Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

Are you looking for a way to transform teaching and learning? Would like to capture the imagination and attention of your children in your classroom or those in your home? Then you might want to explore how mobile technology solutions can meet the learning needs of today’s diverse student population.

That’s exactly what happened to me when I collaborated to write a grant for Palm IIIc handheld computers in 2001. I used these mobile computers in my classroom for three years and also utilized the school’s AlphaSmarts, portable laptop alternatives, for four years. It was amazing to see how many of my students approached learning in a more engaged manner when they were offered the options of mobile technology tools like the Palms and the AlphaSmarts and could get away from paper and pencil and even the desktop computers.

Now seven years later, students are even more experienced and at home with mobile devices than they were when I used mobile computers with my third graders. With the number of phones and iPods now becoming more commonplace possessions among younger students, mobile computers offer the promise of transforming our schools in ways we could not have dreamed possible when most of us were in college.

Just like the OLPC initiative, mobile computers are designed to create a new learning environment and not just function as an additional tool in the classroom. In this new learning environment, the focus is on the individual student constructing his/her own knowledge. By utilizing specially designed software, teachers are able to “mobilize” the curriculum and move students away from paper and pencil.

Many of the software applications available today for mobile computers have been developed at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor at the Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education (HI-CE) under the direction of Dr. Elliot Soloway, an Arthur F. Thurnau professor in three departments at Michigan and a leader in the field of mobile computers. He and Dr. Cathleen Norris, Regents Professor at University of North Texas co-founded GoKnow, Inc which provides mobile computer software and professional development training for teachers and administrators.

To listen to Dr. Soloway and see these mobile computers in action, check out the link from YouTube, Mobile Computers in the Classroom, listed in the blogroll on the right. I encourage you to visit the website of GoKnow, Inc., which is also listed in the blogroll. There is no doubt in my mind that you will be just as captivated about the possibilities for mobile computers in the classroom as I was. Let me know what you think and if you are using them right now in your school.

Ever since I learned about the One Laptop Per Child organization, whose ambitious goal is to provide 150 million children around the world with inexpensive laptops by the end of this year, I have been totally captivated by the vision and the implication of what this would mean in terms of transforming the current education model.

Imagine what might happen if we empower all children, their families and teachers in the poorest of nations and the poorest of counties in the United States with the ability to learn 24/7?

What if we could actually remove the obstacles and barriers that block learning and create a learning environment and community that celebrates the universal human right of education? What might happen if we provided children with an environment that supported learning and developed creativity for the entire family?

This is what OLPC is really all about and what makes it such an exciting initiative. My excitement has continued to grow over these past three years for OLPC, especially since I recently attended the 2008 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education Conference that was held in Las Vegas just a few weeks ago from March 3rd through the 7th.

At the closing session on March 7th, we were privileged to hear Antonio Battro, current Chief Education Officer of OLPC cast a vision of allowing children, as young as four years old, to own a durable, low-cost laptop that comes with 100 e-books loaded on it, a digital still and video camera and built-in capability to connect with a local server and the Internet and collaborate on projects and share knowledge with their peers from their school and with children all around the world.

Battro, from Argentina, talked about his OLPC conversations around the world with heads of state and kings and indicated that there are now 50 countries involved in some phase of exploring or implementing the use of the OLPC laptop. He emphasized that the OLPC initiative is not about giving children a technology tool but about the creation of a learning community where education is everywhere, available to everyone. To Battro, education is as basic to improving the human condition as is fresh water and food and must be provided at the same time.

If you’d like to learn more about OLPC and get involved and support this effort, please check out the links in the blogroll to the right. I hope you’ll be just as captivated as I am with how creating a learning environment with this simple technology tool can be a revolutionary agent of change in the lives of so many children and families around the world.

If you’re like me, you might be relatively new to the world of social networking. I’m hoping that getting involved with these networks will expand both my knowledge and ability to share what I’ve learned about helping children reach their learning potential.

While I don’t have a Facebook or MySpace profile yet, I did learn over a week ago that a link to this blog was featured on the Ning, Our Gifted Online Conferences: A Gathering Place for All Things Gifted.

The day after I first saw a link to my blog on this Ning, I attended the IL-TCE Conference on February 28th in St. Charles and learned that there are around 170,000 Nings (social networking sites focused on a single interest). I also learned that the number of Nings is growing daily and that Nings are quite easy to create. If you’re interested in creating your own education related Ning, I’ve included a link in the Blogroll on the right that will help you get started.

