DWP teachers participate in Gifted Education Workshop
by DWP Director Nancy Zuercher, University of South Dakota
DWP teacher-consultants took part in “Models for Effective Teaching,” the keynote workshop for USD’s Institute for Teachers of Gifted Youth on July 17, 2006. Since all teachers have students with differing gifts, the workshop was valuable for all teachers. Much of this interactive workshop was devoted to critical thinking and other issues beyond identifying gifted students. Internationally-known presenter Joyce VanTassel-Baska is currently President of the National Association for Gifted Children and a designer of research-based teaching models.
Her encouraging and resourceful style of interacting emerged through experiencing her workshop and is useful for most DWP workshops. She began the workshlp with a brief statement of the outcomes she envisioned. Next, she departed from the all-too-often “sage on the stage” by inviting us to discuss our most burning questions about gifted education with the person sitting next to us. After five minutes, she brought us back to the entire group where pairs shared their most important burning questions, which a volunteer wrote on chart paper.
A few excerpts from the resulting list show that the concerns were not limited to gifted students or a particular grade level: “Engagement and motivation of students, ability grouping, flexibility grouping, classroom management strategies for continuous differentiation, reaching everyone in a class, incentives for teachers, individual differences, authentic learning, helping kids become aware of who they are, underachieving students.”
During the rest of the workshop, Joyce VanTassel-Baska interwove items from the list into her plan and continued to draw us in because we had actively helped to shape the agenda. She remained unaware that she was also modeling best practice for DWP workshops.
Six DWP teachers–Mary Begley, Carmen Graber, Stacy Hawkins, Lori Hawley, Carla McMurry-Kozak, and Nancy Zuercher–participated. In support of common goals with the workshop, DWP reimbursed DWP teacher-consultants for the workshop registration fee.
