Children With Special Abilities The College Street Normal School Model The Journey - So Far!
Jan 23, 2016
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