.net. Twitter is a great way to find inspiration for your classroom. Keep track of me on Twitter at ByrdseedGifted.

Five Tech Tools For Teachers is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. 3 Ways Teachers Battle Students’ Giftedness
2. Byrdseed Is 0.5!
3. Gifted Education Resources 8/13/10

However, this left our experiment-based students in the dark. These kids need a hypothesis to structure their experiment around.

Note: Again, I would scaffold this whole proces. Introduce experiments as a whole group with everyone doing something similar for the first round. I wouldn’t have half my class researching and half experimenting until well into the year.

Develop A Question

Before developing their hypothesis, our students need a question to answer. Some students will already have a burning question in their minds, but others will need you to provide some structure. Consider utilizing the tool SCAMPER (see Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko) to develop their question.

SCAMPER

SCAMPER stands for :

• Substitute
• Combine
• Adapt
• Maximize/Minimize
• Put to other uses
• Eliminate
• Rearrange/Reverse

Each verb alters an existing idea in a specific way. Perfect for creating questions that lead to an experiments.

SCAMPERing Bridges

Let’s assume our student picked “bridges” as a topic and then refined it, as discussed in the last article, to “truss bridges” or “span bridges.” Ask students to change one piece of a bridge using the verbs from SCAMPER (note that you’re setting up an independent variable).

They might come up with:

• Substitute: What are the effects of substituting circles for the trusses?
• Adapt: What other disciplines could a truss be adapted to?
• Maximize: What is the maximum length I could build a span bridge?
• Eliminate: What are the effects of eliminating half of the trusses on a bridge?

SCAMPERing Plants

If a student picked “plants” as a topic and then refined it to “photosynthesis,” they could use SCAMPER to create a question. Again, they should change one thing about photosynthesis:

• Substitute: What are the effects of substituting artificial light for sunlight?
• Eliminate: How long can a plant survive if we eliminate sunlight?
• Rearrange: What are the effects of exposing only one side of a plant to sunlight?

Developing A Hypothesis

From here, these students are ready to develop a hypothesis. Using the Frayer Model of concept attainment, explain what a hypothesis is (thanks to ScienceProjectIdeasForKids.com for some great hypothesis tips):

Definition: A hypothesis is an educated guess that answers the experimenter’s question.

Essential Characteristics:

• Can be proven true or false with a test.
• Must have one specific detail that we change (independent variable) and one detail that is measured (dependent variable).
• Shouldn’t be obvious (no duh statements)
• Often takes the form of: If, then…
• Often includes words such as: increase, decrease, faster, slower

Example Hypotheses:

• If I remove half the trusses of a bridge, the bridge will only support half the weight.
• If I decrease a plant’s sunlight by half, the plant will stop growing.
• If I substitute artificial life for sunlight, the plant’s growth rate will decrease by half.

Poor Hypotheses:

• If I take away trusses, the bridge won’t be as strong (not specific, obvious statement).
• More sunlight means the plant will be better (not testable).

Experiment

By this point, we’ve armed students with a testable, scientific question. They’re ready to experiment.

Naturally, you’ll need to model and scaffold this experience to make it worthwhile.

Remind students that they picked one detail to change (amount of sunlight, number of trusses, etc) and one detail to measure (maximum weight, growth rate, etc). They’ll need to set up three tests to start with, changing the independent variable in three different ways. They’ll measure the dependent variable and (eventually) search for a pattern.

Note: Since this is Curiosity Fridays, these experiments should be fueled by curiosity, not procedures and paperwork. Make sure that “the rules of the scientific method” don’t dominate the experience of organic inquiry.

This isn’t to say that the scientific method shouldn’t be explicitly taught, but try waiting until after a successful round of experiments. This way, students can inductively learn this scientific principle, comparing it to their own experience.

Coming Next

When we pick up next, we’ll look at what to do with the results of students’ research and experiment based curiosity!

Curiosity Fridays – Part III is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Curiosity Fridays – Part II
2. Curiosity Fridays – Part IV
3. Curiosity Fridays – Part I

In the last post, we were considering how to create “Curious Fridays” as a response to the Judith Wynn Halsted’s quote:

gifted children must … learn to take responsibility for finding ways to satisfy their intellectual curiosity and to express their creativity.
from Using Books to Meet the Social & Emotional Needs of Gifted Students

As I considered the best way to set this up, I used Sandra Kaplan and Bette Gould’s book Independent Study as a guide.

Pick A Topic

Since this is our first set of Curiosity Fridays, I’ll give my students their topic. In this case, we’ll all be investigating chess. In the future, they’ll pick from a set of choices and then eventually graduate into a truly independent study.

Refine The Topic

Since chess is an enourmous topic that people devote entire lives to, we’ll need to refine the topic (note that this is a valuable skill in itself). Google’s Wonder Wheel is a perfect tool for finding sub-topics.

Google Wonder Wheel

The Wonder Wheel is located on the bottom left of any Google search. After you search, simply click “wonder wheel.” The Wonder Wheel sets students free to refine topics on their own and avoids the “I can’t think of anything” problem. Here’s how it works:

• My first search for “chess” brought up a wheel with these topics:
  • “chess openings”
  • “chess against computer”
  • “play chess”.
• Clicking on “chess openings” brought up a second wheel with these topics:
  • “chess openings for black”
  • “ruy lopez”
  • “sicilian defense”

Now these chess topics are more manageable. Even though we’re all using chess as our topic, students are free to pick a smaller sub-topic of their choosing.

