Marty Nemko's Blog, page 424

Six Ways to Meet Gifted and Bright Kids’ Needs in a Regular Class…Without Giving Yourself Much Extra Work

I am creating a short video on how elementary school teachers can, without undue work, better meet gifted' and bright kids' needs in a regular class. 

I'll be using doodle-whiteboarding to increase the viewers' engagement and retention, as  Ken Robinson did in his TED talk on reinventing education.

I'd welcome your feedback on this draft of the text:
Six Ways to Meet Gifted and Bright Kids’ Needs in a Regular Class…Without Giving Yourself Much Extra Work.

You have a wide range of students in your class. It’s hard to meet all their needs. And you may feel you need to focus on low-achieving kids, maybe because your heart especially feels for them and/or because you’re feeling external pressures such as No Child Left Behind and now Common Core.
You have one or more very bright students in your class but if someone’s gotta be shortchanged, maybe it’s those gifted kids. After all, consciously or unconsciously, you think they’ll do fine anyway.
I can understand, but maybe your bright and gifted kids are worth a second look. In fact, many gifted kids turn out to be brilliant failures. Maybe you know one. And after all, all children are entitled to an appropriate-level education, to not be bored too much of the time. And those kids are the most likely to grow up to cure our diseases, be our corporate, non-profit, and government leaders—be our teachers and administrators!
And it is possible for you to better meet their needs without giving yourself too much work. Consider trying one or more of these tips:
Tip #1  Cluster-group. When kids are listening to a lesson or are in a group activities where their class or groupmates are of a wide range of achievement and ability, yes, bright kids may solidify their learning and may--or may not--end up feeling more charitable about helping the less fortunate, but too often bright kids are stultified, bored, and deprived of their right to grow. Less bright kids may feel that no matter how hard they try, they’ll never do as well and may just give up and let the bright kids carry the load. So, as you deem appropriate, for parts of the day, divide the class into groups by ability: how quickly they learn, reason, and sophisticatedly they communicate. Sure it can help kids if you take the time to create separate lessons and activities for each group but that’s time-consuming. The good news is that even if it’s the same lesson or activity, it’s exciting to watch bright kids build off each other rather than be stultified and that’s not only good for them but ultimately for society. So, tip #1:  For parts of the school day, consider dividing the class by ability.
Tip #2. Allow bright and gifted students to propose doing a more challenging assignment or activity of their own choosing rather than the regular one. Or you propose one. For example, if you’re about to teach a spelling lesson, you might invite bright kids to write a story using the spelling words. If the class is about to work on a worksheet a child feels is too easy, s/he can propose that s/he be allowed to use some educational software on her iPad, Chromebook, etc. If you’ve assigned making a diorama on the Civil War for homework, any students who wished to, could opt to write a scene and perhaps act it out for the class on the dilemma President Lincoln faced in deciding how to respond to secession. So, Tip #2:  Allow or give bright and gifted kids an alternate assignment.
Tip #3. For content that some students in your class knows but could use solidifying, make them your roving assistant teachers, helping the other students with their seatwork on that content. For example, if you’ve just taught a lesson on subtraction with regrouping, ask for volunteers to take a 1-question quiz that demonstrates they know it.  Or perhaps you already know they know it without having to quiz them. Anyone you deem to sufficiently know the content or concept can volunteer to be your roving assistant teacher for the seatwork on that topic. When other students raise their hand asking for help, an “assistant teacher” can go over to the student and try to help. Of course, that must only be done occasionally. Bright and gifted kids deserve to be learning material that’s challenging for them, not just helping slower. So Tip #3: When kids know a concept before you teach it, occasionally make them your roving teaching assistant.
Tip #4. Have students actually teach a lesson to a group of classmates or even the entire class. If you like that idea, you might, when the rest of the class is doing independent work, teach your would-be “teachers” a lesson on how to teach a lesson, for example a model such as 1: Tell the class why the lesson is important. 2. Model what you want them to learn, for example, the scientific method. 3. Walk them through an example, such as designing an experiment to test whether Coca-Cola really does eat through car paint. 4. Have them do an example independently. 5. Ask for questions. 6. Summarize. So, Tip 4: Have kids teach lessons to part of or even the entire class. 
Tip #5. As appropriate, allow students to join a higher grade’s class for a given subject(s).
Tip #6. Consider having a child skip one or more grades. Research indicates that can be wise as long as the child is capable and motivated, the receiving teacher enthusiastic, and the child paired with a popular child in the new class  to teach him or her the ropes and help the child make friends.  So, Tip #6: Consider having a gifted child skip one or more grades. 
So, to summarize, the six  tips are:1. For parts of the day, consider dividing your class into groups by ability.2. Allow children to propose an alternative assignment or you offer an alternative.3. For content they know but could use solidifying, make them your roving assistant, helping students with seatwork on that topic.4. Have students teach lessons to part of the class or even the whole class.5. Allow students to join a higher-grade class for one or more subjects.6. Consider having them skip a grade.
You may want to try none, one, even all those six ideas. But we often promise ourselves to do something but forget. So do you want to write down the idea or ideas you want to try? Whatever you try, do treat it as experimental. If it doesn’t work, scrap it or perhaps tweak it. 
In closing, I’d like to ask you a favor: It would be a real service to your fellow teachers if, below, in the comments area, you write how well these ideas or their derivatives are working for you. Or feel free to suggest some other idea for how to better meet bright and gifted kids’ needs without giving yourself undue extra work.
In any event, thank you for all you do. A great teacher can make all the difference.

