1. Gifted and Talented Academy Year 2
Curriculum and Instruction
Session 1

2. Agenda Welcome/Check In Moodle Where We’ve Been
Making Sense of Curriculum
Curriculum Models
Team Planning
Closure

3. Targets: I can… Define curriculum
Understand basic principles of curriculum
Make connections between curriculum for the gifted and Iowa Core
Identify which philosophical perspective matches my district’s gifted programming
Identify basic differences among and roles of curriculum models
Work with my team to set goals for curriculum design

4. Reflecting Individually Jot down Share at your table
1-2 key accomplishments from Academy Year 1
1-2 ways your programming is better now than it was a year ago
Share at your table

5. Handshake Find a partner
Share one key accomplishment and one programming improvement
Repeat
Large group processing
Partner is not at your table.

6. Web 2.0 Tools Wiki or Google site Visit http://maryschmidt.pbworks.com
Set up account
Create team Wiki space or Goggle site
Visit
Download PowerPoint
Moodle
The wiki is optional and can serve as a place to house your documents and/or as a resource to share with teachers, administrators, etc.

7. To get us grounded in this work, think about your experiences in Academy I. Where has your work touched this graphic? As we consider that this year’s Academy focus is curriculum and instruction, discuss with your team how the components of this graphic connect in the world of comprehensive gifted and talented programming. Be sure to consider your own setting as you discuss these connections.

8. Processing Reading Number off by 3’s
Discuss assigned chapter and identify key points
Jigsaw
What shifts in thinking does this information create for you? Your team?
1’s – chapter 1
2’s – chapter 2
3’s – chapter 3

9. Random Acts of gifted education
Jeanne Purcell, 2002

10. Curriculum Defined
A set of organized experiences appropriate for gifted learners that are written down and adopted for use in a school district. It represents a formal codifying of the goals, objectives, and activities of a gifted program. The appropriateness of a district's basic curriculum for the gifted is a key consideration. (VanTassel-Baska, 1994).
Compare to bullet 1 on p. 89.

11. Curriculum Defined
A design plan that fosters the purposeful, proactive organization, sequencing, and management of interactions among the teacher, the learners, and the content knowledge, understandings, and skills we want students to acquire. (Purcell & Eckert, 2007)

12. Curriculum Defined
Curriculum can be divided into three categories: intended, enacted, and assessed curricula
Intended curriculum: the content target for the enacted curriculum, often captured in content standards or other similar documents
Enacted curriculum: the content actually delivered during instruction in the classroom and other learning settings
Assessed curriculum: the content that is assessed to determine achievement (Porter, 2004)
As defined in the Iowa Core

13. Processing In your team discuss What is common across definitions
Where definitions differ
Key considerations for your context
Refer to p in Curriculum Planning and Instructional Design for Gifted Learners

14. Making Sense of Curriculum
With your team/table group discuss what it means to have “curriculum for the gifted.”
Today’s Meet
The purpose of this activity is to activate your background knowledge and to reveal your thinking about curriculum for gifted.
Consider from the perspective of the gifted student, classroom teacher, teacher of gifted, system
Beliefs about curriculum – green handout

15. Making Sense of Curriculum
Read “Myth: There is a Single Curriculum for the Gifted!” and “Myth 9: There is a Single Curriculum for the Gifted”
Identify key ideas and arguments
Discuss shifts in thinking from 1982 to 2009
How do these ideas connect to Iowa Core: essential concepts and skills, characteristics of effective instruction, and universal constructs?
Consider the connection between gifted programming and curriculum

16. Making Sense of Curriculum
Review Guiding Principles and Best Practices and Traits (p , Purcell & Eckert)
Discuss with your team
The ways each of these is evident in what you have read and learned so far about curriculum for the gifted.

17. Making Sense of Curriculum
With your team/table group discuss what it means to have “curriculum for the gifted.”
Post on todaysmeet
Read and discuss “Beliefs about Curriculum”
Read “Myth: There is a Single Curriculum for the Gifted!” and “Myth 9: There is a Single Curriculum for the Gifted”
Review Guiding Principles and Best Practices (p. 89, Purcell & Eckert)
Discuss in relation to initial perceptions
Have those perceptions changed based on new information?
Individually identify and share with your team something you’ve learned about curriculum for the gifted.
Pulling it together. Review the steps we’ve gone through and synthesize/summarize learning. Go back to the posts on todaysmeet and examine how initial perceptions have changed.

