SEM Kickoff

Last Friday, our SEM group kicked off the new school year with a presentation to our staff!! After watching a fun video, produced by none other than David, we were able to relive the good times and ponder on all of the learning that occurred this summer, over 5 days. With Dr. Gentry, Dr. Renzulli, Dr. Reis and Ms. Math sharing their passion for kids and helping them learn, Austin's Mission: Excellence, will happen; and we will all be stronger for it!!

This short overview hopefully will whet our appetites to learn more. As we implement the Renzulli Learning System, I am positive that we will see all students shine and that many talents will be utilized in the classroom, because students will be learning through their interests.

The best is yet to come!!

Confratute Ends-But For Austin Elem, the fun just begins!!

One last look at UCONN as our bus begins our trek back home..

Last night as the plane landed, I looked outside the window and listened to the excitement in the cabin of the plane. Slowly, a roll thunder could be heard. People were clapping and singing praises to be back home!! Yes, we had just experienced the best educational conference in the world!! We all had survived a week of living in the dorms!! Brought back fun memories for some and others reminisced about how hectic dorm life could be!

Although I was tired to the deepest part of my bones, my soul has been filled with an elixir of excitement for new opportunities for our students and staff!! We were immersed in a great week of learning, self reflection and collaboration with the finest instructors in the field of gifted education. Yet, these well known scholars, who are THE experts in their field, were humble, caring individuals who wanted nothing more than the success of ALL children.

I was then given the tools I was looking for to make this work in the classroom. SEM-R is one of the afternoon week long strands that I attended. This method of reading instruction is just what this teacher was looking for. I had spent the first part of my summer tweaking my writing workshop yearly plans and was excited about the upcoming year. But, I still was looking for the WOW for reading. And then comes Confratute, SEM-R!! I now have what I need to go in and share my love of reading with my students, while meeting them where they are, meeting the individual needs of ALL students, helping them become independent readers who love to read and know the joy that reading can bring to our lives!!

So, where do we go from here Austin Elementary? Your SEM (School Enrichment Model) team is truly excited about what we learned this week!! We can not wait to see each and everyone one of you and share with you what we have learned!!

My hope is that we are able to help you feel the excitement, taste the elixir of the joy of learning that we tasted and have your soul renewed (as mine has been) and that 2010-2011 becomes our best year ever for our students and ourselves!!

Once again, I would like to thank the Coppell Gifted Association for funding this opportunity for me. I am truly thankful!! I look forward to sharing with you what I learned this week!! You are invited to come see what this looks like in my classroom this year! I would love for you to come visit!!

I See ......

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/movie/South_Grove.mov

I invite you to view the above video about SEM at South Grove Elementary in New York. One of the strand presenters, Nora Friedman, was the principal at this school (she just retired this past May). This makes me feel like "this is what school is all about".....smiling faces - rigor and enjoyment!

It's Legen (wait for it...wait for it)...dary!

I'm the techie nerd...we all know this and I've made peace with it. So what, then, am I supposed to find relevant in all this talk about how to facilitate authentic learning in the classroom? I don't have a classroom...I have a desk and lots of cords.

Well, color me surprised and pull my foot out of my mouth! After the first day I was a tad disheartened to find that the "technology strands" being offered were little more than jazzed up PowerPoint how-to courses. Or at least that's what I thought.

I attended an evening strand titled "60 Tools in 60 Minutes" that was to introduce 60 web tools to be used in the classroom. It was STUPENDOUS! Not only did I pick up a few new sites to share with classroom teachers, many of the sites were familiar and completely validated the direction we are headed at Austin! If you want to access the list, take a gander at http://brianhousand.com (scroll down until you reach the Confratute banner, and click on 2010).

Today I had the chance (along with David) to attend Day 2 of "101 Ways to Use Renzulli Learning", which is the website element of our SEM. When we had our training in the Spring with the Renzulli rep, Debbie, she told us to watch for the launch of the new and improved teacher site. Ladies and Gents..."new and improved" doesn't do it justice.

The new teacher site is not only easier to navigate, it has more resources and elements than anything I've ever seen. If I was excited for the classroom teachers before, I may weep at all that is offered here. Seriously. There may be tears.

In addition to a new literacy component that allows teachers to find lists of books based on interests (the whole point of Renzulli), and have authentic assessments with any activity based on open-ended questions, teachers now have the option to group students into Collaborative groups that allows the students in the group to communicate online (like a chat) with ONLY those students in their group. Teachers can moderate all, some, or none of the comments at any time. If a teacher is idle for more than 1 week, the group chat goes into "sleep mode" so that the students are not able to continue without supervision. I can't wait to share ideas with teachers on how to utilize this element!

I still have a nagging feeling that the participants at Confratute deserve more than just PowerPoints on crack, but I am SO excited about all the thought and planning that has gone into making Renzulli Learning easy (it took literally 49 seconds to create and differentiate a lesson in the class today) and teacher-friendly.

My friends, a new day is dawning at Austin Elementary...and yes, it's going to be LEGENDARY.

