My ideal GnT classroom is a fun, and fast paced class. Our GnT class is really fun but sometimes it is long and we spend too much time on one thing. My ideal classroom would be full of technology. We would have iPads, chromebooks, phones (for research), etc. It would increase our knowledge even more if we get to use technology in our classes. It could help us prepare for the PARCC and other computer-based tests. Computers will make learning a lot easier. Getting to sources will be faster. Things could also be done faster. Instead of searching for a piece of paper in a file cabinet, we could easily find a website on the internet. Using the technology can make classes really simple. Another benefit is that using technology, we could save work. It won't be lost and it could be saved into google. Google drive can even be accessed from home. If we don't get to finish some work from class, we have the option to be able to finish it at home. This can help out students who really take time on things. I do that on some worksheets and I don't get to finish. My science class started using chromebooks for a lot of work. I'm glad they did because now, if I don't have time to finish it in class, I have the ability to try to finish up the work when I get home. Technology in class will also help us prepare for the future. The future of humans looks like it will be totally based on new inventions and technological advancements.
The second part of my ideal classroom is speed. Sometimes, my classes get repetitive and boring. No one wants to be in a boring classroom where you do barely anything. I want to be able to breeze through shorter topics. We should go fast but at the same time, I also want it to be thorough. If we go too fast, sometimes we won't be able to understand what is going on. For example, our honors classes go fast. It helps the students who are faster than normal have a good class.
Last but not least, my ideal GnT class would have a lot of fun trips. We don't really have any GnT trips right now. It's basically just symposium. I want to have some class trips. If we are researching about art and famous people, we could go to a museum. Trips would give the class more depth. Trips could make classes more fun. I definitely love class trips. No matter what subject, they help the class have more meaning. Trips give us background information too. We aren't just learning from our regular teachers, we get information from other people as well.
So basically, the tree parts of my ideal classroom are technology, fast pace and last but not least, class trips. Technology will help us prepare for the future. It will also get us ready for the PARCC and it will make class easy and quick. Getting to out work will also get easier. Next, a fast pace will help reduce repetitiveness and boredom. Having a fast moving class will help us get through more things in less time. Last, I want to have more class trips. This will increase the depth of the class. the course will also be more fun in general. These are my 3 essentials for my ideal GnT classroom.
Snehil Agrawal Our current G&T classroom is wonderful, but not my version of an ideal classroom. A few changes can be made here and there, including time and the curriculum. On top of my list is time. Or, to be more specific, the amount of time. We always need time, but never have enough of it. This is especially true in G&T. Attempting to teach an entire week’s lesson in under 90 minutes, along with notes, presentations, and tests can be a monstrous challenge. Adding to that absent days, assemblies, early exits, and sick teachers turns 90-minute weekly classes into 75-minute cram sessions. The notes have to be rushed, so students can’t remember any vital information. Then, presentations have to be squeezed in, resulting in below par presenters who have to meet all the guidelines within an inadequate time limit. This leads to stuttering, mumbled words, and equally lower grades. Finally, any tests or other assessments become entangled. For example, having to take 45-minute tests in 20 minutes will, as I have previously stated, decrease grades. A simple solution to all these issues would be to add a second day (such as Tuesday) to the IMS G&T Enrichment schedule. What needs to be done in 1 day can now be easily achieved in 2. Presentations can be twice as long so presenters can show their true potential. Notes and discussions can be easily planned out so students can be immersed in new knowledge and truly understand it. Tests can be taken at a student’s pace, not at the clock’s pace, almost ensuring higher grades. Dissenters may argue “That can’t be done! No one else does that!”, but I beg to differ. For example, I know as a fact that both the AMS Enrichment program and PEG have a two-day schedule. I understand this may arise conflict within a 5-day school week, but if we are truly determined to succeed, anything is possible. The next objective in my ideal G&T classroom would be to change the curriculum for 8th grade. As of now, the eighth graders have to create presentations on topics of their choice to sixth and seventh graders. This is a wonderful idea, don’t get me wrong. People presenting information on topics they love is magnificent! But it does have a few issues however. First of all, choosing what topic to present can be pretty stressful. What topic should I chose? Is it interesting? Is there more information on my topic? Has anyone used this topic within the last two years? With all these criteria roaming around in anyone’s head, choosing a topic itself is difficult! Secondly, choosing a group is also befuddling. After you painstaking pick people, you have to work with them for 6 months! Any issues and arguments have to be dealt with or else your group will collapse. Also, after writing about the same topic over and over again, the creative spark fizzes out. You lose interest and focus, and your work begins to atrophy. A solution to these challenges would be to simply break up the projects. I would divide the school year into 3-4 “units”, such as forensics and anthropology. Every unit would have 1 major project. This would be a win-win for both the teacher and the students. Students still do major projects, at the same time will be able to maintain momentum, and stay focused. Another tangible benefit will be that students can get an opportunity to acquire a wider plethora of knowledge, rather than restrict themselves to only one or two topics. Critics may challenge this idea with the fact that it is impossible to do multiple projects with the same scope as one that people have worked on for ½ a year, and I agree. Instead, each unit would be an introduction that students can later pursue in finer detail. This curriculum would be my ideal one because students would be immersed into more topics and still do the required work needed by the teacher.
If you could express what you think your ideal G&T classroom would look like, who wouldn’t say something like pizza parties every day, or nap time for the entire block? What about 90 minutes of talk to your friends time? Maybe even go home for the period!
Well, I doubt that anyone would truly want any of these imaginary luxuries during G&T. After all, wouldn’t you be a little lost if you took the G&T test for nothing?
The whole reason that we are in G&T is that we probably have the skills to achieve a higher level of education, be challenged, and push our limits even higher. And many goals of the G&T program are to help students with problem solving, developing logic, speaking and presentation skills, invoke curiosity, encourage creativity.
So I think that my ideal classroom setting for G&T would be about 85% work, and 15% fun time. And if that work and fun time is alternated during the classes, it will keep the students excited and interested. I have a few ideas on what could be considered as part of the G&T enrichment class. We could do more logic problems like brainteasers, riddles, and Sudoku puzzles. We could add vocabulary games to help 8thgraders build their vocabulary.
To make the class time interactive and interesting, I also think we could increase the range of themes, topics, subjects, projects are selected from. Subjects like science, architecture or even cooking. We could also do scale drawings, designing or discussion of possibly NY city buildings or famous historic monuments. In science, research papers could be written, cool experiments could be researched, predictions made, discussed with fellow G&T students but not implemented since it is not a science lab or room. Science experiments, cooking videos, history videos are entertaining and educational which will keep the class time interesting and keep the students awake.
Current events, newspaper articles are a good way to build vocabulary and discussion topics that will let us stay awake in class. I really think that the most fun classroom activities are in which you play a fun learning game. Debates are very interesting and a great learning tool. Almost everyday in Mr. Andrew’s world history class, we do history related debates. The debates are really fun, and it is a good way to develop speaking skills and confidence of talking in front of the class.
Could some field trips sometimes to science museums, historic destinations be done as part of G&T enrichment?
I know that we will be presenting our convocations in class, but I think that holding debates on different topics would be a good activity after we are done with the convocation presentations.
Although I have such ideas of an ideal classroom, I realize it is a hard thing to achieve. But in this year, if we could do any of the cool topics and fun things in the classroom, we will be one step closer to achieving some of the G&T goals and getting me “My Ideal G&T classroom”.
My idea of the ideal G&T Enrichment classroom would first of all not involve any "mega-projects", or projects that require a lot of work that would take at least a few months to complete. I'm not trying to complain, as I do know that for these projects, we have ample time to complete them. However, the reason I'm saying that I'm not a fan of these projects is because there's so many other projects and homework that we have to do, and although we do get class time to work on them, it's sometimes very hard to get all of the work done. It takes me anywhere from an hour and a half to six hours to complete my homework each day (depending on how distracted I get while I'm doing it), but even if I don't get distracted, it takes me at least twice or thrice the time to do my homework in comparison to my peers. This leaves me almost no time to focus on my other goals, such as doing my music practice (which my Indian classical teacher wants me to do for at least two hours every day alone), And even less time for me to have fun and spend time with my family. Above all though, it gets to be the worst when I suffer an arm fracture, such as the one that I just had yesterday during lunch in my collarbone. This in turn completely prevents me from writing, and also prevents me from typing fast, leaving my only options to do my work to be either taking the help of someone else as a scribe or using Speech-to-Text technology. To be honest, I'm fine with projects that take just a couple of weeks in order to complete, especially when they're done with friends, although sometimes, it can be a little too much of a burden to bear. But that's just me.
Another idea I would want to incorporate to create my ideal G&T classroom would be to, as Vipin stated, make the class more fun by going on field trips. In fact, it's something that I believe every semester or fail your class needs to work on, as it's not fair that only the social studies students get to go on field trips. There should be field trips for other classes, such as science or math class. Field trips Would not only make our class is fun, but they can also provide us with great learning opportunities. And even if we can't go to the places ourselves, we can virtually tour them using technology. For example, last year since we were working on forensics, we could have taken a trip to the local police station, and learn about forensics there. Even in other classes for example, such as science, We could take a trip to a zoo or aquarium, and for math, we could take a trip to a museum such as MoMath in New York. Other than these two options, there's not much I can think about comma and even though there might be a lot of work in our enrichment class. there's really not much I can critique about it at the end of the day; it’s great just the way it is!
The current G&T class is a class to look forward to every week, but it doesn’t fit the category of my “ideal Gifted and Talented classroom.” An ideal classroom for me consists of an equal amount of fun and learning.
My ideal classroom consists of learning more than one topic in a year. In sixth grade we spent the entire learning about the human brain and in seventh grade we learned about forensics for the entire year. After a few months of doing the same thing, it starts to get dull and boring. Most of us aren’t interested in the topic anymore. Nine months learning a single topic is too much time to spend on a topic. And after we finish the topic, we only had to do a Glogster. If we were to spend all that time in a topic, a more extensive project should be assigned. In an ideal G&T classroom, we would learn three to five different topics every year, each topic different from each other so it matches the interests of everyone in the class, not just a select few. We can do a project for each topic. This way it adds more grades to the gradebook and it gives us something other than just answering a blog post every month and one or two Glogsters we do every year.
Another thing to improve about the current G&T classroom is the way certain things are taught to us. Instead of just copying down notes from a PowerPoint for ninety minutes of the class period, the lesson could be more interactive with the use of Chromebooks and iPads. We rarely get to use them and when we do we enjoy it. It is more fun to learn something hands-on rather than just taking notes. We grasp the concept better hands on, having done it without own hands rather than learning from someone else’s experience. It makes G&T a more unique class, different from other classes since most of the classes we have we just take notes throughout the entire class.
Another thing the class should include is perhaps a field trip. A field helps reinforce what we learn in the classroom and makes it three-dimensional. It’s also fun, going somewhere outside of class that relates to what we learn inside of the classroom. It helps show how things we learn in class are applied in the real world. It also helps us apply what we learned in class to day-to-day problems, conversations, and assignments for other classes.
Another idea that can be applied to the G&T classroom is having a weekly Do Now, debate, or mini project. It will add to number of assignments in Genesis aside from the monthly blog prompt. It can serve as a transition to what we will learn in class that day or a review of what we learned in the previous class. It serves useful in Spanish, science, math language arts, heath, STEM and pretty much every class. It helps to jump straight into work rather than wasting the first ten minutes of class just talking. It helps organize the class, too. The aforementioned ideas are suggestion to improve upon the current G&T class to make it the “ideal Gifted and Talented classroom.”
(There's supposed to be an "enter" between the second-to-last paragraph and the last paragraph to distinguish the beginning and ending of the paragraph)
G&T is already an enthralling experience, but as we all know, there is nothing in this world that is perfect and can’t have any changes. There are always pros and cons to everything. My ideal G&T classroom would call for a few changes in the classroom we have now. One of the first changes I would want for my ideal G&T classroom would be having a greater amount of topics. Instead of having just a 2 or 3 stretched out topics to last us for the whole year, it would be better if we had around 5 to 6 topics each year. For example the 2 topics that we did last year (for AMS) were the Renaissance and 7th grade social problems. Instead of having that take up the whole year, we can have more topics, but with a shorter time span. After learning and working with the same topic for multiple months, it would tend to get a little boring, which is why my ideal classroom would have more topics.There can even be a planned out schedule for the whole year - such as a different topic every 3 weeks. Some might argue that we need more time to go through a topic, but think about it. It usually doesn’t take us more than 3 or 4 days to cover a lesson in our regular classes. To accommodate projects into this, we can stop doing them in class, and do more of the project at home. When we do projects in class, most people just end up talking more than actually doing work. So if we do projects at home, we can actually find time to learn in class, thus we would have the capability to finish a topic in 3 weeks.
Many might say that going through 3 topics a week would be nearly impossible without rushing and cramming things, but that is why I would add more time in my ideal G&T classroom. Along with having G&T for one block, we can also have it during lunch to make sure that we aren’t rushing through any material. We are always in need of more time, especially since we don’t meet very often. More time at lunch would help us get through more information and topics in one day. Having time at lunch instead of taking time out of yet another class would also prevent us from missing more work than we already miss on a weekly basis from our specials.
Aside from how much we would cover in class, I would also like to talk about what types of things we could do in an ideal G&T Classroom. Now let’s take a step back from technology, shall we? I agree that technology is all important and easy to use, but then again we shouldn’t be forgetting practical hands on projects. In our classroom, I would want more hands on things, such as experiments and small one day projects. I believe that actually experiencing what we learn about would leave a more lasting effect than typing up a page or whipping up a 10 minute presentation in one day. Everyone is capable of writing up a few things about what they are learning, but it is questionable as to whether we will remember it or not. Actually getting into the topic with activities would probably help us remember what we learned far better, especially with kinesthetic people. Along with this, we can also have field trips associated with what we are learning to help us remember it.
Last but not least, I would want to add a competitive aspect in my G&T classroom. We can compete with each other frequently in things such as seeing who can solve a challenging problem first. We can also compete in projects, and see who could come up with the best one. There are many possibilities with competing with each other - and they would add a little spice into our regular classroom. Competitiveness always gives a little harder push and stronger drive since mostly everyone wants to win in a competition. It would encourage us to get more involved into the topic we are learning about.
Overall, this is what my ideal G&T classroom would be like. I would add more topics, increase the G&T time, add more hands on activities, and put a competitiveness part in it, too. It’s not that our classroom isn’t already great, but these things would really help put our classroom one step closer to being perfect.
This topic got me thinking. Normally, I just go with the flow and accept the way the classes I'm in are. I've never really thought of the way the classroom would be if I had a say in it. Also, I actually really enjoy the way our G&T class is operating and has operated these last few years, so it was sort of a struggle to think of things that I would like to be done differently. Even so, after thinking for a while, I could come to the conclusion that there are a few major things that define my ideal Gifted and Talented classroom. First of all, the class would not be only once a week. It's ridiculous that such an important class takes up only a small amount of the school year. Also, Monday isn't a great day to have our only G&T class—there are a lot of holidays that students get off from school on Mondays, with the next two weeks as a prime example. So that means we get even less class time! Personally, G&T is my favorite class, and not having it often disappoints me. I know it's hard to schedule it, be there multiple times a week, and for students to miss their other classes more often, it's just a thought and a wish of mine. I also feel that it would be better to spend more time learning together in class. This is just my personal thought, but I feel that we don't spend enough time gaining knowledge as a class. I know that the current project (convocation), is a project where a single student or a group of students have different, unrelated topics that they are researching, so it's difficult to really do anything as a class right now. However, I would still like to have some sort of activity to do together. Maybe we can learn about a topic on the side while we work on our projects mostly at home, like a time era or famous figure, for example. Something quick and interesting might be best, sort of like a fun fact activity each class. Like the people above my post have said in their responses, trips would be really cool. The trips can help students experience a topic in a fun and interactive way. However, I am aware that trips are very expensive and a hassle to organize. It would be nearly impossible to fund raise the money and find the time and permission to make these trips a reality, but it is definitely in my fantasy ideal classroom. As I said before, my ideal G&T classroom is, in all honesty, how our current class is. I like the way our class functions, and the things I would want to change or add are minor and I am content without them. Students are treated as equals and can have mature discussions as equals, instead of having to prove your intelligence to be treated with respect. Projects and presentations like convocation are amazingly useful, as they help prepare us for high school, college, and maybe even our future jobs. So that's all for this response.
In our G&T class I am excited to learn about new and innovative topics of our choice. This is great for us to enjoy learning about something, and not be forced to work on a topic we hate. Although, I feel that too much focus is put on the research paper and the presentation. This prevents students from indulging into their topic, but rather burns them out and causes them to never think about their topic after they finish the project. I understand that it is important to show our effort and gives us a score for the report card, but the point of G&T is to learn and understand mature and advanced topic, and not to complete rigorous projects. Having more time to investigate into our topics will make us enjoy it more. Another thing that would be incorporated would be little brain teasers and logic puzzles to help with the stress of the rushed and short weekly class. Although we will most likely not have time for this. This gets me in the next part of my ideal classroom. As Snehil said, we should have a second day at least, of G&T. We barely have any time in class and have to cram in a week’s class into an hour and a half. When we start getting into our projects, we will have to complete everything at home. This leaves us with an unfathomable amount of homework. On top of that many of us are enrolled in the honors math and reading classes. After completing this endless stack of work we don't have any time for social outings or fun. If we were to have a second day we would have more time in school when we have a better learning environment and we can focus better. At home there are a lot of distractions, on the other hand at school we can focus without worrying about these distractions and we also have our peers and teachers to help us if we do not understand something. With more time we can also learn more relaxed and avoid misunderstandings. My third and final element of my ideal classroom would be to incorporate technology and new programs into our curriculum. There are many new programs that can help us learn and stay in communication in case we need help. For example remind is a program used by my math teacher and then case one of us doesn't understand a problem on the homework we can get in contact with her very easily by just texting her through the app. Another program that we already use is Google classroom it helps us find out what's due and when it's due and it avoids any accidents, like leaving your homework or project at home as it is all done digitally. In our school we are lucky to have access to iPads and chromebooks and other kinds of technology. We recently got a new Apple room with five new macs. A lot of the school’s budget is spent in upgrading the technology that students have access to. Even after this, there is sometimes not enough laptops or Ipads for every student, but the solution is that the teacher should allow the students to use their own devices in class because almost every student has a smartphone nowadays. We should utilize this and be able to implant many amazing programs, yet to be discovered into our normal curriculum. Overall these are some of the main elements of my ideal G&T classroom and how we can improve our education.
What would my ideal G&T classroom be like? Just like every class it should be intriguing and engaging. G&T is exciting but it's often just research. We can split up the class into different parts. We can research and work on our projects for 45 minutes. And then for the other 45 minutes we can do activities that still give us a learning opportunity. We can play a Kahoot, or even a jeopardy game. By doing such activities it helps for us to wake since we do have G&T on Mondays.
We should learn about various topics that we wouldn't learn in our other classes. This broadens our knowledge and we can soak in as much information. These topics can regard anything from math to history and from the past or the present. This just makes us get additional information and it may help us in the future. For two Mondays we can work on and discuss a particular topic and then the third Monday we can do various hands-on activities to better understand the information. Then you just repeat this cycle. You can quiz us on the topics once we learn 5-6 topics. Getting these quizzes will give us more grades in the grade book and it can help raise our average if we need to.