18. Curriculum Philosophy
Curriculum as
Development of Cognitive Processes
Technology
Personal Relevance
Social Reconstruction
Academic Rationalism
Precursor to Professional Career
VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2006

19. Curriculum Philosophy
Individually
Identify any of the curriculum orientations you use in your programming.
Determine which best match your own philosophy.
With your team
Share individual perspectives
Determine which best match the orientation of your comprehensive plan
Discuss how/why curriculum orientation matters in and/or influences programming.
Add thoughts on last bullet to todaysmeet.

20. Influences on student learning
LEADERSHIP
School
Teacher
Student
1. Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum
2. Challenging Goals & Effective Feedback
3. Parent & Community Involvement
4. Safe & Orderly Environment
5. Collegiality & Professionalism
6. Instructional Strategies
7. Classroom Management
8. Classroom Curriculum Design
Beginning in 1998, McREL undertook its first meta-analysis to answer the question about which instructional strategies had the largest effects on student achievement. In that study, McREL identified nine instructional strategies correlated to student achievement. Some of you may know this work. The findings were published by ASCD as Classroom Instruction that Works. The findings from the study showed that teachers use of particular instructional practices had an effect on student achievement. This raised a question about effective school practices. To answer this question, McREL conducted a second meta-analysis which identified five school practices correlated to student achievement. Those findings are published in What Works in Schools. Both of those studies resulted in the information on this chart.
It’s important to remember these are influences on student learning and that influence does not equal impact. The practices in each category are in rank order. School level factors represent 7% of the total variance in student achievement. Teacher level factors represent 13%. Student level factors represent 80%. Let’s take a look at just a few of the factors on this chart.
School
Guaranteed - consistent across classes. Is this really happening?
Viable - district responsibility but we need to consider, can kids master what we teach? Can it be taught in the time we have?
Student
It is important to point out that home environment is not what we typically think of with regard to single-parent families, socio-economic, ELL or educational status. It has everything to do with what families do to help kids learn or support learning in school. School can have a huge influence on student factors. We have to work hard to enhance or supplement that influence.
Learned Intelligence/Background Knowledge - there is value in students being overtly taught the vocabulary they will be using.
Motivation - this has to do with helping the child internally and externally. It will be different for each student. We need to ask, “Who is going to motivate this student to learn?” and “What will motivate the student to learn?”
9. Home Environment
10. Learned Intelligence/Background Knowledge
11. Motivation

21. Curriculum Models
In designing appropriate curricula for gifted and talented students, a curriculum model or models may serve as an ideal framework… Schools may choose to adopt a specific model or take a more eclectic approach in adapting several models that suit their needs.
See Analysis of Curriculum Models on p. 14 of Curriculum Planning and Instructional Design for Gifted Learners.
Consider which philosophical orientation is dominant in each of the models. How does each model reflect the importance (or not) of standards? (Chapter 3) How does each relate to the two educational worlds of sp ed and gen ed? (Intro., p. 10)

22. What is a curriculum model?
…a format for curriculum design developed to meet unique needs, contexts, and/or purposes.

23. Parallel Curriculum Model
…a set of four interrelated designs that can be used singly, or in combination, to create or revise existing curriculum units, lessons, or tasks. Each of the four parallels offers a unique approach for organizing content, teaching, and learning that is closely aligned to the special purpose of each parallel.
--Purcell, 2002
Read through intro and chart of parallels.

24. Ascending Levels of Intellectual Demand
Escalates one or more facets of curriculum
Takes into consideration students’
Cognitive abilities
Prior knowledge
Schema
Opportunities to learn
Learning rate
Developmental differences
Levels of abstraction

25. Why ALID? To honor student differences
Address varying levels of prior knowledge, varying opportunities, and cognitive abilities
To ensure optimal levels of academic achievement
To support continuous learning
To ensure intrinsic motivation
To provide appropriate challenge
Provides “mental sweat”

26. ALID Download ALID document Read the levels and discuss in your team
Wiki
Read the levels and discuss in your team
Add Ideas, Thoughts, and Implications
One team member save and upload to team Wiki or Google site or to all team members.

27. Survey Visit Wiki Click on the survey link
Each person on team complete

28. And the Survey Says… Discuss as a team What the survey results show
How you interpreted the ratings
Discrepancies across buildings
Implications of these results in light of what you’ve discussed today

29. Team Planning
Use planning template on Wiki for team planning/goal setting. Upload to the Moodle site (session 1)

30. Home Play Read chapters 4-6 in VT-B text and post to Moodle forums
Finish team plan & post to Moodle by Nov. 16
Choose an area and explore Iowa Core standards

31. Next Meeting
November 29, 2012
Heartland AEA Ames Office