Using Gifted Strategies With All Learners

I have a basic/core belief that good teaching has the same basic skeleton no matter who or what you are teaching.  Some of the elements that I would put into that skeleton are:  make the subject matter relevant to the learner (or teach something the learner finds relevant), appreciate and adapt to the needs/learning styles of your students, go deeply into subjects of interest and nurture the desire to know more, believe in the students' ability to learn.  I believe that teachers who engage their students and teach in the context of relationship with those students will be more successful in meeting the needs of struggling students and of academically advanced students.

Margaret Gayle and Sandy Darity have conducted real world research that shows that using methods designed for gifted learners benefits all learners.  On top of that, young kids who receive this kind of teaching are more likely to be labeled gifted later on.  In article by Camille Jackson, the researches tell us why.  "Darity and Gayle say the project works because it nurtures students regardless of their race, socioeconomic status, gender or learning ability."

It nurtures students.  That's why it works.  It sees each students as possessing the ability to understand the material, to learn and grow.  It allows them to use their strengths to accomplish mastery and expects that they will be able to do it.  I want to look into the methods used a bit more, but they also refer to students learning at their own pace.  Differentiation of some sort (I suspect through open-ended products) is also part of the formula.  When we respect the prior knowledge/skill level of each student and teach big, meaningful concepts to everyone, it's the perfect set up for growth and development.  You can find Camille Jackson's article here along with this video.

Our First Week of School

I am so excited about this school year!  The Academic and I started "school" on Monday and it has been a great week.  Starting school means that I pick a novel or other literature for us to study and plan science and history lessons.  

We also started doing math activities from Family Math and the Academic is reading The Life of Fred Pre-Algebra with Biology in addition to his work in ALEKS.  This is math on the first day of school.  He is doing an algebra problem with those cubes and beans!

We are using the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia as a spine for our history studies and reading other literature to round it out.  We'll be doing related activities and writing.  I will also be organizing our Earth science studies to connect with history.

For science we are using a text book supplied by the charter school we have enrolled with.  I have some other resources, but I don't have as much confidence with science.  The text book includes demonstration activities and experiments.  We started with chapter 8 because it fit the pre-history unit that I had planned. Here we are on the first day doing an introductory activity.

First we put equal amounts of water into two clear cups.  Then, the Academic added salt to one of the cups. Next, he added food coloring to the saltwater cup.

When we poured the salt water into the plain water, we could see the green salt water sink to the bottom. The top layer was still mostly clear and the bottom was green.

Ok... that was what was supposed to happen.  The first time we tried it, the salt water just mixed evenly with the plain water.  The whole thing turned an even shade of green.  So, we tried again and added more salt to the salt water (a LOT more) and it worked.  This illustrated how the more dense parts of Earth sink to the bottom.  We're learning about Earth's layers and plate tectonics.

We're currently studying plot and character development by reading Boy of the Painted Cave and working through questions and activities that I put together. (I am hoping to have this unit completed and ready for sale very soon.)  The Academic is also doing Vocabulary from Classical Roots A and Easy Grammar 6+.

Within the next couple of weeks we'll be adding guitar lessons and Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons.  The Academic will also be participating in classes one day per week and group history/science activities that complement our studies.  

It's going to be a good year!

Growth Mindset

I recently read an interesting article about how kids respond to being told they are "smart."   The article sites some interesting research that compares kids' performance when they are told they are smart or good at something with kids' performance when they are told that they must have worked hard/tried hard.  The kids who are encouraged to believe that their own effort effects the outcome are willing to try harder tasks and actually achieve at a higher level in the end.

The article, How Not to Talk to Your Kids,  is lengthy.  I was more than willing to read the entire thing because I believe this is a core concept that we need to understand.  For years experts have talked about self-esteem issues that children have.  We have all tried a variety of techniques for building self-esteem.  Often, the result is lavish praise. The research that Carol Dweck is doing suggests that much of our "solution" is actually contributing to a larger problem.

Here is a short video where Carol Dweck give a very brief summary of her basic research.



Growth mindset is something that people are starting to pay attention to.  Before I finished the school year last year, we watched a video related to this in a staff meeting.  The Academic and I have joined with a charter school for our homeschooling this year and in a beginning of the year parent conference we watched a video about growth mindset. I hope more people start to think this way and that schools and parents will act on this information.

What do you think?  Do you tend to have more of a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?  What were you told as a child?  Did it impact your success?  I would love to hear your thoughts.  Leave a comment!

The Importance of Perseverance

I have always believed that learning to work hard and sticking with things is way more important than being able to do hard things easily.  It is one of the reasons that I chose to homeschool.  I wanted to be sure that the scholar athlete experienced challenge in his academic pursuits.  I never intended to push him just for the sake of achievement and I tried to avoid frustration.  However, I quickly found that he became frustrated with anything that he didn't automatically understand.  I found myself constantly reassuring him that everyone makes mistakes and lecturing about how no one can learn if they only do things they already know how to do.  (Disclaimer:  I don't believe early academics should be pressured.  I think young children need to develop a joy in learning.  We did fun activities, read aloud, went on field trips, played, and only spent a small amount of time on paper pencil activities.  His resistance was clearly not about appropriateness - as an educator who has espoused a developmental philosophy that was where I questioned myself the most.)

Those were emotional and sometimes difficult times.  I doubted myself and sometimes wondered if I was pushing him to much.  I'm sure there are things I could have done better, but I'm glad that I stuck with the plan.  It taught us both valuable lessons.  I think grit is something that I am short on and it is something my son is still learning.  However, I have watched him make mistakes, then work to fix them.  He didn't make the baseball team he wanted to be on, but worked hard to improve his game with the team he was on.  He takes disappointment and even failure in stride and I am very thankful for that.

Moving Beyond the Page recently posted this video.  It reminded me once again how important character is.  Grit is a trait I wish I had more of and as I head into this new season of homeschooling, I feel that I need to work on this more with the Academic.  He has been in school for the last three years and the lack of challenge frustrated him.  I'm gearing up to help him face challenge.  I am praying that we both develop more perseverance this school year.

  

Learning How to Code

I am really excited about a website my husband heard about.  It's called CodeAcademy.  The Academic and I are both taking a course called Web Fundamentals which teaches HTML and CSS.  The courses are free and are very well designed.  They have courses of study for jQuery, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and PHP as well as courses focused on projects and APIs.  Did I mention that enrollment is free?