Welcome Parents of Gifted Students

LCMA’s teachers of the gifted would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves and to tell you about our plans for the coming year

Mrs. Susie Kallan will work with Alpha students in language arts

Mrs. Sue LeRoy will be the Alpha science teacher and will also be working with integrated lab

Dr. Jim Winegar will work with gifted students in math and integrated lab

What’s New  Cluster Classes Gifted students will be grouped together in their language arts, math, science, and integrated lab classes Gifted teachers will co-plan, co- teach, and co-evaluate with the general education teachers

What’s New  Electronic Portfolios When students work on their portfolios in integrated lab, they will have an Alpha section in which they showcase their progress toward their Alpha goals and do a self-assessment of their progress

What’s New  LCMA received a Department of Education grant to develop a technology-rich math and science curriculum for gifted students  Four teachers received training in the use of electronic probeware for science labs  Math, science, and I-Lab teachers met during the summer to plan and develop gifted curriculum  Emphasis in the classroom on working with real world data- collecting, manipulating, analyzing and presenting our findings

Technology We Will Be Learning  Probeware in science labs

Technology We Will Be Learning  Graphing Calculators and the Navigator System

Technology We Will Be Learning  Inspire Data - a database program used for analyzing data  Spreadsheets

Cluster Class Expectations  Higher level assignments, lessons designed for high ability students  More thinking, less drill  Not more work, just more challenging assignments  More use of technology

What’s Planned  Language arts classes will provide an enriched curriculum with higher level reading and writing assignments and more emphasis on critical thinking  Math classes will emphasize problem solving and data analysis with extensive use of technology  Science classes will make extensive use of labs using electronic probeware

What’s Planned for Integrated Lab 6 th Grade  We have formed a partnership with four environmental agencies to do a comparison and contrast study of two Polk County lakes 7 th Grade  We will be participating in Science Olympiad which is a competition involving all areas of middle school science

What’s Planned for Integrated Lab 8 th Grade  Students will participate in the Technology Student Association program and will build sail boats and CO 2 powered dragsters  In addition, cluster class students will use probeware to measure speed and acceleration of their projects and conduct labs to study force, motion and sound

Thank You for Attending Our Presentation We are very excited and somewhat apprehensive about implementing all our new ideas. We encourage gifted students to be risk-takers and to try new things. Bear with us as we do the same. We hope this will be a great year for your child. If you have questions, the best way to reach us is by