Next, just like everyone else field trips is another part of my ideal classroom. Field trips make students excited and you end up more eager to learn. Field trips are a great way for students to learn since these trips make you so ecstatic. Plus, they get all the information without being bored. All the information will soak in without them realizing since they are so intrigued, but that information stays in our brains. Field trips are memorable so we will recall what we learned through the experience.
We always do one huge project a year. Like other people said, it is better to have few small projects instead. A whole entire project is counted as a major grade and if there are only one or two project grades which can break or make your grade…well then it can be stressful. By having a few projects that aren't as big will help. If you work on various subjects, students will all like a particular one since there are many subjects instead of just one. Having a variety of topics is great in the classroom. Additionally, you get to explore other subjects instead of just kind of dragging out one.
Our current G&T class is great! I do look forward to G&T since we are left to do our work which I like and the classroom is very friendly. If we ever need help we are assisted right away. But, everything is said so thoroughly on handouts and rubrics that most of the time we understand exactly what to do. We can always improve and making positive changes are good. Doing things differently makes things more surprising and interesting. In conclusion, we should spend half our class time studying and the other half doing activities, we should learn topics that are not taught in our regular classes, there should be field trips, and we should do multiple tiny projects.
The current G&T class we have right now is nearly perfect. Maybe if we could change things here and there it would be the perfect G&T class.
One thing we could change about G&T is that we could have more experiments. For example, last year when we did forensics we only did presentations with very little activity. Forensic science is a topic that includes many activities we could do. Probably not the ones involving dangerous chemicals, but maybe the minor ones that students can handle. After a presentation we could have done an activity regarding that topic. For example when we did the uncovering the thumb prints with the special powder we could have done a whole thing with a criminal (one of the students) and the rest of the students had to find who did it. It would have been fun and we could have grasped the concept even more. Doing the same routine can bore out teenagers and since we are teenagers we get bored out. We need something that keeps us awake and learning. Doing the same routine can actually make us fall asleep. So my ideal G&T class would have more of experiments to help me learn better.
Another thing that we can improve about G&T is that we could add a field trip. For example when we were in sixth grade and we were discussing the topic about the brain we could have went to a science museum and learned more about the brain there. This goes back to the being bored thing. Instead of staying in class, we could be out exploring, discovering, and learning more than sitting inside a hot school watching a boring presentation almost falling asleep. Kids, teens, adults all learn more if they are given opportunities to go out and see for themselves how certain things work. Maybe we can learn more than what we would learn just sitting inside. When we go outside, like to a museum, we can also ask the people there if we need more information. Also museums have displays and activities that go on further about a subject. For example in August we went to the Aerospace Museum in Maryland. In there, there was a whole section dedicated to teaching little kids how air pressure works, how much you would weigh on an another planet, and so much more. My brother learned a lot more there than he would’ve in school where he was being bored out of his mind. I also learned a few more things there as extra knowledge even if I knew most of it. So we should have at least one field trip for G&T to help make it perfect.
We also need a wider range of topics to learn. For example, in sixth grade we learned about the brain and then we just read a book. Then the year after that we did the seventh grade social needs and forensic science. We have a whole year together. I understand that we only meet once a week but we miss our other classes to be at G&T. Don’t we deserve to learn as much as possible while we’re there? But if we spend the entire year just learning two topics and basically nothing else, then what’s the point? We should learn a wide variety of topics. We get a break from other subjects. For G&T we can learn anything, whereas in certain subjects we’ll only learn that particular topic. Like in math we only learn math. We don’t learn about Picasso. But in G&T we are able to. So we should take advantage of that fact and learn more topics because we are G&T children. We can take learning that much.
These few improvements, for me, would make the best G&T class possible.
Great ideas, guys and gals. Thanks for the feedback. First off-to clarify, AMS Enrichment only has one block for each grade level just like IMS. PEG has two classes because it's an ELA and Math class combined-we are the teachers for those subjects. I'm trying to get you a field trip this year-hang tight. One block is tough to get everything in, but if you are willing to switch gears, I will certainly have another activity involved in our class each week. I don't like that Convocation takes us into Feb./March! I want our curriculum back!!! I will start bringing in our other topics next week. Get ready for the Middle Ages!!!!
The G&T Enrichment classroom and curriculum that we have now isn’t bad, but it could be improved, for both the students and the teacher.
There could be a designated classroom, just for G&T Enrichment, instead of using a Language Arts room, and the G&T classroom would be somewhere easily accessible from anywhere in the school. Then the teacher can stay in one room, instead of going through the hassle of pushing a cart around the school. The students could also have more variety of project resources, like books with possible topics on convocation ideas, and a reading corner for when we do the Read-a-Thon. Also, instead of having to borrow computers from other classrooms when doing research projects, there would be a separate cart just for the G&T classroom.
For the eighth grade curriculum, it is mostly just convocation, and I am fine with it, but that just makes the eighth grade G&T a big competition. You have 4-5 months to create a trifold poster, a survey, a study guide, essay questions about the whole presentation, and then your projects, the ones that you put so much effort into, are judged by the younger grade levels who prefer candy over content. Then after the younger grade levels pick the two projects (who most likely gave out candy, or if they are friends with the person), the two with the most votes gets presented again, where the winner gets a scholarship. This doesn’t exactly count as educational. We should have every other week to have half of the time in class to learn a subject besides the convocation topic. That’s my opinion.
We have 90 minutes for each block on a normal day. That’s a lot of time. Instead, we should do a separate activity/unit half of the time, either half of the block, or every other week. We can do a separate lesson, but that lesson can not be a convocation topic. We can have a group discussion, but it can’t be about personal topics. We can also do logic puzzles, or maybe math problems. Or maybe on some days we can just play board games, like Monopoly, or Battleship. The only issue is that we all have to agree on it.
Unfortunately, my separate classroom idea will never happen. I know we can’t just say, “We want another room added to the building.” There is no definite computer classroom, the library was removed, leaving the book fair to happen on the stage. The art room was replaced with another teacher’s lounge, (students are almost never in there, doubt the school would let students use Apple Macs, the two televisions inside the room only play ESPN and some election coverage channel, and I’ve seen teachers eat lunch inside of the room), which ironically has a world map in the room implying it’s a classroom. From my knowledge, digital media is gone. If you’ve been to the main office this year, you would know there is enough room for a 6x3 ft table. I sincerely doubt adding a G&T room is one of the school board’s concerns.
Mrs. Mandell, I'm trying to send you my survey, but it keeps coming up as an error. I'm posting it here so at least you can get to it, but I'll continue trying to send it.
