WHS’ Gifted Show Off Interests and Professional Pursuits

By Julian McKinley, Windsor Patch, Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Windsor High School students have a rare opportunity at their fingertips, as the school is one of only a few in the country to employ a unique program aimed at enriching students’ educational experiences based on interests, learning styles and modes of expression — a program called the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM).

SEM’s creator, Dr. Joseph Renzulli of the University of Connecticut, paid Windsor’s gifted education seminar students a visit Monday night, speaking with students and hearing about their individual projects based on their own interests and learning styles.

“Everything I do is based on Joe’s work,” said Carla Brigandi, Windsor High Seminar teacher.

“We started off with an interest inventory, and [the students] fill it out, read it and talk about what they’re interested in,” she said.

“What makes what we do different from what everybody else does is [the students] actually have come up with an authentic product for an audience. So those who have written books actually went into a preschool or third grade class and read to the students… It’s not a book report from Wikipedia. It’s something that has meaning…”

Freshman Candice Johnson did just that, writing a Christmas-themed book of mathematical word problems that she read to her brother’s class at John F. Kennedy School.

Students like Nyeemah Hightower took a more entrepreneurial approach, as she, inspired by her grandmother, decided to pursue starting her own pastry business, selling cupcakes and treats she made.

While she was successful in selling her baked goods, she learned that operational overhead can get a bit pricey, she said.

Taking interests and education outside of the conventional classroom is exactly what Renzulli’s SEM is all about.

“[The students] learn a lot of skills that typically one doesn’t get by sitting in class and taking notes, and reading the chapter, and taking the test. (They learn) all kinds of skills that are related to identifying the problem, like designing their projects, solving problems that they encounter — all kinds of skills you can’t learn in a canned environment of a regular curriculum,” he said.

“Not to criticize that, it’s very important,” he added, “but at the same time, I think that organizational skills, planning skills, decision making, problem solving… those are the things you learn by doing projects like these. That’s why I think this program is so important.

November Newsletter: Government-Focused Activities That Engage

The 2012 presidential election may be a year away, but talk of politics and roles of the government is practically impossible to avoid. This media saturation can cause students to become curious, and we have just the right resources here at Renzulli Learning to sate their thirst for more knowledge. There are a plethora of inventive and informative resources and activities to choose from in Renzulli’s inventory of over 40,000.

Here’s a small sample of what awaits you:

• If You Were President (website) — Tackle important decisions every president must face, from choosing a cabinet to balancing the budget, and then defend your conclusions.
• Elections…The American Way (website) — Learn what it takes to be a presidential candidate and how voting changed over the years.
• Impact of Congress and Government (website) — Discover how congressional decisions affect our daily lives as you take a tour of your home, go to school, spend time at work, and then take a walk through town.

Discover many more resources connected to our government and elections when you check out Renzulli Learning’s intuitive and refinable search engine.

Develop, differentiate and engage!

Teacher-Created “Dolphin Tale” Assignment Template Available for All Renzulli Learning Users

Perhaps you have heard of the recent movie Dolphin Tale, an inspirational, family-oriented film about a young dolphin who survived the severe injury of her tail. After seeing trailers for the film this past summer, Kitty Albright, enrichment coach at Clifford M. Granger School in Agawam Public Schools in Massachusetts, was inspired to create enrichment material for her students in grades 1–4 that she could share with her fellow educators. She developed three assignments and published her templates to all teachers within her school. Renzulli Learning’s customer support representative Sharon Rosenthal saw the submission and thought it would be wonderful to share the assignments with Renzulli Learning users across the globe, as opposed to just within Kitty’s school. To optimize Kitty’s submission for the broader audience, John Espy, Renzulli Learning curriculum alignment project manager, combined her three original activities into a single activity, included additional enrichment activities to enhance the offering, and differentiated the challenge levels so that the single assignment would suit all first- through fourth-graders.

At first, Kitty shared the assignment with a few other teachers in her school. Within a week, almost every teacher in the school was using the assignment, and, wherever Kitty went in the school, she was greeted by the excited voices of children talking about Renzulli Learning and Winter, the famous dolphin. Thrilled with the response, both from students and from teachers, Kitty says, “I will continue to use Renzulli Learning as a means to maximize the educational possibilities inherent in current events that are of interest to the kids!”