Top Five Ways to Meet Gifted and Bright Kids’ Needs in a Regular Class…Without Giving Yourself Much Extra Work

I am creating a short video on how elementary school teachers can, without undue work, better meet gifted' and bright kids' needs in a regular class. 

I'll be using doodle-whiteboarding to increase the viewers' engagement and retention, as  Ken Robinson did in his TED talk on reinventing education.

I'd welcome your feedback on this draft of the text:


Five Ways to Meet Gifted and Bright Kids’ Needs in a Regular Class…Without Giving Yourself Much Extra Work.


You have a wide range of students in your class. It’s hard to meet all their needs. And you may feel you need to focus on low-achieving kids, maybe because your heart especially feels for them and/or because you’re feeling external pressures such as No Child Left Behind and now Common Core.


You have one or more very bright students in your class but if someone’s gotta be shortchanged, maybe it’s those gifted kids. After all, consciously or unconsciously, you think they’ll do fine anyway.


I can understand, but maybe your bright and gifted kids are worth a second look. In fact, many gifted kids turn out to be brilliant failures. Maybe you know one. And after all, all children are entitled to an appropriate-level education, to not be bored too much of the time. And those kids are the most likely to grow up to cure our diseases, be our corporate, non-profit, and government leaders—be our teachers and administrators!


And it is possible for you to better meet their needs without giving yourself too much work. Consider trying one or more of these tips:


Tip #1. Allow bright and gifted students to propose doing a more challenging assignment or activity of their own choosing rather than the regular one. Or you propose one. For example, if you’re about to teach a spelling lesson, you might invite bright kids to write a story using the spelling words. If the class is about to work on a worksheet a child feels is too easy, s/he can propose that s/he be allowed to use some educational software on her iPad, Chromebook, etc. If you’ve assigned making a diorama on the Civil War for homework, any students who wished to, could opt to write a scene and perhaps act it out for the class on the dilemma President Lincoln faced in deciding how to respond to secession. So, Tip #1:  Allow or give bright and gifted kids an alternate assignment.


Tip #2. For content that some students in your class knows but could use solidifying, make them your roving assistant teachers, helping the other students with their seatwork on that content. For example, if you’ve just taught a lesson on subtraction with regrouping, ask for volunteers to take a 1-question quiz that demonstrates they know it.  Or perhaps you already know they know it without having to quiz them. Anyone you deem to know the content can volunteer to be your roving assistant teacher for the seatwork on that topic. When other students raise their hand asking for help, an “assistant teacher” can go over to the student and try to help. Of course, that must only be done occasionally. Bright and gifted kids deserve to be learning material that’s challenging for them, not just helping slower. So Tip #2: When kids know a concept before you teach it, occasionally make them your roving teaching assistant.


Tip #3. Have students actually teach a lesson to a group of classmates or even the entire class. If you like that idea, you might, when the rest of the class is doing independent work, teach your would-be “teachers” a lesson on how to teach a lesson, for example a model such as 1: Tell the class why the lesson is important. 2. Model what you want them to learn, for example, the scientific method. 3. Walk them through an example, such as designing an experiment to test whether Coca-Cola really does eat through car paint. 4. Have them do an example independently. 5. Ask for questions. 6. Summarize. So, Tip #3: Have kids teach lessons to part of or even the entire class. 


Tip #4. As appropriate, allow students to join a higher grade’s class for a given subject(s).


Tip #5. Consider having a child skip one or more grades. Research indicates that can be wise as long as the child is capable and motivated, the receiving teacher enthusiastic, and the child paired with a popular child in the new class  to teach him or her the ropes and help the child make friends.  So, Tip #5: Consider having a gifted child skip one or more grades. 


So, to summarize, the five tips are:
1. Allow children to propose an alternative assignment or you offer an alternative.
2. For content they know but could use solidifying, make them your roving assistant, helping students with seatwork on that topic.
3. Have students teach lessons to part of the class or even the whole class.
4. Allow students to join a higher-grade class for one or more subjects.
5. Consider having them skip a grade.


You may want to try none, one, even all those five ideas. But if there’s at least one, we often promise ourselves to do something but forget. So do you want to write down the idea or ideas you want to try? Whatever you try, do treat it as experimental. If it doesn’t work, scrap it or perhaps tweak it. 


In closing, I’d like to ask you a favor: It would be a real service to your fellow teachers if, below, in the comments area, you write how well these ideas or their derivatives are working for you. Or feel free to suggest some other idea for how to better meet bright and gifted kids’ needs without giving yourself undue extra work.