Develop Questions

Now students will develop questions to guide their exploration. They’ll create sophisticated questions by combining a question word (who, what, where, when, why, how) with the icons of depth and complexity and the content imperatives to form specific questions.

Also consider bringing in these key words (a subset of words developed by Sandra Kaplan): significance, function, types, conditions, consequences, purpose, traits, reaction, evidence, and influence.

Examples

• What are the advantages and disadvantages (ethics) of the Ruy Lopez opening?
• What is the effect (contribution) of using the Ruy Lopez opening on the middle game?
• How have points of view about the Sicilian Defense changed over time?
• What are the consequences of using the King’s Gambit?
• What patterns of traits are there in chess openings for black?

This chart from Azusa USD is helpful for thinking about depth and complexity in flexible ways. The Differentiator may be useful as well.

Above all, these questions should be intriguing to students. Casual Fridays must be fueled by interest.

Next Time

Our Curiosity Fridays are coming together nicely. Students have refined their topics and formed questions they’re interested in answering. Next we’ll look a little deeper into helping students who are interested in conducting experiments to satisfy their curiosity.

Curiosity Fridays – Part II is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Curiosity Fridays – Part IV
2. Curiosity Fridays – Part III
3. Curiosity Fridays – Part I

1. Wiktionary rules! A huge homophone list http://bit.ly/9ZdgMn I’m going to totally revamp my spelling program this year!
2. Dozens of creative writing exercises to try with your gifted and talented students http://bit.ly/aq9iwV. From LanguageIsAVirus.com.
3. Want to teach thinking skills? Here’s “Components of a Well Developed Thinking Skills Program” by Arthur Costa http://bit.ly/an1o4u
4. “Rich and rewarding math environments arise in groups when problems have a low threshold and a high ceiling.” Reflections on a Math Institute http://bit.ly/amCDan
5. A great post on bringing in high-level thinking for gifted kindergarteners http://bit.ly/c1rv49
6. Reflected messages! An entire note written backwards with letters that can be reflected horizontally. http://bit.ly/cuQZ5A
7. Curriculum ideas for a study on M.C. Escher - http://bit.ly/uwzbM (from @cfertig1)

Image Credit

Gifted Education Resources 8/13/10 is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Ten Gifted Ed Resources – 7/23
2. 7 Gifted Ed Resources 7-30-2010
3. 7 More Gifted Ed Resources 8-20-10

learn to take responsibility for finding ways to satisfy their intellectual curiosity and to express their creativity.

As a teacher I also have a responsibility to offer opportunities for intellectual curiosity and expressive creativity.

Exposure

I always try to expose students to interesting ideas beyond the scope of our classroom, whether this means bringing in The Beatles, showing a strange animation, or peeking at the grammar of another language.

These simple tastes automatically stir up curiosity from students. Many latch onto the idea and explore it at home. However, this leaves the development of curiosity and creativity in the hands of the student at home.

Is there a way to bring in more explicit instruction to guide students in pursuing curiosity?

Offering Time To Be Creative

In another article, I paralleled our gifted students to employees at Google, who receive one day a week (paid time) to pursue personal projects. These personal projects often become official Google products.

A favorite speaker of mine, Merlin Mann stated that employees’ motivation increases when they get to “build a robot” once in a while. That is, their boss gives them opportunities to be curious and creative beyond the scope of typical work.

Can we do this at school?

Offices have “casual Fridays,” can we have “curiosity Fridays?”

Now, don’t mistake this for the kind of “Fun Fridays” which are really an hour of free play on the blacktop. No, this will be rigorous, accountable to standards, and chock-full of creativity and curiosity.

Standards Compliant

If you really dig into your standards, you’ll find treats that offer incredible freedom. Our CA 6th grade science standards, for example, have a section on the scientific method (emphasis is mine):

As a basis for understanding this concept, and to address the content the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:

1. develop a hypothesis.
2. select and use appropriate tools and technology (including calculators, computers, balances, spring scales, microscopes, and binoculars) to perform tests, collect data, and display data.
3. construct appropriate graphs from data and develop qualitative statements about the relationships between variables.
4. communicate the steps and results from an investigation in written reports and verbal presentations.
5. recognize whether evidence is consistent with a proposed explanation.

In Language Arts, we have the following writing standard:

Create a multiple-paragraph expository composition that

1. engages the interest of the reader and states a clear purpose
2. develops the topic with supportive details, precise verbs, nouns, and adjectives to paint a visual image in the mind of the reader
3. concludes with a detailed summary linked to the purpose of composition

Is there one hour a week where students could perform tests and collect data on a topic of their choosing?

Is there an hour a week for students to research and practice high-level chess, writing a “multi-paragraph expository composition” about their discoveries?

This would be carefully scaffolded and structured. Depth and complexity would be built in. Standards would be met. But for an hour, kids could engage in an activity that promotes curiosity and creativity.

Next Steps

The next posts will explore the structure necessary to set up Curiosity Fridays.

Curiosity Fridays – Part I is a post from: Byrdseed Gifted

Related posts:

1. Curiosity Fridays – Part IV
2. Curiosity Fridays – Part II
3. Curiosity Fridays – Part III