To access the “Dolphin Tale” Renzulli Learning assignment template:

1. Log in to Renzulli Learning as a teacher
2. Go to Toolbox > Assignment Maker > Create Using Templates
3. Choose “Dolphin Tale” from the drop-down menu under “Quick Template Lookup.”

To submit an assignment template for universal use, please submit your first name, last name, school, district, state, and assignment template title to jhalter@compasslearning.com.

Gifted students shine when mined

From the Christian Science News Monitor
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, Staff writer

Posted August 31, 2011

High-potential students in Hartford, Connecticut show real promise when presented with educational opportunities at a recently opened academy.

Anaisja Henry pops open a laptop, the white beads in her hair quietly clicking as she settles into her desk to work on a fourth-grade project. The theme: making a difference — inspired by a play the teacher took the class to see.

An aspiring veterinarian, Anaisja is focusing on saving animals from cruelty — incorporating facts, photos, and even original poems from the animals’ perspectives: “Please help us and love us and protect us too. Please train us and teach us the things we must do….”

Special field trips and self-motivated work are typical here at The Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy — but not so common in many schools across the country, especially in high-poverty districts such as Hartford’s.

“In a lot of circumstances, high-potential students don’t manifest their gifts unless they’ve been given the opportunity to develop them,” says head teacher Ruth Lyons.

To provide such opportunity, the public academy opened in 2009 and serves 60 children in Grades 4 through 7 (by 2016, it should grow to 550 K-12 students). Like those in the district, the students are almost all black or Hispanic and from low-income families.

Students are selected not based on IQ tests — those are expensive to administer and many families aren’t aware of them — but on a “talent pool” model. Hundreds of students who score well enough on Connecticut state tests are invited to apply, and parents and teachers can also nominate students based on their creativity and motivation to learn. Occasionally a student even nominates himself.

The curriculum is based on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) developed by Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Used to some degree at more than 2,500 schools around the country, it’s designed to expose students to a range of challenging activities and then offer more advanced work based on their specific interests, learning styles, and skills.

Although the children here are already ahead of many peers in Hartford, they trailed nationally when they first arrived. In a test of oral fluency (reading aloud with accuracy and speed), only about 20 percent tested at the 90th percentile nationally. By the end of the school year, 80 percent were reading at that level or higher.

When students in Anaisja’s class finish their projects, they sidle over to the classroom’s minilibrary – low shelves against a giant picture of blue sky and clouds — to choose something to read. Kim Albro, who teaches this SEM reading class, spends a lot of her time conferencing individually with students and reinforcing what they’ve learned about selecting books that will challenge them.

“To have the choices to read what they want … is huge for them,” Ms. Albro says.

All of the teachers have come to Hartford because of this special school, which the designers hope can be replicated in other districts. To that end, they are operating with the same per-pupil funding as any other school in Hartford, though they do benefit from curriculum discounts and teacher training through the University of Connecticut.

History teacher Melissa Thom uprooted herself from Phoenix, where she tried in vain for three years to get gifted services for her fifth-grade students.

Here she centers some of her teaching on the National History Day competition, in which a team of seventh-grade girls advanced to the state level this spring. They researched and wrote a play based on the transcript of a Salem witch trial, incorporating modern connections to witch camps in Ghana.

“I get goose bumps every time I think about the girls,” Ms. Thom says with a proud smile.

For One Week of Shining Moments: Lasting Impressions of Confratute 2011

For 34 years, Confratute has been a destination for educators. An experience unlike any other mere conference, Confratute 2011 presented the opportunity for educators to learn from other experts in their field; renew their excitement about teaching; and explore new, enriching experiences. This year, a mixture of familiar faces and first-time visitors came together for another uniquely unforgettable experience.

