Gifted children, particularly those of diverse backgrounds (race & culture), may be forced to manage an accelerated level of isolation, confusion, and ultimately disappointment if self-discovery and acceptance are not addressed appropriately by members of the educational and home community.
This session will create an intentional dialogue about diversity and the impact for children within their own circle of influence. The ability to thrive within one's own community is heavily dependent upon the person's ability to feel a sense of belonging. We will explore the challenges one faces during this self-discovery process and how we as teachers, administrators, and community partners can assist along the way.
Participant Outcomes:
Beginning in the 2017-18 school year, all Wisconsin public schools are required to provide their grade 6-12 students with Academic and Career Planning (ACP) services. If implemented effectively, ACP can be an incredible tool for identifying and meeting the needs of gifted students.
This session will explain the vision of ACP and how ACP can help schools better understand how to provide the experiences gifted students need to be challenged and continually challenge themselves. The session will also show how ACP can facilitate much deeper engagement of students in designing and executing their own learning plans and the critical role families and all teachers have in the ACP process.
Participant Outcomes:
Parents and teachers want children to embrace challenges. Children that acquire positive strategies to face challenges can build lifelong achievement habits and open vast possibilities for their future.
But challenges can sometimes produce negative emotions and some advanced learners develop behavioral strategies to help them avoid challenges and the accompanying negative feelings. These challenge-avoidance strategies can lead to underachievement and the Impostor Syndrome.
In this session, we will identify some of the negative responses caused by challenges, some causes of the negative emotions, and offer positive strategies for dealing with the frustration that comes with challenges. Participants will learn about the importance of encountering challenge at an early age, as well as use an emotion identification scale and problem solving strategy charts to help children handle feelings that surge through them when encountering challenges.
Participant Outcomes:
This presentation will summarize individualized middle school and high school interventions to improve gifted and talented students' executive functioning skills. Specifically, these interventions have targeted G/T students who struggle with social and emotional issues including anxiety, depression, ADHD, and perfectionism. The session will share the strategies taught to students, present outcomes of prior interventions, and discuss potential applications of these strategies.
Participant Outcomes:
Our path to Talent Development emphasizes inclusive practices, centered on personalized learning. Our processes emphasize identification of student potential and unmet needs, which in turn, drives programming in intellectual, academic, fine arts, leadership, creativity, and social emotional domains.
Our aggregate student population is high-achieving in relation to national norms, and as a result, student data is also considered in relation to local and subgroup norms to identify outliers within those contexts.
Our discussion will outline our Talent Development Handbook, a two year project designed to revolutionize the concept and reality of educational opportunity available to all students, K-12.
Participant Outcomes:
You have 45 minutes to escape from this scenario!
Using your wits and the wits of your teammates, you will explore some basic information to find the clues you need to "breakout" and win the game!
After the game, participants will be shown how to create their own breakout box games to use as an anticipatory set in the classroom to pique student interest and get them intellectually and emotionally involved in learning!
Participant Outcomes:
Our gifted children face many stresses in the educational environment that impact their capacity for joy. Some are external, some internal. Research in neuroscience has led to conclusive findings regarding the connection between joy and learning.
This session will discuss the importance of joy in a child’s education and life in light of recent brain research. We will also share strategies that will help parents and teachers increase joy in their gifted and talented children and teens.
Participant Outcomes:
The presentation will be an overview of how Jack Young Middle School is addressing the curriculum needs of its advanced learners. Topics of discussion will include, but not be limited to:
Participant Outcomes:
As a parent of a gifted child, you know that giftedness affects their whole life, in some positive ways and some challenging ways. This extended session will provide parents with tools to support their children as they navigate the ups and downs of giftedness. Topics to be addressed will be typical traits of giftedness, anxiety, depression, self-compassion, building security in one's identity, and whatever other topics would be of help! The session will include some lecture, some hands-on participation in helpful interventions, and time to support one another on this joyfully complicated parenting experience.
Participant Outcomes:
Never have we seen such an explosion of quality young adult literature. Curating a classroom library or choosing new titles for your curriculum, however, can be a daunting task.
Let us help by providing you with an overview of over 30 titles published in the past five years that will captivate and challenge your advanced learners. Specifically, we will feature titles that work well across content areas and titles that feature culturally diverse representation. Everyone deserves a chance to see herself or himself represented in books!
Attendees will be provided with a guide for taking notes as we cycle through over 30 book talks.
Participant Outcomes: Our advanced learners are hungry for challenging and engaging books. Participants will leave empowered to better meet the needs of the adolescents in their life who love to read!
Wisconsin's population is growing and becoming more culturally diverse. Many of us find ourselves interacting with students who come from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds. Yet, very often little is done to change the curriculum to address their educational and social-emotional needs. In addition, failing to meet the needs of CLD students also contributes to the issue of underrepresentation in gifted and talented programs.
In this interactive session, educators will engage in exploring the professional dimensions of the Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) model. The purpose of this session is to present CRT practices that enrich the curriculum, hence allowing CLD students to show their true potential. The session will offer educators an opportunity that will focus on the four principles of CRT:
Participant Outcomes:
