Mistakes

Mistakes aren’t mistakes if you learn something from them. Of course, this is easier for someone who didn’t make the actual mistake. Instead, you get to benefit from watching someone else make theirs. The good news is that I am going to share with you some painful mistakes I have made while presenting. Hopefully, you can learn from them and avoid them.

Be sure you have a backup presentation/notes.

I was still relatively new to the presenting game and technology wasn’t as friendly as it is nowadays. I created a PowerPoint on my home computer. Because it would be difficult to lug my desktop computer to the venue, my plan was to use my school laptop to show the presentation.

Arriving at the presentation 10 minutes early so as to check my technology, I fired up the computer and plugged in my jumpdrive. When I clicked on my presentation folder, nothing happened. When it was clicked a second time, I got a message that asked me what program I wanted to open the file. Microsoft PowerPoint was not an option.

What I hadn’t realized was that my school computer didn’t have the Microsoft Office programs that my desktop did. There were no Google Slides back then. I was screwed. Frantically, I tried for 15 minutes to download a program that would allow me to use my presentation. This was under the careful eyes of an audience of around 50 people.

Realizing I was supposed to be 10 minutes into my presentation at this point, I decided to just give the presentation anyway. Unfortunately, I had not prepared any notes as I was just going to use the text on my slides to guide my speaking. I knew my topic and had a general idea of the format my speech was to take but was definitely out of my comfort level.

Now I always have a set of printed notes in case something like this happens.

Be your own IT person.

Imagine the following scenario. You give a student a few popsicle sticks, a sheet of sandpaper, a handful of paperclips, a rainbow of chenille sticks, a couple of rubber bands, a fistful of cotton balls, half a dozen toothpicks, and a glue gun, and you tell her, “make me a cell phone stand.” There are no instructions other than this directive. You have provided the student with no blueprint, no image of the finished product, no ideas to see what it might look like. The only thing you have really offered is the sparse list of materials, a space with which to work, and one of the most important resources, time.

After a half-hour or so, your student turns to you and shows you her creation. You pull out your cell phone and give it to the student, “let’s see if it works”. The student places the cellphone in her makeshift stand, and immediately the device plops over. The student looks horrified because the contraption did not work. You smile and simply challenge her, “how could you make changes so that it does work?”

This is an example of a STEM design challenge. These challenges use engineering principles to get students to think outside of the box.

STEM is a concept that has many definitions to many people, but one of the more common ones is:

(STEM) is problem-based learning by students utilizing math, science, engineering, and technology principles.

The exciting thing about STEM; it is not simply a smashing together of these subject areas. STEM is designed to do one thing really well; to give students the chance to think creatively.

In my previous post, I talked about the underchallenged gifted child. These are students who find it frustrating because they are not being challenged on the level they are capable of. There are many reasons why this happens. Probably the largest causes are the myths that educators can sometimes have about teaching gifted students. With this post, I hope to make you mindful of some of these. Being aware of them can be half of the battle in learning how to best challenge gifted students.

The Myths About Teaching Gifted Students

There are hundreds of myths about teaching gifted students. These 10 are the ones that cause the most issues with underchallenged students.

1. Gifted children will succeed in life no matter what.

2. Gifted children love school and get good grades.

3. Gifted children are good at everything they do.

4. Gifted children tend to be more mature than other kids their age.

5. Gifted children are always well-behaved and compliant.

6. Gifted children’s innate curiosity causes them to be self-directed.

7. Gifted children only need the academics focused on.

8. Gifted children will be fine in the regular classroom because teachers challenge all students.

9. Gifted children don’t need help.

10. Gifted children will be alright.

I am just going to focus on the three that seem to cause the most issues. If you are interested in some of the others, I have a Todd Talk where I discuss these myths in more detail.

Gifted children will be fine in the regular classroom because teachers challenge all the students.

This is asking a lot of teachers. The first is the myth that all teachers have been trained in teaching gifted students. In the pre-service training for teachers, very little time is devoted to this special population. Because of this, they may not know how to challenge gifted students.

This is making the assumption that teachers have time to challenge all students. Imagine you are a band teacher. You have one student who can play complicated pieces of music on her instrument and another who can barely figure out how to hold the it. Yet, you have to get both of these students to the finish line of being able to play a piece of music at a concert.

There is a big ol’ elephant in the room in education, one that it so painfully obvious it nearly takes up the entire space, and yet one we don’t acknowledge very much. That elephant is the correlation between socio-economic status and test scores. If you were to look at the highest performing districts on standardized tests in your state, what you will most likely find is that those wealthier districts are going to be near the top, while the poorest districts are the ones at the bottom. There are a few outliers here or there, but for the most part the ranking of achievement scores very much mirrors the ranking of affluent schools.

This carries over into gifted identification as well. In a perfect world, the gifted program would be a mirror for the district distribution of wealth. If 20% of the student population is considered to be economically disadvantaged, 20% of your identified gifted should reflect this as well. However, there always seems to be an over-identification of white and Asian students, and an under-identification of Black and Latino students. Why is this? Why does gifted not identify kids who are simply gifted, no matter what their economic background?

There are three major factors that cause this:

• The entry point

• The outside learning opportunities

• The language of the test

The entry point is how does a student even get the chance to be identified as gifted? Some districts conduct whole grade screening which means every student in a particular grade is going to be testing. There are others though that have an entry point students must go through to even be considered for testing. Some of these entry points might be a teacher recommendation or a parent request. The problem with these particular entry points is that there is an advocate other than the child herself.

Popular Stories Right now

How Do We Ensure Impact on Student Learning? – S2E14

As Schools Confront Half-Empty Classrooms, eGlass Reduces Price to Enable Virtual and In-Class Engagement

EdisonLearning Digital Learning Practitioners to Speak at Digital Learning Annual Conference

If the entry point has to be a parent request, the parent has to be knowledgeable of the process as well as even being aware of it. That means they need to be fairly involved in the educational system. Those parents who go to parent/teacher conferences, are a member of the PTO, or volunteer at the school will have a better chance to know about this identification and to get that for their child. Parents who may not be as involved in the school either because they are working night shifts or had a poor experience with the schools when they were younger and thus do not trust the institution, their child does not stand as good a chance to have a parent request testing.

If the entry point is a teacher recommendation, the issue becomes there is very little training for your regular education teacher in regard to gifted.

You know how to speak English very fluently. It comes very naturally to you, and you find it quite easy to speak. Now imagine that you are placed into a basic English class where the teacher is going over how to pronounce single-syllable words, how to spell words such as C-A-T and D-O-G, and how to speak simple sentences such as “I went to the store.” It would be incredibly frustrating to be in such a class for a few reasons:

1. You already know what is being taught.

2. What is being taught presents no new learning for you.

3. You are ready for more advanced versions of this learning and are anxious to start.

This is how it can be for many gifted students. They are placed into classes where the material and lessons being taught are something they already understand. They yearn to take this learning further or deeper. Unfortunately, the pace of the class has been set by the mastery of all students. If everyone has not gotten it yet, it will be retaught until they do. This means that not only are these gifted students introduced to something they already have learned, they also have to hear it several more times for those who have not.

When children receive presents for a birthday or holiday, parents often lament after spending tons of money on some newfangled toy, only to watch their child find more fascination with the box it came in. Why is this? What is so intriguing about something without any bells nor whistles? What is it about four sides and a bottom made of cardboard that cause a kid to be curious when they’re surrounded by stuffed animals, electronics, and games? It boils down to two words: infinite possibilities.

The cardboard box seems to simply be purpose-made to serve as temporary storage. The box is merely a vessel that transports or contains things which are supposed to be the focal point of anyone’s interest. To the uninspired, the box is discarded once it has served that purpose. But to the creative mind, a cardboard box can be millions of things.

The Transmogrifier

If you don’t believe me, look at Calvin, from the best cartoon strip I have ever seen about a creative thinker, and what he does with a simple cardboard box. Calvin is a mischievous kid who perplexes his teachers, his parents, and his babysitter by allowing his daydreaming to get him into all sorts of trouble. His imagination even brings his tiger stuffed animal, Hobbes, to life, to be his constant companion.

Calvin uses cardboard boxes for all sorts of things: creating a computer, as a table to sell people a swift kick in the butt for just one dollar, a television screen, and the Cerebral Enhance-o-tron, which causes his head to grow abnormally. But there are three primary inventions he creates from a simple cardboard box:

1. Time machine

2. Duplicator

3. Transmogrifier

By placing the cardboard box with the opening on top, it becomes a time machine. Calvin drags Hobbes to prehistoric times and nearly finds himself eaten by a dinosaur, or he goes forward an hour so that his homework will be complete, with hilarious results.

Placing the box on its side, it becomes a duplicator, and Calvin seizes this opportunity to make multiple versions of himself so they can split his chores and take turns going to school. Of course they are all as ill-behaved as the original, so none of them will do what he asks.

Finally, placing the box so that the opening is on the ground, it becomes a transmogrifier. Calvin turns himself into a tiger, a pterodactyl, and a frog. And if you don’t like those, he has left room on the side to write other animals.

This cardboard box is powered solely by Calvin’s imagination and creativity.

It is this same creativity that makes a child curious about an empty cardboard box. Like Calvin, they don’t just see it as a cardboard box to put things in. They see it as so much more.

Cardboard Corner

I knew of this phenomenon of the cardboard box from my own childhood and the many celebrations of my own children. But I really got to see it in action when we created a Makerspace for our students.

What is motivation? We believe that motivation is an internal construct…thereby, it is the creation of an environment for students to flourish with increased energy to create – attain – work toward – and/or obtain a goal. It is an intentional environment, which is prevalent and serves as an underlying foundation in classes where teachers efficiently and effectively teach and facilitate instruction – the impetus that drives a student to succeed and excel. It also initiates change, pushes, encourages, supports, and serves as a foundation for students to learn and acquire new learning and skills. As a result of a positive-motivational environment, students are drawn to and are inspired to a love of learning and to take appropriate risks to become comfortable and even thrive in unfamiliar territory. Because we believe that motivation comes from within, one of the most important steps is to create an environment whereby motivation is internally acquired and thereby, students’ potential is expanded to its fullest.

Many times, motivation is not imminent from the classroom environment/culture. With that, many times students are unmotivated, with also lowered teacher expectations, underachievement, and the like. There are times when teachers are looking for a ‘silver bullet’ for students to be motivated to ‘learn a skill’ when the culture has not been created for the natural process of learning to seamlessly occur. It is a major part of teaching to create the environment that fosters learning and the conquering of new skills.

There are teachers who believe that a student either has motivation or does not, and there is nothing the teacher can do about it. Of course, this could not be further from the truth. There are plans and strategies that can be utilized to intentionally create a motivational environment. Also, there are practices that do not foster a motivational environment.

The intentional establishing of a culture that motivates is especially important when working with gifted students. Many people think that all gifted students love to learn. While this is not true, a lot of times they are motivated to learn what they want to learn, not necessarily what the school is teaching. It is the fundamental difference between a bright student and a gifted student. A bright student is the one typically motivated. A gifted student may not necessarily be a bright student, which may lend itself to teachers spending additional time to plan and strategize and create an environment to motivate.

Creating a culture in your classroom where students can feel free to tap into their creativity can be tricky. Sometimes you need to take a big first step. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create a Makerspace in your classroom.

What is a Makerspace?

Makerspaces came about during the STEM era, and thus a lot of them are devoted to science and engineering, but Makerspaces can be created for any classroom. When I first began teaching gifted and talented twenty years ago, when there was no such thing as a Makerspace, I had what I called “the big box of crap.” Essentially, I gathered all of the defunct and broken technology that had accumulated at my house, and rather than throwing it all away, I put it in a cardboard box and let students rip things apart. Curious students would root through this box, looking at old phones, printers, computers, and VCRs to see what made them tick. There was no guidance on my part, just the opportunity for students to explore and gain an understanding of how things worked.

Makerspaces have come a long way since then, with companies devoted to the sales of mobile carts, Ozobots and other robotics, 3D printers, STEM kits, green screens, LEGO Mindstorms, and various arts and crafts bundles. If you have the budget to afford such equipment, you are more than welcome to purchase these for your Makerspace. However, you can create effective Makerspaces without breaking the bank. The best set-up for your Makerspace is whatever best fits into your classroom. It could be in the corner, it could be in a common space in the hallway, it could be along the entire back wall. You might have an alcove in your room where you could house it. It doesn’t require a ton of space. Simply a table with some chairs, or seating and a shelf or cabinet where materials can be stored…