OAGC Teacher Division Chat

The Ohio Association for Gifted Children (OAGC) Teacher Division recently created a Twitter chat “to inspire and equip educators committed to the appropriate education of gifted children.” I am very pleased to be a featured guest on the upcoming #OAGCTDChat topic “Effective Advocacy: What Does it Look Like?” this coming Sunday, November 23rd at 9:00 PM EST.

STEM and the Gifted Girl

I consider myself fortunate to have enjoyed raising a boy and a girl, each of whom have had more than a passing interest in maths, technology and science. As a mom I have always been on the lookout for activities which supported their interests, especially during the summer months. But I have also been troubled at the lack… Read More »

A New Guidebook for Gifted Philanthropy

In a retrospective post written in October on the World of Learning blog (Three Decades of Indifference) I laid out a dismaying set of missed opportunities and our resultant failure to serve academically gifted students in spite of the alarming call to action published in A Nation at Risk 30 years ago.

The very next day I received a copy of Closing America’s High-Achievement Gap, written by noted education expert Andy Smarick. Chock full of resources and ideas for donors to spur high-achieving students into appropriate learning environments, this publication from The Philanthropy Roundtable is available as a free download and should be required reading for any gifted advocate, education policy influencer, parent or teacher of academically gifted students.

Putting the “M” in STEM

The Maker Mom (also known as Kim Moldofsky whom I am calling the “M” in STEM) is partnering with Texas Instruments Education Technology to host a Twitter #STEMChat on Tuesday, September 17th from 9-10 Eastern. I am thrilled to be included in the list of panelists again this year (I had so much fun doing it last year!)

Constant Vigilance!

Last week I happened upon a link to an “anti-Common Core” post on someone’s Facebook wall. Embedded in the post was a video of a young girl executing a math problem using a TERC/Investigations method for solving a simple addition problem. Videos like these have been around for some time – but recently they (and other absurdities) are beginning to surface in response to the upcoming Common Core implementation. I’ve been meaning to blog on this topic for some time, from a parental point-of-view, but like many topics in education it is a multilayered and complex topic not easily distilled into a 500 word post. So I was particularly pleased to find someone had the good sense to write a post on this very topic (“5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know About The Common Core”) which I hope will dispel some of the myths and misconceptions flying around about it.

Is it Bedtime Yet? Join #STEMchat Next Week

The concept behind bedtime math is simple. If you ever read a bedtime story to your children you already know the joy of connecting over a book – and the confidence regular reading can instill in a child. In a delightful change on the bedtime reading routine, Bedtime Math founder Laura Overdeck and her husband decided to enhance their children’s bedtime routine with a daily math problem. Intended for young kids through elementary schoolers (three different levels of problems are offered each night) the bedtime math problem is also available through email subscription via their website.