Joining Our Gifted Online Conferences, http://giftedonlineconferences.ning.com/, will let you get involved in an active online gifted community where you can share resources and information on many aspects of giftedness. If you’d like to get connected with other parents and teachers who are interested in “all things gifted,” this looks like a great place to start.

Please let us know about other Nings that might be of interest to teachers and parents – I’ll list these in the Blogroll. Thank you!

Getting involved in social networking can be a powerful tool for parents and teachers. I’m looking forward to learning more about how these networks can help us all work together to discover and nurture the gifts in every child.

I just spent two days at the annual Illinois Computing Educator’s technology conference in St. Charles and came back with so many new ideas that I’ll be blogging about in the next few weeks. This conference is a great local one for teachers and parents would learn quite a bit, too! It’s important to keep up with all the technology that our children are becoming so competent with manipulating and attending this conference is a great way to keep current: http://www.iceberg.org/page.php?pid=10

The first new technology tool I wanted to share with you is Scratch, a software tool from MIT and released last spring. Michael Resnick, from MIT, gave the IL-TCE conference attendees a look at the potential for this software to develop creativity in children. It’s an awesome tool that you’ll want to check out: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/resnick-scratch.html

I also learned more about social networking and it’s implication for teachers and parents – more about that in my next post.

What strategy has the most potential to transform classroom practices and improve teaching and learning and develop creativity here in the United States and around the ever-increasing “flat world” of today?

That’s a question parents and educators all over the world have been debating over the past few years. If you were to answer this question, which of these strategies would you choose?

1. After-school tutoring – requiring students to receive extra help
2. School choice – allowing parents to transfer their children to a school that has met its annual testing goals
3. School restructuring – hiring a new staff in schools where a certain percentage of students fail over several years to meet test standards in math and reading
4. Professional development for teachers in educational technology – training in the effective integration of technology tools to provide students access and acceleration of the curriculum and active, engaged learning opportunities

Certainly each of these strategies has its merits. The first three represent components of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) “toolkit” here in the United States. However, the last answer, professional development for teachers in educational technology, is included in the provisions of NCLB and might have the most impact on actually bringing about the much needed changes in our educational system here. It also might hold the key to transforming education in general around the world.

In some of our classrooms here and abroad, there is an emphasis on the use of conventional paper and pencil/scripted teaching strategies with a focus on worksheets and yearly testing results. While this traditional and time-honored approach of paper and pencil might work with a limited number of students, it is not the answer for all students. In fact, this approach is often a barrier to both the access to and acceleration of learning for many of our students with learning differences.

Research has shown that for students who are still working on mastering the basic skills and those students who are reading, writing and thinking several grade levels beyond their peers, technology tools can provide both access and acceleration of the curriculum that conventional methods often fail to provide.

These tools represent digital diversity and were described by Grace Rubenstein in her 2006 Edutopia article, “What’s Next: Our Look at the New (School) Year.” She talked about “universally designed technology” that is designed to meet the needs of all students and allow teachers to have the instructional flexibility to focus on student strengths.

I strongly believe, as do many of my colleagues, that helping teachers understand the need for instructional flexibility, provided by the use of digital diversity, is key to improving teaching around the world. It is also essential to improving learning and developing creativity among our students who are communicating, collaborating and competing in a new world, a “flat world,” as Thomas Friedman has written about in his book, The World Is Flat.

If you agree with this need for a focus on professional development in educational technology for teachers, then there is something that you can do. If you live here in the U.S., you can contact the U. S. House Committee on Education and Labor, listed in the blogroll on the right, and let them know what you think so they can incorporate your feedback into changes to NCLB, which is still in committee and up for reauthorization either before or after the 2008 fall election. Tell them that you feel that a continued high-stakes testing focus, a reduction in time spent on science, social studies, P.E. and the arts and the punishment of a growing number of schools for “failing” is not helping our students or our teachers.

Let the Committee on Education and Labor know that all this testing and narrow subject focus is draining the joy and enthusiasm for learning and teaching from our students and our teachers and gradually breaking their connection with each other. Tell the Committee on Education and Labor that it would be wiser to provide an increased focus on needed professional development in educational technology. With this focus, teachers would then be more equipped to transform their classroom practices and create a more playful, relaxed and engaging learning environment that would truly meet the needs of a diverse student population.

If we all speak up and let our voices be heard, I am confident that we can help our schools transform classroom practices to improve teaching and learning. With digital diversity in place and teachers adequately trained to integrate technology tools, our students will be ready to become productive and creative citizens in our “flat world” and have an equal opportunity to compete on a level playing field in a global economy.

