1. Work Time
Work with your team to further develop and/or refine your written gifted and talented plan.
Next session: May 17
You will be working independently
Visit the Wiki for materials, instructions, and expectations
A copy of your new/revised written gifted and talented plan is due June 16.

2. Gifted and Talented Academy
Session 6
May 17, 2010

3. Agenda Day 6 Welcome/Warm Up In-service Design
Comprehensive Programming: Points and Questions to Consider
Survey
Work Time
Celebrate Accomplishments

4. Warm Up
Review plan components developed so far (e.g., mission, identification, differentiated program, program goals, staffing provisions)
Consider barriers from our discussion last week and if/how any alignment with your plan
What barriers could be addressed through professional development?
Create a Google doc to respond to these prompts. Share w/me & your group

5. Program Goals Review your program goals in terms of
Alignment
Validity
Comprehensiveness
Clarity
These traits are found on p of your Purcell & Eckert text. Reference those pages for more details and make adjustments to goals accordingly.
In your Google doc, reflect on the quality of your program goals relative to these traits. Remember these are not student outcome goals; they are the goals you set to assure quality gifted and talented programming is provided. They must be measurable!!

6. In-service Design
…whatever teachers become professionally, the process is not finished when they complete their teacher education program at age 21. Learning to teach well is a lifetime endeavor. The growth of understanding and skill in teaching terminates only when we do.
--Eisner, 2002
Discuss how this applies to your school/district and the teachers in it. Do you and they, on the whole, approach professional learning in this way or is it seen as a necessary evil? Some teachers very much live out this quote; they are eager to learn new things and improve their professional practices. There are also those are the antithesis of this way of thinking; they are the 25 year veterans who have taught the same year 25 times and swear there is absolutely no benefit to them from any professional development activity. Create a continuum of behaviors – things you would see and hear – that might illuminate where on this spectrum teachers might fall.

7. In-service Design for Gifted
What does it currently look like in your district?
Format
Time
Participants
What does the word “design” imply?
In what ways might an effective in-service design align with and support all other plan components?
Add key points of your discussion around these questions to the previously created Google doc

8. In-service Design for Gifted
Review the Guiding Principles on p. 185
Discuss and complete the self-assessment “Guiding Principles for Gifted and Talented In-service Design”
What needs to improve about your in-service design? (Develop a program goal?)
There will be a 1 credit staff development class offered June at U of I and the same class offered at Heartland August 5-6.
Complete the chart and add it to your Google doc. The self-assessment is found on the Wiki.
You might also consider looking at the Inservice Design section of the Self-Audit/Reflection Tool found on the Heartland Web site at

9. Survey Complete the survey
Transfer responses to Spring 2010 tab of the Excel sheet (found on the Wiki)
Compare to fall results
Reflect (Click on the reflection tab, click in the first cell, and begin typing)
Upload to Google docs, name it with your ID number or name, and share with me. Or the sheet to me as an attachment.
Your ID number is a letter and number (e.g., J4) which I gave you at the first session and you put on your fall survey.

10. Work Time
Use this time to develop and/or refine sections of your written gifted and talented plan.

11. Processing Time Individually identify Discuss with your team/table
One area of team growth this year
One area of personal growth
One team goal for next year
One personal goal for next year
Discuss with your team/table
Develop one team goal for future work and post to the Google doc.

12. Required Submissions Your written comprehensive program plan sections
Vision/Mission/Beliefs (at the minimum a mission or philosophy)
Identification – including target population
Differentiated Program
Program Goals and Performance Measures
In-service Design
Staffing Provisions & Qualifications of Personnel Administering the Program
These may be shared as Google docs (be sure to share with me), in hard copy (send to me at Heartland AEA, 6500 Corporate Drive, Johnston, IA 50131), as a Word document, or posted to your team Wiki (share the URL with me).
My is and my phone number is (local) ext or (toll free) ext 14375

13. CELEBRATE!
Thanks for your hard work, flexibility, and dedication this year. I look forward to seeing you next year in Gifted Academy II. Check the Heartland PD catalog for registration and details.