My ideal GnT classroom is a fun, and fast paced class. Our GnT class is really fun but sometimes it is long and we spend too much time on one thing. My ideal classroom would be full of technology. We would have iPads, chromebooks, phones (for research), etc. It would increase our knowledge even more if we get to use technology in our classes. It could help us prepare for the PARCC and other computer-based tests. Computers will make learning a lot easier. Getting to sources will be faster. Things could also be done faster. Instead of searching for a piece of paper in a file cabinet, we could easily find a website on the internet. Using the technology can make classes really simple. Another benefit is that using technology, we could save work. It won't be lost and it could be saved into google. Google drive can even be accessed from home. If we don't get to finish some work from class, we have the option to be able to finish it at home. This can help out students who really take time on things. I do that on some worksheets and I don't get to finish. My science class started using chromebooks for a lot of work. I'm glad they did because now, if I don't have time to finish it in class, I have the ability to try to finish up the work when I get home. Technology in class will also help us prepare for the future. The future of humans looks like it will be totally based on new inventions and technological advancements.
ReplyDeleteThe second part of my ideal classroom is speed. Sometimes, my classes get repetitive and boring. No one wants to be in a boring classroom where you do barely anything. I want to be able to breeze through shorter topics. We should go fast but at the same time, I also want it to be thorough. If we go too fast, sometimes we won't be able to understand what is going on. For example, our honors classes go fast. It helps the students who are faster than normal have a good class.
Last but not least, my ideal GnT class would have a lot of fun trips. We don't really have any GnT trips right now. It's basically just symposium. I want to have some class trips. If we are researching about art and famous people, we could go to a museum. Trips would give the class more depth. Trips could make classes more fun. I definitely love class trips. No matter what subject, they help the class have more meaning. Trips give us background information too. We aren't just learning from our regular teachers, we get information from other people as well.
So basically, the tree parts of my ideal classroom are technology, fast pace and last but not least, class trips. Technology will help us prepare for the future. It will also get us ready for the PARCC and it will make class easy and quick. Getting to out work will also get easier. Next, a fast pace will help reduce repetitiveness and boredom. Having a fast moving class will help us get through more things in less time. Last, I want to have more class trips. This will increase the depth of the class. the course will also be more fun in general. These are my 3 essentials for my ideal GnT classroom.
Snehil Agrawal
ReplyDeleteOur current G&T classroom is wonderful, but not my version of an ideal classroom. A few changes can be made here and there, including time and the curriculum.
On top of my list is time. Or, to be more specific, the amount of time. We always need time, but never have enough of it. This is especially true in G&T. Attempting to teach an entire week’s lesson in under 90 minutes, along with notes, presentations, and tests can be a monstrous challenge. Adding to that absent days, assemblies, early exits, and sick teachers turns 90-minute weekly classes into 75-minute cram sessions. The notes have to be rushed, so students can’t remember any vital information. Then, presentations have to be squeezed in, resulting in below par presenters who have to meet all the guidelines within an inadequate time limit. This leads to stuttering, mumbled words, and equally lower grades. Finally, any tests or other assessments become entangled. For example, having to take 45-minute tests in 20 minutes will, as I have previously stated, decrease grades. A simple solution to all these issues would be to add a second day (such as Tuesday) to the IMS G&T Enrichment schedule. What needs to be done in 1 day can now be easily achieved in 2. Presentations can be twice as long so presenters can show their true potential. Notes and discussions can be easily planned out so students can be immersed in new knowledge and truly understand it. Tests can be taken at a student’s pace, not at the clock’s pace, almost ensuring higher grades. Dissenters may argue “That can’t be done! No one else does that!”, but I beg to differ. For example, I know as a fact that both the AMS Enrichment program and PEG have a two-day schedule. I understand this may arise conflict within a 5-day school week, but if we are truly determined to succeed, anything is possible.
The next objective in my ideal G&T classroom would be to change the curriculum for 8th grade. As of now, the eighth graders have to create presentations on topics of their choice to sixth and seventh graders. This is a wonderful idea, don’t get me wrong. People presenting information on topics they love is magnificent! But it does have a few issues however. First of all, choosing what topic to present can be pretty stressful. What topic should I chose? Is it interesting? Is there more information on my topic? Has anyone used this topic within the last two years? With all these criteria roaming around in anyone’s head, choosing a topic itself is difficult! Secondly, choosing a group is also befuddling. After you painstaking pick people, you have to work with them for 6 months! Any issues and arguments have to be dealt with or else your group will collapse. Also, after writing about the same topic over and over again, the creative spark fizzes out. You lose interest and focus, and your work begins to atrophy. A solution to these challenges would be to simply break up the projects. I would divide the school year into 3-4 “units”, such as forensics and anthropology. Every unit would have 1 major project. This would be a win-win for both the teacher and the students. Students still do major projects, at the same time will be able to maintain momentum, and stay focused. Another tangible benefit will be that students can get an opportunity to acquire a wider plethora of knowledge, rather than restrict themselves to only one or two topics. Critics may challenge this idea with the fact that it is impossible to do multiple projects with the same scope as one that people have worked on for ½ a year, and I agree. Instead, each unit would be an introduction that students can later pursue in finer detail. This curriculum would be my ideal one because students would be immersed into more topics and still do the required work needed by the teacher.
Ashwin Manur
ReplyDeleteG&T Blog 1
My Ideal G&T Classroom
If you could express what you think your ideal G&T classroom would look like, who wouldn’t say something like pizza parties every day, or nap time for the entire block? What about 90 minutes of talk to your friends time? Maybe even go home for the period!
Well, I doubt that anyone would truly want any of these imaginary luxuries during G&T. After all, wouldn’t you be a little lost if you took the G&T test for nothing?
The whole reason that we are in G&T is that we probably have the skills to achieve a higher level of education, be challenged, and push our limits even higher.
And many goals of the G&T program are to help students with problem solving, developing logic, speaking and presentation skills, invoke curiosity, encourage creativity.
So I think that my ideal classroom setting for G&T would be about 85% work, and 15% fun time. And if that work and fun time is alternated during the classes, it will keep the students excited and interested. I have a few ideas on what could be considered as part of the G&T enrichment class. We could do more logic problems like brainteasers, riddles, and Sudoku puzzles. We could add vocabulary games to help 8thgraders build their vocabulary.
To make the class time interactive and interesting, I also think we could increase the range of themes, topics, subjects, projects are selected from. Subjects like science, architecture or even cooking. We could also do scale drawings, designing or discussion of possibly NY city buildings or famous historic monuments. In science, research papers could be written, cool experiments could be researched, predictions made, discussed with fellow G&T students but not implemented since it is not a science lab or room. Science experiments, cooking videos, history videos are entertaining and educational which will keep the class time interesting and keep the students awake.