Looking for some truly effective teaching strategies for the classroom and at home? I’ve discovered that you don’t have to go far to find a wealth of material. By asking the teacher down the hall, a fellow educator at a conference or one of your carpool parents you will be amazed at what you can learn. Here are two of my own stories that might provide you with some tips on what works in the classroom and at home.

Finding My Instructional (and Parenting) Flexibility
When I decided that all my gifted students should be able to write easily and love writing because they were gifted, I was in for a rude awakening. Every year I was confronted with a few of the gifted students in my class who either had no confidence in their writing abilities or were such perfectionists that they seemed to get stuck during some phase of the writing process. It wasn’t until I allowed my students to give me more direction regarding their writing learning styles and I gave them more writing options that I truly learned the magic of instructional flexibility. Doug Kutner, a noted Portland, Oregon psychologist who specializes in helping gifted children and adolescents, was truly instrumental in providing me with a fundamental basis for the rationale behind the need for flexibility, especially with teaching writing. What he has to say about children and writing will provide useful insights that will be helpful to both teachers and parents: http://dougkutner.com/pub_toc.htm. Thanks to the lessons I learned from listening to the children and the wisdom of the researchers, I found my instructional flexibility and began to better meet the needs of all my students.

Learning How to Cultivate a Playful Environment and Use My Sense of Humor
Life, if you think about it, is sometimes a laughing matter. Our plans, so carefully laid, don’t always turn out the way we hope. Lessons we develop for our classroom don’t always go they way they should. As parents, we don’t always get the cooperation or respect we expect from our children. In all these examples, one thing we can retain and control is our sense of humor. I learned in working with gifted children and their families that having a sense of humor was key to survival as a teacher. Humor reduced my stress level, built relationships with children and parents and developed creativity and problem solving skills in my students. Finding, developing and utilizing my sense of humor came as a result of personal reflection and investigation of some helpful humor resources such as the Humor Project, http://www.humorproject.com/ and Diane Looman’s, http://www.dianaloomans.com/, wonderful book, The Laughing Classroom. Once I tapped into my sense of humor, I was able to transform myself as a teacher and later as a parent and spouse in ways I could never have dreamed possible.

I am confident that each of you reading blog post has a story or two to tell of what works in your classroom or home. Please consider taking the time to share your story so we all can learn from each other. Thank you!:)

Have you ever wondered what is the best way to help your child succeed in school? Do you think that high-stakes testing is really the answer to student success? These are important questions that legislators, educational researchers, parents and teachers alike are asking more frequently these days.

Despite the focus of the NCLB legislation on testing, remediation and addressing the perceived weaknesses of students, more and more practitioners in the field of education are looking for new strategies to help children succeed. These teachers are doing what could be considered a “best practice” in education because it truly works: teaching to student strengths as the answer to promoting learning success and raising achievement test scores.

Teaching through a child’s strengths is actually the best way to help a child improve in all areas of the curriculum, including math and reading. Like all students, twice-exceptional students, those identified as gifted and having a learning difference or difficulty, truly benefit from strength-based instruction. The Twice-Exceptional Dilemma, listed in the blogroll, provides an abundance of resources to help teachers and parents to implement these strength-based strategies

Dr. Thomas Armstrong, author of the 2002 The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing, states in his book that “we need to pay much more attention to the neglected intelligences, especially those such as spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical and naturalist, that may be particular strengths of individuals who have had special difficulties in successfully making their way through our heavily linguistic schools.”

Marcus Buckingham, author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work, points out the dramatic increases in engagement and productivity when individuals in the workplace play to their strengths every day. Such engagement and productivity could be seen in Wilbur and Orville Wright.

According to an article in the most recent EPS catalogue (epsbooks.com), these two talented brothers had a hard time sitting still and concentrating, struggled to keep up with their lessons and were always at work on their inventions. Their mother “encouraged discovery” and their thinking and understanding of mechanics. Their father bought them a toy helicopter and as a result the two brothers decided to build an airplane. Despite their lack of high school education, they both possessed an incredible ability to “visualize a mechanical device, take it apart and put it together, and transfer working parts from other machines – without a single tool.”

This ability to “visualize a mechanical device” certainly isn’t a skill we could test today with NCLB, but it is a skill that has changed the world. So let’s encourage our children and their passions, strengths and gifts because we never know which of their strengths will lead to a pathway of success – just like the Wright brothers – and change our world.

As a classroom teacher, one of the greatest lessons I learned was the importance of utilizing instructional flexibility to ensure that my students had access to or acceleration of the curriculum. This flexibility developed when I realized that I had some fixed assumptions and generalizations in my mind about how students learn and that these assumptions could not be fairly applied to every child and every learning situation.