In any event, thank you for all you do. A great teacher can make all the difference.

A Flytrap Business Catches More than Flies

One approach to small-business success is to find an under-the-radar niche. Matt Miller’s Flytrapcare.com is an example.

Starting when he was seven, Matt’s parents took him every year to the Missouri Botanic Garden, where his favorite plants were the carnivores: pitcher plants and especially Venus flytraps. When his family got to the garden’s bookstore, Matt would each year, get a more advanced book on flytraps.
At college and in graduate school (he has a masters in math,) and in his job afterward at Raytheon, flytraps had left his life. But on a visit to Wal-Mart, he happened upon a display of flytraps and bought three.
To try to learn more about flytraps, he searched the Internet but found surprisingly little. So using his books, articles, growing experience, and mathematical mind, Matt started to write about them on a website whose URL was available: flytrapcare.com. He wanted as many people as possible to benefit from his work so he learned search-engine optimization. Today, flytrapcare.com has become the most-visited flytrap site on the Internet.
To make money, Matt sold flytraps on his site. He first got his inventory from other dealers but soon realized he could get flytraps far less expensively if he learned how to clone them using tissue culture. He found kitchenculturekits.comand after a few hundred bucks of supplies, two $600 greenhouses, and some trials and errors, he was making clones of the most desired varieties, for example, the large-trapped B52 and a hybrid he developed himself: Maroon Monster.

Indeed, part of the fun for Matt is developing new varieties by crossing the best existing ones. Because customers love size, he’s even thinking of trying to get progeny by crossing large flytraps with a much larger related species: Drosera Regia Big Easy.
Matt plans to keep growing flytrapcare.com because of the pleasure, the many thank-yous from satisfied customers and posters to his site’s forum, and yes, the money. He’s making a solid middle class living doing what he loves, working from home.
His advice to prospective small business owners: Develop a focus and stay with it.  Perhaps there really is nothing new under the sun---other than a flytrap business.

Get free career advice from me on KGO: Ronn Owens Program

KGO's Ronn Owens after interviewing President ObamaTomorrow, Thursday, Jan 9, from 11 AM to noon, I'll be making my every couple-month appearance on KGO's Ronn Owens Program. 

The focus will be on offering fresh advice for employees, employers, and on self-employment. And you can call in to the show for my customized advice. From anywhere in the Bay Area, call 8080-810. That will work for all area codes.

Get free career advice from my on KGO: Ronn Owens Program

KGO's Ronn Owens after interviewing President ObamaTomorrow, Thursday, Jan 9, from 11 AM to noon, I'll be making my every couple-month appearance on KGO's Ronn Owens Program. 

The focus will be on offering fresh advice for employees, employers, and on self-employment. And you can call in to the show for my customized advice. From anywhere in the Bay Area, call 8080-810. That will work for all area codes.

My Career and Workplace Predictions and Trends for 2014 and Beyond: Part II

Today, USNews.com published Part II of my career and workplace predictions for 2014 and beyond. HERE is the link.

13 Career and Workplace Trends and Predictions for 2014 and Beyond. Part I

HERE, on USNews.com, is Part I of my 13 career and workplace trends and predictions for 2014 and beyond, including a rundown on how accurate my 2013 predictions were.

13 Career and Workplace Trends and Predictions for 2014 and Beyond

HERE, on USNews.com, is Part I of my 13 career and workplace trends and predictions for 2014 and beyond, including a rundown on how accurate my 2013 predictions were.

Can Planting A Garden Get You Unstuck?

I met yesterday with a client who had been dispirited for a long time and felt unable to make himself look for a job. Far from the standard career advice, I suggested he plant a garden. I felt he needed an inspiring win to get him moving again.

He was excited, but more than I realized. He emailed me today that he was up all night thinking about his garden.

If starting a garden intrigues you, here are some suggestions:

Plant in winter for a spring crop: Allstar gourmet lettuce mix, Packman broccoli, Estella Rijnveld tulips.

Plant in early spring after last frost: Early Girl tomatoes, Tendersnax carrots, Honey Select corn, Uproar Rose zinnia.

Plant in late spring/early summer for a late summer/fall crop: Big Beef tomatoes,  Magellan Coral zinnia.

To create the a good environment for growing, pick a sunny patch of soil. Unless the soil is very clayey or very sandy, just spread 2 to 3 inches of a good compost and a handful of general-purpose granular fertilizer over each square yard of soil and spade it in thoroughly.  If your soil is very clayey or sandy, do the above but you might want to lay a raised bed over it. That's simply a box made, for example, of  2 x 8 to 2 x 12 untreated heart redwood or cedar with metal corners to connect the pieces. Those are available at any hardware or home improvement store. Fill that with 2/3 garden soil, 1/3 compost plus a scant handful of fertilizer per square yard.

I'll be on KQED's Forum today: The Present and Future of Jobs/Workplace

I'll be on KQED's Forum (88.5 FM in San Francisco, worldwide at KQED.org) today from 10:30 AM to 11 AM to discuss the most important changes in the job market in 2013 and likely changes in 2014.