Current events, newspaper articles are a good way to build vocabulary and discussion topics that will let us stay awake in class. I really think that the most fun classroom activities are in which you play a fun learning game. Debates are very interesting and a great learning tool. Almost everyday in Mr. Andrew’s world history class, we do history related debates. The debates are really fun, and it is a good way to develop speaking skills and confidence of talking in front of the class.
Could some field trips sometimes to science museums, historic destinations be done as part of G&T enrichment?
I know that we will be presenting our convocations in class, but I think that holding debates on different topics would be a good activity after we are done with the convocation presentations.
Although I have such ideas of an ideal classroom, I realize it is a hard thing to achieve. But in this year, if we could do any of the cool topics and fun things in the classroom, we will be one step closer to achieving some of the G&T goals and getting me “My Ideal G&T classroom”.
My idea of the ideal G&T Enrichment classroom would first of all not involve any "mega-projects", or projects that require a lot of work that would take at least a few months to complete. I'm not trying to complain, as I do know that for these projects, we have ample time to complete them. However, the reason I'm saying that I'm not a fan of these projects is because there's so many other projects and homework that we have to do, and although we do get class time to work on them, it's sometimes very hard to get all of the work done. It takes me anywhere from an hour and a half to six hours to complete my homework each day (depending on how distracted I get while I'm doing it), but even if I don't get distracted, it takes me at least twice or thrice the time to do my homework in comparison to my peers. This leaves me almost no time to focus on my other goals, such as doing my music practice (which my Indian classical teacher wants me to do for at least two hours every day alone), And even less time for me to have fun and spend time with my family. Above all though, it gets to be the worst when I suffer an arm fracture, such as the one that I just had yesterday during lunch in my collarbone. This in turn completely prevents me from writing, and also prevents me from typing fast, leaving my only options to do my work to be either taking the help of someone else as a scribe or using Speech-to-Text technology. To be honest, I'm fine with projects that take just a couple of weeks in order to complete, especially when they're done with friends, although sometimes, it can be a little too much of a burden to bear. But that's just me.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea I would want to incorporate to create my ideal G&T classroom would be to, as Vipin stated, make the class more fun by going on field trips. In fact, it's something that I believe every semester or fail your class needs to work on, as it's not fair that only the social studies students get to go on field trips. There should be field trips for other classes, such as science or math class. Field trips Would not only make our class is fun, but they can also provide us with great learning opportunities. And even if we can't go to the places ourselves, we can virtually tour them using technology. For example, last year since we were working on forensics, we could have taken a trip to the local police station, and learn about forensics there. Even in other classes for example, such as science, We could take a trip to a zoo or aquarium, and for math, we could take a trip to a museum such as MoMath in New York. Other than these two options, there's not much I can think about comma and even though there might be a lot of work in our enrichment class. there's really not much I can critique about it at the end of the day; it’s great just the way it is!
The current G&T class is a class to look forward to every week, but it doesn’t fit the category of my “ideal Gifted and Talented classroom.” An ideal classroom for me consists of an equal amount of fun and learning.
ReplyDeleteMy ideal classroom consists of learning more than one topic in a year. In sixth grade we spent the entire learning about the human brain and in seventh grade we learned about forensics for the entire year. After a few months of doing the same thing, it starts to get dull and boring. Most of us aren’t interested in the topic anymore. Nine months learning a single topic is too much time to spend on a topic. And after we finish the topic, we only had to do a Glogster. If we were to spend all that time in a topic, a more extensive project should be assigned. In an ideal G&T classroom, we would learn three to five different topics every year, each topic different from each other so it matches the interests of everyone in the class, not just a select few. We can do a project for each topic. This way it adds more grades to the gradebook and it gives us something other than just answering a blog post every month and one or two Glogsters we do every year.
Another thing to improve about the current G&T classroom is the way certain things are taught to us. Instead of just copying down notes from a PowerPoint for ninety minutes of the class period, the lesson could be more interactive with the use of Chromebooks and iPads. We rarely get to use them and when we do we enjoy it. It is more fun to learn something hands-on rather than just taking notes. We grasp the concept better hands on, having done it without own hands rather than learning from someone else’s experience. It makes G&T a more unique class, different from other classes since most of the classes we have we just take notes throughout the entire class.
Another thing the class should include is perhaps a field trip. A field helps reinforce what we learn in the classroom and makes it three-dimensional. It’s also fun, going somewhere outside of class that relates to what we learn inside of the classroom. It helps show how things we learn in class are applied in the real world. It also helps us apply what we learned in class to day-to-day problems, conversations, and assignments for other classes.
Another idea that can be applied to the G&T classroom is having a weekly Do Now, debate, or mini project. It will add to number of assignments in Genesis aside from the monthly blog prompt. It can serve as a transition to what we will learn in class that day or a review of what we learned in the previous class. It serves useful in Spanish, science, math language arts, heath, STEM and pretty much every class. It helps to jump straight into work rather than wasting the first ten minutes of class just talking. It helps organize the class, too.
The aforementioned ideas are suggestion to improve upon the current G&T class to make it the “ideal Gifted and Talented classroom.”
(There's supposed to be an "enter" between the second-to-last paragraph and the last paragraph to distinguish the beginning and ending of the paragraph)
DeleteG&T is already an enthralling experience, but as we all know, there is nothing in this world that is perfect and can’t have any changes. There are always pros and cons to everything. My ideal G&T classroom would call for a few changes in the classroom we have now. One of the first changes I would want for my ideal G&T classroom would be having a greater amount of topics. Instead of having just a 2 or 3 stretched out topics to last us for the whole year, it would be better if we had around 5 to 6 topics each year. For example the 2 topics that we did last year (for AMS) were the Renaissance and 7th grade social problems. Instead of having that take up the whole year, we can have more topics, but with a shorter time span. After learning and working with the same topic for multiple months, it would tend to get a little boring, which is why my ideal classroom would have more topics.There can even be a planned out schedule for the whole year - such as a different topic every 3 weeks. Some might argue that we need more time to go through a topic, but think about it. It usually doesn’t take us more than 3 or 4 days to cover a lesson in our regular classes. To accommodate projects into this, we can stop doing them in class, and do more of the project at home. When we do projects in class, most people just end up talking more than actually doing work. So if we do projects at home, we can actually find time to learn in class, thus we would have the capability to finish a topic in 3 weeks.
ReplyDeleteMany might say that going through 3 topics a week would be nearly impossible without rushing and cramming things, but that is why I would add more time in my ideal G&T classroom. Along with having G&T for one block, we can also have it during lunch to make sure that we aren’t rushing through any material. We are always in need of more time, especially since we don’t meet very often. More time at lunch would help us get through more information and topics in one day. Having time at lunch instead of taking time out of yet another class would also prevent us from missing more work than we already miss on a weekly basis from our specials.