Emerging ideas
One of the chief reasons Confratute is so enduringly popular with innovative educators is its creative, instructive, collaborative atmosphere. Said Jacqueline Ronald, a first-time Confratute attendee, “I came to Confratute with college as my main reference point for learning, so I was ready the first day with pen and paper, to take notes — and I was ready to really work at concentrating. But it was so much more than college, and so engaging. It was truly a conversation, not a lecture!” A combination of intellectual salon, differentiated learning, summer camp, and social hour, Confratute creates an atmosphere from which enduring education innovation often emerges.

Daytime strands
Every day, participants attended a broad variety of in-depth, multi-hour learning strands, or sessions, on topics including using technology to differentiate learning, the psychology of giftedness, teaching behaviors that improve learning, and developing creativity.

In this high-stakes, minimum-standards educational landscape that we find ourselves, Confratute is an oasis of common sense and practical, strength-based, research-based ideas to develop the talents of our students. It is so refreshing to be surrounded with so many like-minded, passionate educators striving to make a difference in our world one child at a time.

— Michael Calder, Advanced Academic Services
Secondary Coordinator
Fort Worth ISD (Texas)

Evening enrichment
Hour-long evening forums offered further opportunities for educators to enrich their own experiences, as well as those of their students, with class subjects that included improvisational theater, cyberbullying, the Renzulli Learning System, and Common Core standards.

A great group, thinking
What truly built a feeling of unity and community, however, were the rousing keynotes that started each day for all attendees. These addresses put forth fascinating ideas that epitomized the Confratute mission and set the tone for the enthusiasm, joy, and love of learning to follow as teachers attended their separate strands.

Monday’s opening presentation by Drs. Joe Renzulli and Sally Reis explored common themes that attendees deal with daily. On Tuesday, Rachel MacAnallen, also known as Ms. Math to students nationwide advocated — with a healthy dose of humor — for playful exploration of numbers as well as adherence to correct terminology for students of all ages and abilities. On Wednesday, Drs. Reis and Renzulli joined CompassLearning CEO, Eric Loeffel, and Associate Professor (University of Great Falls), Jann Leppien, for a discussion about personalized learning. University of Connecticut’s Dr. Ronald Mallett intrigued conference goers Thursday with his presentation explaining his preoccupation with time travel, which led Dr. Mallett to “Penn State instead of the state pen.” Finally, on Friday, Susan Baum, Marcia Gentry, and Sandra Kaplan, with moderator Del Siegle, closed the week with ideas on how to bring gifted and talented educational techniques into regular classrooms to expand learning opportunities for all students.

Building community
One of the more striking aspects of Confratute was the opportunities it afforded for attendees to collaborate with one another that went beyond just learning and socializing. Aside from daily sessions and strands, Confratute offered parties for mingling and unwinding and communal mealtimes. People could enter a variety show as individuals, small groups, or as members of the ConfraChorus, which rehearsed evenings from Monday through Wednesday. Yoga classes offered a serene environment in which people could stretch their legs, arms, and backs after stretching their minds. And daily early-morning campus walks helped both energize participants for the day ahead and mitigate the effects of the cafeteria and on-site dairy bar. Such activities made it easy for all attendees — from first-timers to veterans to presenters — to mingle and share ideas. Jacqueline shares, “Everyone was so welcoming and so ready to talk about everything. They were incredibly available, after class and at social events. There was so much you could learn, so much opportunity.”

Potent takeaways
There is a reason people keep returning to Confratute. And it isn’t just the ideas, the camaraderie, or even the fresh-made ice cream. Four-time attendee Michael Calder from Fort Worth, TX, talks about why he will keep returning: “It is… renewing to attend Confratute, where the focus is on the individual strengths and interests of each student. It returns the humanity to our profession and acknowledges that students are not just widgets on an assembly line.” Jacqueline is left with the impression that “[Confratute] not just one thing, one moment. All the different aspects came together to make a complete experience, like nothing else.” Will she be going back? Absolutely.

