Children With Special Abilities

The College Street Normal School Model

The Journey - So Far!

•No right way or template. No magic words!

• Key elements - ownership

- communication

- heaps of reflection and fine tuning - a strong commitment to

continuous improvement. ‘What we do well

today we can do better tomorrow!

• Our Experience - Warts n’all!

BackgroundCollege Street Normal School

• Decile 10

• Disproportionate numbers of very able children

(80% mean, PAT)

• Parent Expectations

• Challenge

Preliminary Research

• Auckland

Elaine Le Seur - Lincoln Heights

Gladstone

Mt Eden

• Massey University - Don McAlpine

Discovery Programme

• Withdrawal Programme

• One week duration

• Teacher Identification

• Wide range of giftedness

• Outside tutors

• Small groups - 10-12 children

• Teacher facilitator

Initial Issues

• Elitism - B.O.T. attitudes

• Funding

• Fairness of selection

• Finding Tutors

Evolving Issues

• More successful - the more controversial! Identification

criteria?

• Teacher facilitator - resentment

• Pupils missing out on regular classroom learning

• Revolving door concept

• Needs of Gifted & Talented? Fun Activities?

• Class example of doing things back to front!

Knowledge > Skills > Passion for Action

Discovery Programme - Staff Evaluation

• Parent perception - elitist (poor communication with

parents)

• At best ‘ an expensive enrichment programme’

• Staff felt didn’t know enough about ‘Gifted & Talented’

• Not school-wide - Only Years 5 & 6

Staff Decided:

• Needed an intensive whole staff professional development session on all aspects of Gifted & Talented education

Anna MuelliAddressed Questions

• Who are the Gifted & Talented?

• What makes them different? Their

idiosyncrasies?

• How do you identify them?

• How do you best meet their needs?

Other Professional Development Outcomes

Definition

• Howard Fountain ‘One who is able to process & absorb information and skills more rapidly than the average child’

Speed of processing and absorbing?

• Renzulli

1500 highly gifted individuals for 30 years

Challenged our thinking about who they were!

Commitment

Creativity

Above average ability

Other Outcomes

• Clear identification processes

• Enrichment or Acceleration

• Upskilled staff in relation to strategies offered by:

De Bono

Bloom

Gardiner’s Multiple Intelligences

Costa

Hyerle’s Maps

• Establishment of Special Abilities register

• Exclusivity or Inclusivity

Evaluation

Evaluation Synthesis

Synthesis Analysis

Analysis Application

Application Comprehension

Comprehension Knowledge

Knowledge

Regular classroom programmes Gifted programmes

video

The Art Costa Factor

•Previous Encounter

•Habits of Mind - Essential Skills - Processes

•Some good work going on - not schoolwide

•Four staff visited St Cuthberts in Auckland - Jill Hubble

What Are The ‘Habits of Mind’?Persisting .

Managing Impulsivity

Listening with Understanding & Empathy

Thinking flexibility

Thinking about thinking (metacognition)

Striving for accuracy

Questioning & posing problems

Applying past knowledge to new situations

Thinking & communicating

with clarity and precision Gathering data through all

senses Creating, imagining,

innovating Responding with wonderment

and aweTaking responsible risks Finding humour Thinking independently Remaining open to continuous

learning

Art’s Visit to College Street Normal School

Immediate Impact! Put the pieces of the jigsaw together - made connections (Gardiner - Costa) Draw on research to make some profound statements ‘Above average intelligence need not be the exclusive domain of a few’ ‘If we provide them with the ‘fuel’ to engage in skilful thinking who knows which children might pop out of the woodwork’ Simple message ‘We’re interested not only in how many answers pupils know but also in how pupils behave when they don’t know’ Margaret Mead Parent Evening / Newsletter

Teaching The Habits of Mind

‘Children cannot learn that which we choose not to

teach’ Costa

One or two Habits of Mind per term - grid

Video

Intelligence can be TAUGHT

Outcomes of Costa’s Visit

• Process is as important as content

• ‘Content can no longer be the end in and of itself but the tool by which

people learn to make meaning for themselves or to solve the problems

for which they do not have answers’. Costa

• Through explicit teaching of Habits of Mind and good teacher

modelling we can actually TEACH children to become increasingly

sophisticated thinkers

• Mark Twain ‘I never let my schooling interfere with my education’

• Adopted a new school motto ‘We Think & Learn Together’

Concerns• Not maximising the opportunity for children to apply the

‘Habits of Mind’

• We were teaching the children the skills commensurate with a contemporary problem based delivery system and attempting to apply them to an industrial model of education

• Very little opportunity for the children to use their new found skills. No time for children to ask ‘So What?’

• Perkins ‘Not so much a knowledge gap but a monumental USE of knowledge gap!

• Not a good fit!

Different Delivery System

• We decided that if we really believed that rather than thinking coming after

knowledge but that in fact knowledge comes on the coat-tails of thinking, then

we needed to allow children to actively use knowledge.

• We needed to somehow encourage deeper learning and understanding

• As Perkins says ‘When children are thinking about and with knowledge they re

truly learning

• At this point that our delivery of the curriculum came in for some close scrutiny

• Decided we needed to develop a delivery system where the process becomes

the content and the traditional content becomes the vehicle for acquiring

processes

• No prizes for guessing the next step on our journey ...

Integration – C.S.N.S.

• Integration - Queensland Style• Brisbane - In-Service• Paul Sutton & Megan McWhinney• Development of our own Integration Model• Strategies - Whole Staff In-Service - ‘On’ the job rather than ‘in’ the job - Team release to plan

- Sharing successes - failures at Staff meetings

Integration - C.S.N.S. Model

• Two Integrated Units per year

• Big Ideas

• Literacy & Numeracy

• Curriculum should have a social conscience

• Consequences

The C.S.N.S. Integration Model

Big Idea

Context

Deep Understanding/s

Significant Questions

Assessment Rubrics

Learning Activity Sequence

Showcasing

How well did the children do in relation to the assessment rubrics and the Deep Understandings

Audience & Dance

Links to A/O’s

Teaching of H of M

Links to Productive Pedagogies

C.S.N.S. Integration Model

Cross GroupingWithdrawal Groups

Strategies at C.S.N.S.

For Meeting Needs of C.W.S.A.

More Skilful Classroom Teaching Productive Pedagogies

Projects

I.E.P.’s for C.W.S.A.

Explicit Teaching of Thinking Skills

(Habits of Mind)

Integrated Curriculum

Immersed in the Habits of Mind

Handouts

• Unit

• Productive Pedagogies

• Assessment Rubrics

• Tracking Productive Pedagogy Coverage

Changes• Exclusivity Inclusivity• Withdrawal In - class• Content/Knowledge Process Centred School Centred School• Passive Learning Active Learning -

Problem based learning Learning that

reflects the real world• Haphazard Change Organised, thoughtful

change• Traditional School ‘Smart’ School• Only a Very Small Most Children have the Percentage of Children are potential to be Gifted

Gifted Just in case Just in time

• Mind filling Mind development

• Production line A climate that is conducive to

• children ‘Learning How To Learn’

Summary

• We’ve been trying to develop a new lens with which to view the educational landscape. We’ve tried to bring new things into focus and to allow some things that have been in the foreground to recede into the background.

Adapted from ‘New’ Knowledges and ‘New’ Ways of Knowing; Implications & Opportunities

by Jane Gilbert

‘When we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real

journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that

sings’

Wendell Berry