One of my responsibilites this year, in addition to teaching pull-out TAG, is to collaborate with regular education teachers to introduce higher order thinking skills and strategies into the regular education classroom. This benefits all of our students. I've now worked once with each fourth grade class, teaching them a brainstorming technique called SCAMPER. Scamper is a mnemonic that stands for:
- Substitute
- Combine
- Adapt
- Modify
- Put to another use
- Eliminate
- Reverse
The fifth graders are in the midst of their Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) unit, answering the question, "What would you do if you had $100,00?" They're becoming informed investors and are competing with 4th - 12th graders across the state of Georgia in the online Stock Market Game. Each of our student teams has been given "$100,000" to invest, and they made their first stock purchases last week. Currently, Team 69 is in first place among our four NPES teams. AND...They are currently in third place in our region of 78 teams! And, remember, they are competing with teams in middle and high school!
It's been a long time since I've seen my fourth graders. My duties as a TAG teacher include assessing students who are referred for TAG testing. This fall, we have tested 91 students! Ms. Drummer and I have been extremely busy with testing and all of the associated paperwork that goes along with that. Fourth grade students will return to TAG the week of October 10th. They will be continuing their study of space science, including designing and building a Mars habitat.
The first Saturday in October, I was in Mobile, Alabama where I both presented at and learned from others at Discovery Education's "Day of Discovery." I'm looking forward to my next learning opportunities in November: The Georgia Educational Technology Conference and The National Association of Gifted Children conference, Modeling life-long learning !!!