Nurturing Student Strengths with the Schoolwide Enrichment Model: BELL Academy

Twenty-four years of experience as a teacher and administrator can foster many qualities in a dedicated educator. A well-rounded perspective about teaching and learning, combined with expertise and an entrepreneurial spirit, can result in amazing advances for students. In New York City, former Regional Director of Gifted and Talented Programs and current Bayside Enrichment and Long Distance Learning (BELL) Academy principal, Cheryl Hatzidimitriou, is just such a game-changing educator. The latest of more than 40 programs she created and supervised, the BELL Academy, is a cutting-edge public middle school that functions like a high-performing private prep school. With the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) at its foundation, BELL determines the interests, aptitudes, strengths, and talents of students and crafts an engaging, individualized instructional pathway, which integrates computer and videoconferencing technologies, for each learner. In addition to fostering educational excellence, BELL seeks to expand its students’ understanding of global issues and instill a spirit of altruism within them.

We like to say educate children one at a time and that means differentiating learning and providing students with as many choices and opportunities to succeed as possible.

— Cheryl Hatzidimitriou, BELL Academy Principal

Using Renzulli Learning to support SEM, BELL establishes a data-rich personal profile of interests, learning strengths, and preferred methods of instruction for every student. With this information, Renzulli Learning helps teachers customize activities for students from an extensive library of pre-screened resources, including websites, software, books, and articles. Cluster programs based on students’ top interests and teacher strengths, culminate in self-chosen projects. These programs “supplement the purely academic and add another dimension to students’ daily lives,” according to Hatzidimitriou.

BELL also prepares students for 21st century success with projects that require investigative skills, such as a cooperative poetry unit in which students use the Renzulli Learning library to help them enrich their work with visually appealing graphics, links to resource information, and first-person interviews with authors. “The beauty of Renzulli Learning,” says BELL instructional technology specialist Robin Russell, “is that it includes tons of pre-screened resources geared to various reading levels so kids can pose questions and explore the Web to find the answers to those questions themselves.”

With Renzulli Learning, the school addresses educational needs such engaging students in higher-order thinking skills and intervention. Teachers also use the digital resource to enrich students’ understanding with virtual field trips to ancient Greece or different rooms in the White House.

BELL’s success is linked to more than just technological resources, however. “Every staff member knows every student by name, and students are nurtured from the time they enter the building in the morning until the time they leave at the end of the day,” says Hatzidimitriou, who cultivates a positive, encouraging, and nurturing environment. “Kids who might fall through the cracks elsewhere don’t at BELL,” she says.

From the daily morning announcements made by students to the after school All-Stars [enrichment] program, BELL Academy is a middle school completely focused on ensuring the academic and personal success of every one of its students…. Displays of photographs and honors celebrate the accomplishments of students, who are highly fortunate to be a part of the supportive, “family-like” school community. As shared by a parent, “At BELL, teachers are not just teachers, they have big hearts and care for our children.”

— 2009 District Report Card

The school’s proximity to New York City brings the real world, with all its influences and opportunities, close to the students of BELL Academy. Cultural and scientific institutions as well as charitable causes abound. And, when students want to expand the spheres in which they learn, they can use state-of-the-art videoconferencing technology to discover worldwide cultures and issues through ongoing communication with peers in countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Italy.

Since opening its doors in 2007, BELL Academy has become the top performing school in the borough of Queens. It ranks in the 98th percentile on the New York City Progress Report, which measures New York City public schools’ overall performance. BELL also boasts a record number of students accepted into specialized high schools such as Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, and LaGuardia High School of the Arts, which traditionally accept only the top two percent of students. In 2009, the district’s report card cited BELL’s use of Renzulli Learning as an “outstanding feature” of the school that helps teachers establish individual learning goals for students. Principal Hatzidimitriou encourages those curious about BELL’s success. “Come see our school. I guarantee you’ll be hooked.”

Get hooked! Learn more about BELL Academy in the full-length success story, or contact Renzulli Learning.

Confratute 2011 Continues Decades-Long Tradition of Enriching Education

This July 10–15, more than 650 educators are expected to gather at the University of Connecticut at Storrs for the 34th annual Confratute. A summer institute for teaching and learning, Confratute is a self-declared “CONFerence and an instiTUTE with a lot of FRATernity in between.” Fifty-five presentations on best practices for high-engagement strategies, enrichment for teaching and learning, and meeting the needs of gifted and talented students comprise the week-long residential program.

A history of Confratute
Founded in 1978 by Dr. Joseph Renzulli, Confratute began as a research-based forum for advancing gifted-learner pedagogy. The first intensive attracted 178 attendees, the majority of whom were gifted and talented program teachers, consultants, and directors. Though Confratute has evolved over more than three decades, its presentations continue to highlight research-proven practices — a fact that differentiates it from many education conferences.

Through the years, the focus of Confratute has shifted to include enrichment and engagement education, 21st century teaching skills, and differentiation for teachers of all K–12 students. Gifted students’ needs are still a priority. However, since Confratute’s inception, educators have determined that practices once used exclusively for gifted students benefit the majority of learners. For example, differentiation benefits all classrooms, and thinking skills, problem solving, creative thinking, and critical thinking are abilities all students should have. Therefore, Confratute gives its attendees — the majority of whom are classroom teachers these days — the means by which they can implement practices, such as curriculum compacting, the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM), Enrichment Triad model, and Five Dimensions of Differentiation. And, while not all students will develop the subject mastery that frees their time for adult-level independent studies, Confratute has given many teachers the realization that most of their students can benefit from the engagement and passion that independent study sparks.

Educational impact
The educational impact of Confratute spans the globe. The president of the University of Connecticut once noted that, overseas, the school is noted for two things: its champion basketball team or Confratute. Schools in China, Singapore, Japan, and throughout Europe have implemented practices they learned through Confratute. Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of the Educational Psychology Department in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, and Principal Investigator of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented Sally Reis comments, “I’ve visited classrooms in which I saw evidence of every single slide I used in a Confratute presentation put into practice. That’s one reason why Confratute is such an incredible experience, and why so many educators come year after year.”

Reis also emphasizes the importance of encouraging teachers to use creativity in their classrooms, despite the focus on tests and accountability. “Because research proves students impassioned about their studies achieve at a higher level than those who are disengaged, teachers feel they have permission to differentiate creatively, to implement practices their colleagues share at Confratute.”

The future of Confratute
In the coming years, Confratute’s organizers look forward to expanding its reach. With travel becoming a difficult expense for some schools, Confratute replications, such as Montana’s Edufest, will help spread educational best practices further. The organizers also look forward to offering webinars featuring their most accomplished presenters. “The overall goal,” said Reis, “is to continue this trend of empowering teachers to make curricular decisions using differentiated, personalized instruction.” By developing capabilities to personalize instruction for all students based on interests, aptitude, and learning style, educators will continue to benefit from the ability to provide deep differentiation, characterized by application of knowledge as well as skills mastery. “What we can do for our students is only going to become richer,” enthused Reis. “The possibilities are an ever-expanding horizon. This is a good time to be passionate about education!”

The Road to Confratute: An Attendees’-Eye View

In just a couple of weeks, hundreds of educators will converge on the University of Connecticut at Storrs for the 34th annual Confratute. From different areas of the country — and from different countries — attendees have different specialties and different goals. But one thing they all have in common is a desire to learn more and enrich their own teaching with that newfound knowledge.

My mission to begin learning how to teach gifted students was realized during my first visit. Not only did I learn about ways to challenge students, I was able to get to the heart of my beliefs about teaching and learning and formulate my personal philosophy. This has served me well as I build defensible programs and activities for all levels and ages of learners. I also found like-minded people, which was quite refreshing and motivating.

I am thrilled to be attending again.

— Nancy Fuhrman
Downingtown Area School District
Supervisor of Professional Learning

Discovering Confratute

With three and a half decades of success behind it, Confratute is a renowned fixture in the gifted and talented education world. Many educators know Confratute by its reputation as a “premiere gifted and talented conference,” in the words of Lauri Kirsch, Hillsborough (Florida) School District’s gifted and talented coordinator, who will return for her fifth Confratute this July.

Other attendees discover the conference as they search for ways to serve their gifted and talented students. In the 1990s, returning attendee and Downingtown (Pennsylvania) Area School District Supervisor of Professional Learning Nancy Fuhrman learned about Confratute after being tasked with teaching gifted students. After completing a Master’s Degree program in Gifted Education, she says, “I came upon a description of Confratute and decided this was something I had to attend.” More recently, first-time attendee and kindergarten gifted and talented teacher Jacqueline Ronald looked into Confratute after becoming familiar with Renzulli Learning and decided almost immediately that she wanted to be a part of the conference.

It truly is a community for learners in gifted education.

— Lauri Kirsch
Hillsborough School District
Gifted and Talented Coordinator

Excitement, expectations, and anticipation

People enter their first Confratute full of expectations and questions, eager to experience firsthand what they’ve only known anecdotally. Jacqueline is looking forward to extending her knowledge of gifted and talented teaching. “I’m going to be back in the classroom, learning with people from around the world, at a university. The prospect is exciting!” She expects that associating with so many educators with similar interests will make it a memorable week, saying, “I’m most looking forward to getting a better understanding of the history and direction of gifted and talented education just by speaking informally with people and going to strands… learning from other teachers.”

The enthusiasm is even stronger for those who are returning to Confratute. As part of her district’s ongoing support of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM), Lauri Kirsch will participate in the conference with a team of teachers. She also will present a strand on her district’s integration of SEM with school-wide technology for summer school. “Each year we’ve gone,” she says, “we’ve had a different learning goal. We’ve concentrated on up-leveling our use of Renzulli Learning, returning to school with research strategies, integrating technology and Sandra Kaplan’s Depth and Complexity.” Lauri also looks forward to the environment in which Confratute is held. “You have the chance to confer directly with the people writing the books and papers that are changing education. You spend 24 hours a day with your team, and you have the time to do the in-depth thinking and planning required to implement what you’re learning at Confratute. That’s a lot different from other conferences.” And why she and her teams keep returning? “It’s made a huge difference across the curriculum, including and moving beyond Renzulli Learning.”

I’m really interested to meet other people also in this realm of work from around the world. I expect to learn much from their different viewpoints and experiences.

—Jacqueline Ronald
Pre K– 2 Classroom Teacher
X005 PS 5, NYC District 7

Nancy Furhman looks forward to re-charging, professionally and inspirationally, at this year’s conference. The takeaways she and 17 others from her district in Pennsylvania will garner will guide them as they broaden their Renzulli Learning implementation. “Everyone is excited” about planning a rollout of Renzulli Learning, which will expand from the four schools that piloted it in 2010–2011 to ten elementary schools and two middle schools — nearly all of the district’s 15 total facilities — in 2011–2012. After dedicating a great deal of time and effort into the implementation, Nancy is enthusiastic about how she expects Confratute will invigorate teachers and influence the districts upcoming professional development.

However they found it, for whatever reasons they’re attending, and whatever they hope to take away from it, Confratute is sparking excitement across the country. Watch for next month’s Connections newsletter for conference highlights!

Renzulli Learning Continues to Improve Its Offerings with New Features and Enhancements for Students, Teachers, and Administrators

Tireless attention to the details — and to improving them — is an attribute Renzulli Learning’s developers are proud to cultivate. That type of devotion is especially apparent in the latest release of Renzulli Learning. On July 6 of this year, Renzulli Learning’s latest upgrade went live, with new features and enhancements that continue to make it a dynamic, relevant educational tool that is revolutionizing education and making differentiation easy.

Resource expansion
All Renzulli Learning content is aligned to the K–12 Common Core standards for mathematics and English language arts. Furthermore, the latest Renzulli Learning release includes an expanded portfolio of high school Enrichment Activities specifically designed to support the new standards’ increased rigor. Renzulli is now also aligned to several additional AP courses within the Differentiation Engine and its Top-Rated Student Activities List has helped the company expand its offerings tremendously at the high school level.

Renzulli Learning users also may notice the enhanced Literature Connections portion of the product found under the Differentiation Engine. More than 100 new titles and a dramatically wider range of book-related resources give students an even broader view of the world through words.

Administrative enhancements
Changes to Renzulli Learning’s product are designed to benefit adult users as well as students. Improved reporting in the latest version allows users to specify reporting ranges for school and user utilization reports by their current school year instead of the original date of purchase. This enables administrators to focus exclusively on the current academic year, which means information is as current and relevant as possible.

