September 2008

 

Greetings Educators Guild Members!

Hello Educators Guild Members and welcome back to school!  Many of you will remember the monthly posts of last year; for those of you who are new to the program, we would like to introduce our Educators Guild Post.  It is a monthly broadcast focused on resources for classroom teachers.  We hope you will find this issue helpful and please feel free to pass this along to your colleagues.  Please remember Educators Guild members have access to our team of professionals for consultation. As such, if you are looking for assistance, ideas or resources, please feel free to contact us at edguild@davidsongifted.org.   

 

Resources

As all of your students adjust to the new school year, they will be finding their way through the schedule, figuring out their homework, and getting to know the other students in the class.  You may notice that the gifted students in your classroom connect with their peers differently than other students.  Gifted students tend to look for different qualities in friends and tend to develop through the stages of friendship faster than their age mates.  We hope the following articles and books will help to increase your understanding of gifted students and their friendships as well as provide activities to help them connect!  

 

·         Musings: Gifted Children and the Gift of Friendship

·         Friendship Patterns in Highly Intelligent Children

·         A 12-step Program for Growing a Friend

·         Making and Keeping Friends: Ready-to-Use Lessons, Stories and Activities for Building Relationships

·         Good Friends Are Hard to Find: Help Your Child Find, Make and Keep Friends

 

WebQuests 

A WebQuest is a lesson plan format in which all or most of the information used is drawn from the Internet.  They are designed to utilize the student’s time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support the student’s thinking in terms of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

 

A Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests, San Diego State University

Here you'll find a ready-made template for scoring or evaluating student WebQuest projects, complete with scoring categories. Checklists with additional scoring criteria to evaluate project fine points are also provided.

 

Persuasive Techniques (English/Language Arts: grades 9-12)
This WebQuest helps students discover persuasive techniques and sparks an interest in current events.

 

Hispanos Famosos (Foreign Language: grades 6-8)
This WebQuest aims at introducing students to famous Hispanics, both past and present, as part of Hispanic Heritage Month. Students research the contributions made by Hispanics in our society.

 

Biome Zoo Design: A Scientific and Geographic WebQuest (Science: grades 6-8)
Students will work in research teams to design plans for 8 biome zoos around the world. Research will include the flora and fauna of specific biomes and the geographic and economic requirements necessary to support the viability of each zoo. Students will make an oral and visual presentation of their findings and produce a scaled drawing of their zoo design.

 

Davidson Institute Updates

 

Davidson Young Scholar Applications Available

 

Do you have a gifted student in your class?  Do you think their parents would benefit from assistance?  The Davidson Young Scholars program helps profoundly gifted students discover others with similar interests and abilities, utilizing their unique skills and talents to maximize their educational potential and make a difference in the lives of others. Students and their parents are supported in the areas of educational advocacy, social and emotional development, and talent development.

 

For more information on the Young Scholars Program, or to download an application, please visit

http://www.davidsongifted.org/YoungScholars/.

 

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Davidson Academy of Nevada 2009-2010 School Year Applications Available

Located on the University of Nevada, Reno campus, the Academy is the first public school of its kind for profoundly gifted students. If you know a student who is interested in applying to The Davidson Academy, the application for the 2009-2010 the application is now available at www.DavidsonAcademy.UNR.edu.

 

In addition, informational tours of The Davidson Academy of Nevada will be hosted on September 19th, October 17th and November 21st from 2-4 pm.  RSVPs are required.  Please RSVP at www.DavidsonAcademy.UNR.edu/Explore, where you can also sign up for the Academy’s monthly eNewsletter.   If you would like more information about the Academy or the tours, please email explore@davidsonacademy.unr.edu.

 

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2009 Davidson Fellows Scholarship Applications Available

Applications due March 4, 2009

 

The Davidson Fellows Scholarship awards $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000 scholarships to extraordinary young people under the age of 18 who has completed a significant piece of work in mathematics, science, technology, music, literature, philosophy or any other graduate-level work considered outside the box that has the potential to benefit society.  For more information on the Davidson Fellows, or to download an application, please visit http://www.DavidsonGifted.org/Fellows/.

 

Meet the 2008 Davidson Fellows

 

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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival." -- C. S. Lewis

 

 

Davidson Institute’s Educators Guild

9665 Gateway Drive, Suite B, Reno, Nevada 89521
Phone: 775-852-3483 Fax: 775-852-2184
Email: edguild@davidsongifted.org     Web: www.davidsongifted.org/edguild/

Please visit http://www.davidsongifted.org/

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