Confratute: An Adventure in Learning

Wow! Excitement is in the air here at the University of Connecticut! Excitement about education, excitement about new ideas and innovative teaching practices, excitement about reaching and teaching kids in ways that will allow each of them to discover and develop the incredible potential that lies within! Confratute is AMAZING...though that word is pitifully inadequate when attempting to describe the atmosphere of learning, collaboration, inspiration, and passion that permeates every class, every activity, every conversation, every moment here at Confratute.

The week began with a keynote presentation by Dr. Joe Renzulli and his wife, Dr. Sally Reis. Together they gave us an overview of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model and excited us with inspirational stories of student success and achievement. One such story involved a young lady who noticed that a wheelchair bound classmate did not have access to the school playground. Her concern for a friend led her on an incredible journey of exploration, research, and discovery. As an elementary school student, this young lady did not yet have the skills and/or knowlege base necessary to solve the problem she had identified. However, what she did have was a desire to help a friend, an ability to imagine what could be, and a willingness to follow through until what "could be" actually was. She also had a teacher who was willing to walk beside her throughout this journey of learning, providing encouragement and guidance along the way. The results were phenomenal! Her efforts led to the construction of a new, handicap-accessible playground at her school. She was also invited by other schools to help design handicap accessible playgrounds at their facilities as well. What did she learn? She learned the many skills involved in playgound design and construction, she developed the skills necessary to propose her idea to the school administration, and she learned how to organize and implement fund raising campaigns. Most importantly, she learned that she had the power to make a difference in her community and in the lives of those around her.

One of my favorite strands (like classes) has been "Enrichment Clusters: A Practical Plan for Real World Student Driven Learning. The presenter, Marcia Gentry, is amazing. Her love of learning, dedication to kids, and passion for education is evident the moment you hear her speak. She has been sharing with us the nuts and bolts of how to successfully implement enrichment clusters in an elementary and/or middle school environment, and her enthusiasm is absolutely contagious! Clusters allow students (and teachers) the oppotunity to pursue advanced learning through an avenue of high interest and student driven real world problem solving. I am so excited about the prospect of providing these opportunities to the students at Austin Elementary!

Day 2-It Just Keeps Getting Better!!

This morning, our keynote speaker was Dr. Math. Close your eyes and picture your grandmother at age 74!! This woman is one fine, sassy role model for all teachers of math!! She tells it like it is and is passionate about teaching math so that kids get what they are doing!! She showed us so many examples of how math was 50 years ago; and then showed that we are still teaching many things in the same manner!! How could our students not love math and get it, if only we taught it the way she modeled? We then had our morning session with Dr. Renzulli and his wife Sally. We looked at how to bring in different levels of lessons that will hook our students interests and lead them into deeper investigations if that is where their interests, questions, etc take them. Teresa and I were able to attend Day 2 of SEM-R (School Enrichment Model) Reading, this afternoon. Today's focus was about Book Hooks. Taking just a few minutes to share great literature with students and sharing the love of reading!! During this time you might be sharing a reading strategy such as visualizing or teaching how to decide if a book is a good choice for you. We looked at great picture books and shared with our classmates on how to extend and enrich our lessons by guiding students to see connections in many ways. What do we do if we only have 1 copy of a book, how can we guide them to other areas? Perhaps, through other books with the same type of characters, or the author's writing style or theme... Bookmaking was our next class, where today we finished our Gypsy Bag book, made a wallet book, hand stiched a book (I'm seeing this one in our pioneer study :) ), and the spine covered book. Students can make all of these books and use them in a variety of ways!! We quickly took a walk in the rain on our way back to the room and got ready for dinner. We then headed off to hear Dr. Gentry. She gave a book talk about Clusters in the School. I sat there and kept saying, "Yes, yes, yes;" and shaking my head in agreement the whole time!! As you can tell, I am so pumped about what we are learning this week!! Hopefully, all of our staff, will be able to experience Confratute for themselves at some point!! I am so honored to be a part of this team and so excited to share with everyone when we get home!!

Insert Witty Title Here

It's good to know that I'm helping provide entertainment as Laurie noted. We're trying to keep things fun. It's not hard to do given the overall vibe here. There's more positive energy here than I've ever experienced at any professional development conference in my meager 13 years of teaching.

I don't even know where to begin to summarize the past 48 hours here at Confratute. I had a general idea of what to expect and knew that it was going to be a whirlwind but wonderful week. I was genuinely excited to have the opportunity to learn directly from some of the people whose research I studied during my graduate courses in gifted education. Dr. Renzulli and Dr. Gentry were among some of the first "GT gurus" whose work helped shape my core beliefs as an educator of gifted children. To be here with them is beyond incredible for me. And the best thing? They talk and share with us as peers, not high and mighty researchers with PhD's who are so mentally removed from the classroom that they can't relate to our day to day struggles and triumphs. It makes me respect them and their work even more than I already did.

I really have more to say about a couple of the specific strands (workshops/sessions) that I have been attending but I just don't have it in me to rifle through my notes at the moment. Hopefully more of you will have the opportunity to come to Confratute next year and you will understand how desperately tired you are by the end of the day. I promise that I will be back!