Another improvement for administrators is streamlined mass registration. This feature, which makes it possible for administrators to register an entire student population at one time, removes registration responsibility from students. It additionally enables students to start using Renzulli Learning more quickly than ever before.

Improved ease of use
With the introduction of foldering capabilities under teacher Favorites, teachers can organize the Enrichment Activities they use the most, streamlining content for quick, easy access. Teachers now can organize their favorite Enrichment Activities by criteria including class periods, subject matter, and unit topics.

Additionally, teachers can now use the dynamic links found under Top-Rated Student Activities to share content with students and other teachers easily and quickly. When teachers find new Enrichment Activities that they enjoy and want to use to provide direct instruction for their students, they can create assignments on the fly from this page. Teachers also can search for additional activities by selecting grade level, title, and topic (including Advanced Placement-related activities and alignments) from new dynamic drop downs offered on this page. This improvement means educators no longer have to contend with manipulating pdf files and expired links.

Finally, the Differentiation Engine has been updated to enable teachers to access and edit the end date of their previous lessons. Now teachers also are able to reassign a lesson to students, even after the original lesson has expired. Without the need to recreate old lessons from scratch, a teachers lesson-planning process becomes simpler and quicker.

Interested in learning more about what’s happening in Renzulli Learning? Let us know!

Twenty-First Century Excellence Inspired by Fifteenth-Century Genius: The Da Vinci Academy

Of the notable 21st century corporate innovators, Google is certainly one of the most celebrated. Its Innovation Time Off policy grants each employee one work day per week to pursue individual projects that are not necessarily in their job descriptions. Through the years, these innovations have resulted in half of Google’s new products, including Gmail and Google news. Imagine taking that approach in education. One district, Hall County Schools in Gainesville, Georgia, adopted a similar practice in the spring of 2009 when faced with the challenge of increasing educational rigor and meeting the needs of highly motivated students while trimming budgets. Three teachers collaborated on an idea for a school that would offer a completely integrated curriculum, a deeply personalized educational experience based on the arts and sciences, after the world-changing innovations of Leonardo da Vinci.

The Da Vinci Academy (DVA) follows a parallel curriculum model, which combines the following elements:

• Core — Opportunities to learn the core knowledge (enduring facts, concepts, principles, and skills) within a discipline
• Connections — Opportunities to learn about the numerous relations that exist across topics, disciplines, events, time, and cultures
• Practice — Opportunities to transfer and apply knowledge using the tools and methods of the scholar, researcher, and practitioner
• Identity — Opportunities for students to learn about their strengths and affinities within and across disciplines and core knowledge in a discipline

Though it was initially a plan for high school students, Hall County educators, at the recommendation of Superintendent Will Schofield, adapted the model as a school of choice for middle school students and tied it to the district’s South Hall Middle School. Dr. Sally Krisel, Director of Innovative and Advanced Programs in the district, remarked that the decision to offer the program to middle schoolers was informed by the need to empower learners at a critical time. “At that age, they’re at the Rubicon of education. As an educator, you have the opportunity to keep that enthusiasm for learning, the spark in their eyes, alive. Or you can see the mist descend over them. Some kids will dutifully continue to be students, but others you can lose,” she explains. “We think they have every right to ask, ‘What’s this have to do with me?’ regarding what they learn in school.”

If you build it…
Dr. Krisel says that, since its conception, the idea of the school has been a catalyst for tremendous accomplishment, of all sorts. Within weeks of the idea’s acceptance, educators set aside an unused school building to house the academy. During the summer of 2009, educators, parents, and students, and community members renovated the building for students to use in the fall. Volunteers worked diligently to gut portions of the structure, rebuild it, repair the floors, and repaint the walls. One parent remarked that her child wouldn’t even pick up his room, but he was working nonstop, without air conditioning in the Georgia summer, to prepare his school. “That’s what I mean by ownership,” says a proud Dr. Krisel.

All students master English language arts standards. But one group might practice writing standards when they compose a report to be submitted to the E.P.A. about a stream study they have completed; another group may demonstrate mastery of the same standards when they create brochures on works of art.

