GB Connect

1. Co-planning is powerful. The model classroom experience is the most beneficial training I undergo each year. The co-planning, collaboration, and immersion into another classroom at this intensity level is definitely worthy of being out of my classroom. I learn so much from discussing student work and student thinking with other teachers, and then interpreting what instruction needs to occur next as a team.  Co-planning the next lesson and watching it unfold together is powerful and reshapes my teaching again and again. -Deborah 2. Meet your students where they're at right now. The learning that comes from participating in a model classroom lab is beyond compare.  Being in a classroom full of students, carefully observing some aspect of learning, and then talking with colleagues about next steps is powerful.  I learn more from these collegial conversations than I ever learned at a conference or in a graduate class. I have a tendency to get on “the curriculum train.”  In

Students who are gifted struggle with emotional difficulties such as perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and attention. Throughout the years, I have often wondered if I am truly capturing their abilities through summative (and formative) assessments for the above-mentioned reasons. Last year I experimented with students videotaping their explanations to solving word problems and there was a very high success rate. Not only were students more comfortable being assessed in this way, but I was able to gain a much better sense of their understanding of a concept. However, I did not have a good platform with which to share this information with parents. This year I felt that Seesaw could be a great tool to accomplish both of my goals. Ronit and I collaborated to make this happen. The concept that I was teaching at the time involved solving word problems using Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple. This has always been a tricky concept for the students, so my goal was trying to