Aside from how much we would cover in class, I would also like to talk about what types of things we could do in an ideal G&T Classroom. Now let’s take a step back from technology, shall we? I agree that technology is all important and easy to use, but then again we shouldn’t be forgetting practical hands on projects. In our classroom, I would want more hands on things, such as experiments and small one day projects. I believe that actually experiencing what we learn about would leave a more lasting effect than typing up a page or whipping up a 10 minute presentation in one day. Everyone is capable of writing up a few things about what they are learning, but it is questionable as to whether we will remember it or not. Actually getting into the topic with activities would probably help us remember what we learned far better, especially with kinesthetic people. Along with this, we can also have field trips associated with what we are learning to help us remember it.
Last but not least, I would want to add a competitive aspect in my G&T classroom. We can compete with each other frequently in things such as seeing who can solve a challenging problem first. We can also compete in projects, and see who could come up with the best one. There are many possibilities with competing with each other - and they would add a little spice into our regular classroom. Competitiveness always gives a little harder push and stronger drive since mostly everyone wants to win in a competition. It would encourage us to get more involved into the topic we are learning about.
Overall, this is what my ideal G&T classroom would be like. I would add more topics, increase the G&T time, add more hands on activities, and put a competitiveness part in it, too. It’s not that our classroom isn’t already great, but these things would really help put our classroom one step closer to being perfect.
This topic got me thinking. Normally, I just go with the flow and accept the way the classes I'm in are. I've never really thought of the way the classroom would be if I had a say in it. Also, I actually really enjoy the way our G&T class is operating and has operated these last few years, so it was sort of a struggle to think of things that I would like to be done differently. Even so, after thinking for a while, I could come to the conclusion that there are a few major things that define my ideal Gifted and Talented classroom. First of all, the class would not be only once a week. It's ridiculous that such an important class takes up only a small amount of the school year. Also, Monday isn't a great day to have our only G&T class—there are a lot of holidays that students get off from school on Mondays, with the next two weeks as a prime example. So that means we get even less class time! Personally, G&T is my favorite class, and not having it often disappoints me. I know it's hard to schedule it, be there multiple times a week, and for students to miss their other classes more often, it's just a thought and a wish of mine.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that it would be better to spend more time learning together in class. This is just my personal thought, but I feel that we don't spend enough time gaining knowledge as a class. I know that the current project (convocation), is a project where a single student or a group of students have different, unrelated topics that they are researching, so it's difficult to really do anything as a class right now. However, I would still like to have some sort of activity to do together. Maybe we can learn about a topic on the side while we work on our projects mostly at home, like a time era or famous figure, for example. Something quick and interesting might be best, sort of like a fun fact activity each class.
Like the people above my post have said in their responses, trips would be really cool. The trips can help students experience a topic in a fun and interactive way. However, I am aware that trips are very expensive and a hassle to organize. It would be nearly impossible to fund raise the money and find the time and permission to make these trips a reality, but it is definitely in my fantasy ideal classroom.
As I said before, my ideal G&T classroom is, in all honesty, how our current class is. I like the way our class functions, and the things I would want to change or add are minor and I am content without them. Students are treated as equals and can have mature discussions as equals, instead of having to prove your intelligence to be treated with respect. Projects and presentations like convocation are amazingly useful, as they help prepare us for high school, college, and maybe even our future jobs. So that's all for this response.
In our G&T class I am excited to learn about new and innovative topics of our choice. This is great for us to enjoy learning about something, and not be forced to work on a topic we hate. Although, I feel that too much focus is put on the research paper and the presentation. This prevents students from indulging into their topic, but rather burns them out and causes them to never think about their topic after they finish the project. I understand that it is important to show our effort and gives us a score for the report card, but the point of G&T is to learn and understand mature and advanced topic, and not to complete rigorous projects. Having more time to investigate into our topics will make us enjoy it more. Another thing that would be incorporated would be little brain teasers and logic puzzles to help with the stress of the rushed and short weekly class. Although we will most likely not have time for this.
ReplyDeleteThis gets me in the next part of my ideal classroom. As Snehil said, we should have a second day at least, of G&T. We barely have any time in class and have to cram in a week’s class into an hour and a half. When we start getting into our projects, we will have to complete everything at home. This leaves us with an unfathomable amount of homework. On top of that many of us are enrolled in the honors math and reading classes. After completing this endless stack of work we don't have any time for social outings or fun. If we were to have a second day we would have more time in school when we have a better learning environment and we can focus better. At home there are a lot of distractions, on the other hand at school we can focus without worrying about these distractions and we also have our peers and teachers to help us if we do not understand something. With more time we can also learn more relaxed and avoid misunderstandings.
My third and final element of my ideal classroom would be to incorporate technology and new programs into our curriculum. There are many new programs that can help us learn and stay in communication in case we need help. For example remind is a program used by my math teacher and then case one of us doesn't understand a problem on the homework we can get in contact with her very easily by just texting her through the app. Another program that we already use is Google classroom it helps us find out what's due and when it's due and it avoids any accidents, like leaving your homework or project at home as it is all done digitally. In our school we are lucky to have access to iPads and chromebooks and other kinds of technology. We recently got a new Apple room with five new macs. A lot of the school’s budget is spent in upgrading the technology that students have access to. Even after this, there is sometimes not enough laptops or Ipads for every student, but the solution is that the teacher should allow the students to use their own devices in class because almost every student has a smartphone nowadays. We should utilize this and be able to implant many amazing programs, yet to be discovered into our normal curriculum.
Overall these are some of the main elements of my ideal G&T classroom and how we can improve our education.
What would my ideal G&T classroom be like? Just like every class it should be intriguing and engaging. G&T is exciting but it's often just research. We can split up the class into different parts. We can research and work on our projects for 45 minutes. And then for the other 45 minutes we can do activities that still give us a learning opportunity. We can play a Kahoot, or even a jeopardy game. By doing such activities it helps for us to wake since we do have G&T on Mondays.
ReplyDeleteWe should learn about various topics that we wouldn't learn in our other classes. This broadens our knowledge and we can soak in as much information. These topics can regard anything from math to history and from the past or the present. This just makes us get additional information and it may help us in the future. For two Mondays we can work on and discuss a particular topic and then the third Monday we can do various hands-on activities to better understand the information. Then you just repeat this cycle. You can quiz us on the topics once we learn 5-6 topics. Getting these quizzes will give us more grades in the grade book and it can help raise our average if we need to.