When I humbly came to the conclusion that it was important that I truly listen very closely to my students and to their parents, a whole new world began to open to me. I began to see that there were so many different ways to approach teaching and learning.

Fortunately, this all came at a time when the instructional strategy of differentiation was being promoted at the private school where I was teaching. By delving deeper into the rationale supporting differentiation, I learned so much that would be beneficial for parents to know and would allow them to play a more active part in their child’s education.

Here are a few tips that will help remove classroom barriers to student learning and will promote educational equity.

1. Understand the uniqueness and potential of your child.
2. Accept the necessity of optimistic and persistent thinking.
3. Employ the power of humor to make a positive difference and connect you to others.
4. Read and absorb the Twice-Exceptional Dilemma if you suspect that your child is both gifted and has learning differences or difficulties.
5. Start talking with your child to find out more about his/her learning styles and interests and communicate this information to his/her teacher and administrators.
6. Read anything by Mel Levine and Thomas Armstrong and learn more about differentiation in the classroom. Be sure to check out All Kinds of Minds on the Blogroll for more on Mel Levine.

I’d love to hear any other ideas that you might have regarding this, so please let me know what additional tips you would offer to parents that would help remove the barriers to learning and promote a true environment of educational equity.

Friday, January 25th, our daughter, Katie, turned 26. Happy Birthday, Katie! As we were talking on Friday, she commented on how she has always loved her birthday because it’s been our family tradition of making each person’s birthday a day of recognition and celebration, complete with cake and candles, a specially prepared dinner and presents to open.

Knowing how much each of us enjoy the recognition and celebration of our birthday has helped me realize the importance and power of celebrating, every day, the strengths and gifts of each child as we accept and celebrate their differences. Here are just a few of my reasons to accept and celebrate every child’s learning differences:

1. Accepting and celebrating differences respects and honors the individual learner. It demonstrates an important understanding that all children learn differently and benefit enormously when teachers differentiate the instruction to provide access to and acceleration of the curriculum to meet the diversity of student needs.

To read more about all the different ways our brains are wired and why we all learn differently, check out Mel Levine’s website, All Kinds of Minds. It’s listed my Blogroll. You’ll also want to read his phenomenally helpful book, A Mind At a Time.

If you want to learn more about differentiation, click on the link in the Blogroll.

2. Accepting and celebrating differences is an acknowledgement of the truth that not all students learn best from a logical-mathematical perspective. This limited logical-mathematical perspective is one of the main criticisms of the high stakes testing children are subjected to these days. If we truly want to leave no child behind, we are going to have to honor all the ways children best demonstrate what they have learned.

Howard Gardner, in Frames of Mind, identified the theory of multiple intelligences over 25 years ago and paved the way to accept learning differences. You can read about Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences by checking on the link in the Blogroll

3. Accepting and celebrating differences in our children is really all about affirming and loving our children as unique individuals who all have strengths and gifts.

Just as we celebrate our child on his or her birthday, now is the time to truly accept and celebrate the differences in all of our children and expect our child’s teachers to do the same in the classroom.

What are your reasons for accepting and celebrating your child’s differences? I’d like to hear from you!

Late this summer, my husband and I had a chance to visit Alaska and fell in love with this unique state where at times you have a feeling that you’ve stepped into another country. One of our favorite side trips during our two-week stay was a visit to a coastal temperate rainforest, one of the few left in the world (http://www.akrain.org/).

As we hiked along the trail, we were amazed at the diversity of the plants, insects and animals. Thanks to our knowledgeable and witty guide, we truly gained an appreciation of how every plant and animal plays a vital role in the life of the mystical and incredibly lush green rainforest we visited.

It is this same appreciation for the diversity of our learners in our homes and classrooms that Thomas Armstrong, a psychologist and author, www.thomasarmstrong.com, has written about in many of his books and articles. In one of his articles posted on New Horizons for Learning, www.newhorizons.org, Armstrong talks about the concept of neurodiversity, a concept that states that “atypical neurological wiring is part of the normal spectrum of human differences and is to be tolerated and respected like any other human difference such as race, gender, sexual preference, or cultural background:”
http://www.newhorizons.org/spneeds/inclusion/information/armstrong.htm.

Certainly all of us have been educated to be more sensitive to the outward signs of diversity all around us in our community, schools and workplace. Yet, it is only when we recognize that diversity in learners is so much broader and deeper than traditional differences that we will be able to effectively help our children and students reach their true learning potential.