Venspired Learning (Project-Based Learning & STEM)

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Why Gifted Education Is Relevant Posted: 18 May 2013 10:31 AM PDT This isn’t really one of those posts I thought I’d have to write. I mean, gifted education has always been relevant to me.  Not just as a teacher, but as a kid who sat in a classroom in elementary school, and wanted to break out of my little desk, run past the pile of worksheets, and learn something.  So, my journey in education landed me in a teaching spot… teaching a gifted education program.  There I was, end of the hall, with people just thinking my classroom was “easy” because my kids were “smart.”  When it’s really not even about that.  Throughout my professional development, certification, and experience, I was studying differentiation. I was learning about learning.  I was understanding just how teaching gifted kids really isn’t about giving kids more work.  It’s about adjusting the work so it is right. Flow. Depth. It was about making learning work for kids that were truly starving to learn something new.  It’s about the way STEM incorporates ALL of that.  It’s about kids who out-think me in a beautiful way on a continual basis, and embracing that.  An area of education that few will address, try to understand, and are so quick to argue about, they are missing the point… the kids. Yesterday,  I got to share something I love… Project Based Learning & STEM.  I talked about projects my kids have loved over the past few years. It wasn’t a talk specifically about gifted. But, it’s roots? It was all about deeper learning, differentiation, turning control of the learning over to the kids.   These are all things that the education world is just waking up to as Common Core comes our way.  But, these are things that gifted education has been all about all along.  The theories are all there, some older than I am.   At the end of the hall, there might be a teacher who can help you challenge, inspire, and enhance the differentiation in your classroom.  A teacher that knows how to remove the ceiling that many of our schools place on learning.   Or, maybe you ARE that teacher who knows all about planning the right kind of learning that will allow every kid in the classroom to grow.   This will only happen when we get past labels, pre-conceived notions, and just collaborate.  Collaborate to make things better for our kids, for learning, for our world. Every area of education… gifted, special education, STEM specialists, ELL specialists… the list goes on. A team to focus on real learning and making it right.  What’s more relevant than that?