Next, just like everyone else field trips is another part of my ideal classroom. Field trips make students excited and you end up more eager to learn. Field trips are a great way for students to learn since these trips make you so ecstatic. Plus, they get all the information without being bored. All the information will soak in without them realizing since they are so intrigued, but that information stays in our brains. Field trips are memorable so we will recall what we learned through the experience.
We always do one huge project a year. Like other people said, it is better to have few small projects instead. A whole entire project is counted as a major grade and if there are only one or two project grades which can break or make your grade…well then it can be stressful. By having a few projects that aren't as big will help. If you work on various subjects, students will all like a particular one since there are many subjects instead of just one. Having a variety of topics is great in the classroom. Additionally, you get to explore other subjects instead of just kind of dragging out one.
Our current G&T class is great! I do look forward to G&T since we are left to do our work which I like and the classroom is very friendly. If we ever need help we are assisted right away. But, everything is said so thoroughly on handouts and rubrics that most of the time we understand exactly what to do. We can always improve and making positive changes are good. Doing things differently makes things more surprising and interesting. In conclusion, we should spend half our class time studying and the other half doing activities, we should learn topics that are not taught in our regular classes, there should be field trips, and we should do multiple tiny projects.
The current G&T class we have right now is nearly perfect. Maybe if we could change things here and there it would be the perfect G&T class.
ReplyDeleteOne thing we could change about G&T is that we could have more experiments. For example, last year when we did forensics we only did presentations with very little activity. Forensic science is a topic that includes many activities we could do. Probably not the ones involving dangerous chemicals, but maybe the minor ones that students can handle. After a presentation we could have done an activity regarding that topic. For example when we did the uncovering the thumb prints with the special powder we could have done a whole thing with a criminal (one of the students) and the rest of the students had to find who did it. It would have been fun and we could have grasped the concept even more. Doing the same routine can bore out teenagers and since we are teenagers we get bored out. We need something that keeps us awake and learning. Doing the same routine can actually make us fall asleep. So my ideal G&T class would have more of experiments to help me learn better.
Another thing that we can improve about G&T is that we could add a field trip. For example when we were in sixth grade and we were discussing the topic about the brain we could have went to a science museum and learned more about the brain there. This goes back to the being bored thing. Instead of staying in class, we could be out exploring, discovering, and learning more than sitting inside a hot school watching a boring presentation almost falling asleep. Kids, teens, adults all learn more if they are given opportunities to go out and see for themselves how certain things work. Maybe we can learn more than what we would learn just sitting inside. When we go outside, like to a museum, we can also ask the people there if we need more information. Also museums have displays and activities that go on further about a subject. For example in August we went to the Aerospace Museum in Maryland. In there, there was a whole section dedicated to teaching little kids how air pressure works, how much you would weigh on an another planet, and so much more. My brother learned a lot more there than he would’ve in school where he was being bored out of his mind. I also learned a few more things there as extra knowledge even if I knew most of it. So we should have at least one field trip for G&T to help make it perfect.
We also need a wider range of topics to learn. For example, in sixth grade we learned about the brain and then we just read a book. Then the year after that we did the seventh grade social needs and forensic science. We have a whole year together. I understand that we only meet once a week but we miss our other classes to be at G&T. Don’t we deserve to learn as much as possible while we’re there? But if we spend the entire year just learning two topics and basically nothing else, then what’s the point? We should learn a wide variety of topics. We get a break from other subjects. For G&T we can learn anything, whereas in certain subjects we’ll only learn that particular topic. Like in math we only learn math. We don’t learn about Picasso. But in G&T we are able to. So we should take advantage of that fact and learn more topics because we are G&T children. We can take learning that much.
These few improvements, for me, would make the best G&T class possible.
Great ideas, guys and gals. Thanks for the feedback.
ReplyDeleteFirst off-to clarify, AMS Enrichment only has one block for each grade level just like IMS. PEG has two classes because it's an ELA and Math class combined-we are the teachers for those subjects. I'm trying to get you a field trip this year-hang tight.
One block is tough to get everything in, but if you are willing to switch gears, I will certainly have another activity involved in our class each week. I don't like that Convocation takes us into Feb./March! I want our curriculum back!!! I will start bringing in our other topics next week. Get ready for the Middle Ages!!!!
If you have not completed BLOG 1, you must do so!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe G&T Enrichment classroom and curriculum that we have now isn’t bad, but it could be improved, for both the students and the teacher.
ReplyDeleteThere could be a designated classroom, just for G&T Enrichment, instead of using a Language Arts room, and the G&T classroom would be somewhere easily accessible from anywhere in the school. Then the teacher can stay in one room, instead of going through the hassle of pushing a cart around the school. The students could also have more variety of project resources, like books with possible topics on convocation ideas, and a reading corner for when we do the Read-a-Thon. Also, instead of having to borrow computers from other classrooms when doing research projects, there would be a separate cart just for the G&T classroom.
For the eighth grade curriculum, it is mostly just convocation, and I am fine with it, but that just makes the eighth grade G&T a big competition. You have 4-5 months to create a trifold poster, a survey, a study guide, essay questions about the whole presentation, and then your projects, the ones that you put so much effort into, are judged by the younger grade levels who prefer candy over content. Then after the younger grade levels pick the two projects (who most likely gave out candy, or if they are friends with the person), the two with the most votes gets presented again, where the winner gets a scholarship. This doesn’t exactly count as educational. We should have every other week to have half of the time in class to learn a subject besides the convocation topic. That’s my opinion.
We have 90 minutes for each block on a normal day. That’s a lot of time. Instead, we should do a separate activity/unit half of the time, either half of the block, or every other week. We can do a separate lesson, but that lesson can not be a convocation topic. We can have a group discussion, but it can’t be about personal topics. We can also do logic puzzles, or maybe math problems. Or maybe on some days we can just play board games, like Monopoly, or Battleship. The only issue is that we all have to agree on it.
Unfortunately, my separate classroom idea will never happen. I know we can’t just say, “We want another room added to the building.” There is no definite computer classroom, the library was removed, leaving the book fair to happen on the stage. The art room was replaced with another teacher’s lounge, (students are almost never in there, doubt the school would let students use Apple Macs, the two televisions inside the room only play ESPN and some election coverage channel, and I’ve seen teachers eat lunch inside of the room), which ironically has a world map in the room implying it’s a classroom. From my knowledge, digital media is gone. If you’ve been to the main office this year, you would know there is enough room for a 6x3 ft table. I sincerely doubt adding a G&T room is one of the school board’s concerns.
Mrs. Mandell, I'm trying to send you my survey, but it keeps coming up as an error. I'm posting it here so at least you can get to it, but I'll continue trying to send it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the survey:
Deletehttps://goo.gl/forms/luNGM9D5qewuSU4n2