Building bRight Connections

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Building bRight Connections

• Cheryl Atwater

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Vision Statement

• Engaging gifted students in higher order thinking
  and collaboration through the use of a curriculum
  framework involving problem-based learning
  enhanced through the use/infusion of technology.

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Building bRight ConnectionsComponents

• Learning Objectives
• Special Needs of Gifted
• Problem-Based Learning
• Technology
• On-line Collaboration
• Computers as Mindtools
• Content

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Learning Objectives

• Development of Higher Order Thinking Skills
  (HOTS)
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking
• Problem solving
• CPS
• Collaboration with Peers
• Self-directed Learner
• Content
• Knowledge?
• Understanding?
• Application?
• Research indicates that critical thinking and
  problem solving skills are not typically
  addressed in the classroom. A number of studies
  indicate that in the typical classroom, 85 of
  teacher questions are at the recall or simple
  comprehension level. Questions that elicit
  synthesis and evaluative skills of thinking are
  rarely asked.

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Characteristics of the Gifted Learner

• from Carol Ann Tomlinson
• What is appropriately differentiated curriculum
  for gifted learners?
• Curriculum for gifted learners should cause them
  to stretch a little beyond their "comfort zones."
  Typically that means materials, activities,
  and/or projects should be more
• Abstract
• Complex
• Open-ended and/or
• Multi-faceted
• than would be appropriate for many students of
  the same age.
• Often, gifted learners also benefit from a faster
  pace of learning, greater independence, and
  problems that are somewhat "fuzzy" so that
  greater mental leaps are required to solve them.
  Giving gifted students more work of a similar
  nature (for example, ten math problems instead of
  five) is not appropriate differentiation.

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Characteristics of the Gifted Learner, 2

• from Sandra Berger
• Modifying Process
• To modify process, activities must be
  restructured to be more intellectually demanding.
  For example, students need to be challenged by
  questions that require a higher level of response
  or by open-ended questions that stimulate
  inquiry, active exploration, and discovery.
• Although instructional strategies depend on the
  age of the students and the nature of the
  disciplines involved, the goal is always to
  encourage students to think about subjects in
  more abstract and complex ways. Activity
  selection should be based on student interests,
  and activities should be used in ways that
  encourage self-directed learning.
• Bloom's TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES (1956)
  offers the most common approach to process
  modification. His classification system moves
  from more basic levels of thought, such as memory
  or recall, to more complex levels of analysis,
  synthesis, and evaluation. Parnes (1966), Taba
  (1962), and others have provided additional
  models for structuring thinking skills. Every
  teacher should know a variety of ways to
  stimulate and encourage higher level thinking
  skills. Group interaction and simulations,
  flexible pacing, and guided self-management are a
  few of the methods for managing class activities
  that support process modification.
• from Differentiating Curriculum for Gifted
  Students
• By Sandra L. Berger ED342175 91, ERIC EC Digest
  E510

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• What is it?
• the learning which results from the process of
  working towards the understanding of, or
  resolution of, a problem.
• (Barrows Tamblyn, 1980)
• Problem-based learning is an instructional
  strategy (a curricular framework) that, through
  student and community interests and motivation,
  provides an appropriate way to teach
  sophisticated content and high-level process all
  while building confidence and autonomous learner
  behaviors.
• (van Tassel-Baska, 1997)

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• What is it?
• Problem-based learning (PBL) is a curriculum
  development and instructional approach.
• What does it do?
• PBL simultaneously develops problem solving
  strategies, disciplinary knowledge bases, and
  skills.
• How does PBL do it?
• By placing students in the active role of
  problem-solvers confronted with an ill-structured
  problem which mirrors real-world problems.
• From Center for Problem-Based Learning
• Illinois Mathematics and Science
  Academy

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• Features of PBL
• Learner-centered
• Real world problem
• Teacher as tutor or coach
• Emphasis on collaborative teams
• Employs metacognition
• Uses alternative assessment
• Embodies scientific process
• (van
  Tassel-Baska, 1997)

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• The Match
• (van
  Tassel-Baska, 1997)

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• Problem-based learning has as its organizing
  center the ill-structured problem which...
• is messy and complex in nature
• requires inquiry, information-gathering, and
  reflection
• is changing and tentative
• has no simple, fixed, formulaic, "right"
  solution
• Van Tassel-Baska would add that
• Data is often incomplete
• Deadline for resolution

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• How is PBL different than other instructional
  approaches?
• Problem-based learning begins with the
  introduction of an ill-structured problem on
  which all learning centers .
• Teachers assume the role of cognitive and
  metacognitive coach rather than knowledge-holder
  and disseminator students assume the role of
  active problem-solvers, decision-makers, and
  meaning-makers rather than passive listeners.

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• What are the benefits?
• Motivation
• PBL makes students more engaged in learning
  because they are hard wired to respond to
  dissonance and because they feel they are
  empowered to have an impact on the outcome of the
  investigation.
• Relevance And Context
• PBL offers students an obvious answer to the
  questions, "Why do we need to learn this
  information?" and "What does what I am doing in
  school have to do with anything in the real
  world?
• Higher-Order Thinking
• The ill-structured problem scenario calls forth
  critical and creative thinking by suspending the
  guessing game of, "What's the right answer the
  teacher wants me to find?
• Learning How To Learn
• PBL promotes metacognition and self-regulated
  learning by asking students to generate their own
  strategies for problem definition, information
  gathering, data-analysis, and hypothesis-building
  and testing, comparing these strategies against
  and sharing them with other students' and
  mentors' strategies.
• Authenticity
• PBL engages students in learning information in
  ways that are similar to the ways in which it
  will be recalled and employed in future
  situations and assesses learning in ways which
  demonstrate understanding and not mere
  acquisition. (Gick and Holyoak, 1983).

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Curriculum FrameworkProblem-Based Learning

• Steps involved
• Explore the problem, identify issues, elaborate
• "During the opening class periods of a unit,
  students explore the situation they have been
  given by building hypotheses that initiate
  investigation into the numerous aspects of the
  problem" (Stepien Pyke, 1997, p. 381)
• Investigation and Inquiry
• "During investigation and inquiry, students
  increase their knowledge and understanding of the
  concepts at work in their problem by consulting
  information resources and receiving appropriate
  amounts of direct instruction from their teacher"
  (Stepien Pyke, p. 381)
• What do we know? What do we need to know? How
  can we find out?
• Set objectives and learning goals. Who should do
  what?
• -what are we going to do and who will do what?
• - -share what has been learned
• Propose a solution to the problem
• "After students are satisfied that they have a
  firm grasp of the problem, they begin
  constructing solution products" (Stepien Pyke,
  p. 382).
• Debrief and Reflect
• "After students have completed crafting their
  solution products, a debriefing is conducted by
  the coach (teacher) to help students deepen their
  understanding of concepts and skills encountered
  during the unit" (Stepien Pyke, p. 383).
• From http//edweb.sdsu.edu/Courses/
  SPED644/pbl.htm

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Designing a Problem-Based Learning Unit

• See handout