Student-designed gardens that feature both sculptures and planting areas might be used to teach science, math, art and social studies concepts.

— From the DVA website

To keep costs to a minimum, DVA founders made some unconventional choices. Bagged lunches have replaced cafeteria fare. Teachers and students share responsibility for cleaning up after themselves and monitoring their behavior, rather than employing custodians and police. And you won’t find a textbook at DVA: All students use their own purchased or leased laptops and cloud computing to access educational materials. Dr. Krisel says educators use online resources, including Renzulli Learning, to tailor learning to students’ individual learning styles and interests.

Strong parental support is vital to the success of the academy. Parents must commit to at least 20 volunteer hours per year, and they must transport their children to and from school, if they live outside the South Hall Middle School zone. The academy also encourages parents’ active participation in their children’s learning, through at-home support as well as by maintaining involvement in the academy’s activities.

Parents, community members, and students from other schools can see the culmination of many students’ project-based learning efforts in the Academy’s Museum of Inspired Learning. Once students contribute to the installation, they act as docents, explaining their discoveries to visitors. In this way, the Academy fosters pride and ownership, as well as ensures student learning expands beyond the classroom, imbuing schoolwork with real-world relevance. Dr. Krisel notes that local elementary school educators have left the museum vowing to change their own schools in order to prepare their students for DVA.

For compliance with state requirements, the school’s instructors take Georgia standards and, rather than construct their curriculum to fit the standards, they take the standards apart and reconstruct them like a “quilt” to fit the Academy’s curriculum. Dr. Krisel felt her focus may have seemed a bit compromised throughout the first year of the academy, going from classroom to classroom, excited about the learning she saw but ever-vigilant to ensure the students would be able to perform well on the state’s assessment at year’s end. Using formative assessment through the year ensured that there were no surprises when the students took Georgia’s assessment. In the school’s first year, there were only three students who did not meet or exceed state standards on all portions of the test. In the past year, all students met or exceeded standards on all portions of the test. “Now,” says Krisel, “adequacy is not really a concern, since the curriculum obviously instills the required knowledge effectively.”

Dr. Krisel notes that, while DVA doesn’t mirror the ethnic makeup of the district exactly, it comes very close. From the beginning, the Academy’s founders decided against employing quotas. However, outreach to the district’s large Hispanic community is strong, with a concerted effort to maintain close community ties with bilingual English and Spanish communication. “The Museum acts as a powerful ambassador to the communities,” notes Dr. Krisel. “It demonstrates to all parents what could be available for their kids, what their children are capable of accomplishing.”

…They will come
In DVA’s first year, six multitalented teachers and 120 eager students piloted the program. For the 2010–2011 school year, four more teachers joined the staff, the school expanded its adjunct faculty, and 200 students attended. In 2011–2012, Dr. Krisel says, 240 students will attend DVA. “In the interests of providing the best personalization, we really need to keep a smaller enrollment. This is one reason I’m hoping to have more replications of this model in our area. It’s created so much interest and excitement, and we want to be able to accommodate all students who would benefit from this approach,” she says.

Educators choose students for DVA based on a blind application process that culminates in a blind, in-person session in which children attend the Academy and complete three activities. “This final step shows us the student’s motivation and passion for the work,” explains Dr. Krisel.

With DVA acting as its own “catalytic converter” as it generates more and more positive energy, attracting interest of educators throughout Georgia and across the country, Hall County already is extending the DVA model in the district. This year, three high school programs will ensure DVA graduates are able to continue their education in the way to which they have become accustomed. “It would absolutely break my heart to have to put our graduates back into a traditional program,” explained Dr. Krisel. More middle school programs for students passionate about other subjects, such as literature and the performing arts, are under consideration, as well. “The model is extremely replicable,” says Dr. Krisel. “I hope it does spread.”

Dr. Krisel and her colleagues are doing what they can to share their methods with others. DVA hosts educators from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Alabama. Educators take the Academy’s best practices on the road, to events such as Confratute and the National Association for Gifted Children educational conference.

Learn more about how your school can provide deeper personalization, relevance, and engagement for your students.