Meetings

Mrs. M and I only stayed on campus first the first half of the day. During those class periods, I realized how much I will be learning by observing how Mrs. M teaches. I would really love to emulate her in my own teaching style. She handles herself with poise, and demonstrates an admirable balance of love and discipline within her classroom. This is the kind of stuff they can't teach you in a text book!

Good news is, I also used this time to get to know the kids names- I thought that might come in handy!

After lunch, we left HMS for a district wide GT Professional Development Meeting. It was AMAZING. The district invited Lisa Van Gemert from The Mensa Education and Research Foundation to present ideas on how to enhance teaching for GT students. She had such positive energy and was full of great ideas for the classroom. Mensa is an organization for individuals with high IQs, and Mensa for Kids online provides children, parents, and teachers with reading suggestions, lesson plans, TED Connections (TED talks adapted for classroom use), activities, strategies for poetry memorization, educational games, and even Pinterest ideas for the classroom.

In addition to introducing us to all that Mensa has to offer for our students, Lisa also shared a lot of her own tried and tested ideas, as well as additional websites that can be used to enhance lesson plans. A few of my favorites are listed below:

• Slideshare // a website that allows you to upload and share your Powerpoint presentations online.
• Morguefile // a free online photo archive
• Infor.am // online infographic production
• Picmonkey, Photofunia, Big Huge Labs // image editing and manipulation online
• Bitly // a website that allows you to shorten and personalize and link in order to make them reproducible for students.
• Library of Congress Teacher Resources // online lesson plans tied to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) by grade level
• Flipsnack // a way to upload pdf files and make them into digital flip books

After school, I stayed late with Mrs. M and attended a newly formed Book Club with some of the other English teachers from the district. They were discussing The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller and Book Love Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers by Penny Kittle. Both books call for more reading in schools and presented various ways to encourage students to read for pleasure. I can tell this is a priority in this school district, and I will be interested to see how they implement these ideas. In the meantime, I've reserved The Book Whisperer at our local library :)

  

So lots of new information to sort through and overall a great day. Can't wait to go back tomorrow!  

Sources:
Mensa for Kids // mensaforkids.org
Mensa Pinterest // pinterest.com/brightkids
Slideshare // slideshare.net
Morguefile // morguefile.com
Infor.am // Infor.am
Picmonkey // picmonkey.com
Photofunia // photofunia.com
Big Huge Labs // bighugelabs.com
Bitly // bitly.com
Library of Congress Teacher Resources // loc.gov/teachers
Flipsnack // flipsnack.com