Along Came a Spider: News on the Web [March 2006 Archive]
Bridging the Generation Gap in the Classroom
A recent trend that's good news for everyone is that of senior citizens—grandparents of students, or just folks in their golden years who want to lend a hand—coming back into the classroom, as resource people, aides, and just plain help to teachers and students. A study by Johns Hopkins of the non-profit Experience Corps, which trains the seniors for classroom duties, found that the program was good for the well-being of the older volunteers as well as providing the young people with an excellent resource:
www.csmonitor.com/2006/0309/p08s02-comv.html
A Head For Numbers
Scientists have recently discovered an area of the brain linked to dyscalculia, a learning disability which makes even simple calculations difficult for those affected. The intraparietal sulcus, an area long known to be related to numeracy, has been found to fill two separate functions—in layman's terms, "how many" and "how much" of a thing or things. The study may also shed light on mathematical ability generally:
www.999today.com/education/news/story/2842.html
American Idol in the Classroom
With the increasing popularity of the talent-search show "American Idol" some music teachers have found that incorporating elements of the show's structure into their classes may increase student involvement in music electives. Critics, however, warn that the show's sometimes harsh format of voting people out of the contest may in the long run discourage more sensitive students:
www.csmonitor.com/2006/0308/p20s01-almp.html
College Prep Online
For prospective college students, the process of preparing to take the SATs and applying for college may have just gotten a little easier! The College Board's own website not only provides a link to register for the test online, but also some online test-prep opportunities. And for those who've already picked the college of their choice—or are wondering about their chances—ThickEnvelope.com provides an objective pre-assessment of a student's application:
www.collegeboard.com/splash
www.thickenvelope.com/Default.aspx
Democracy Begins In School
This article makes a key point about the role of public schools in America—as "hotbeds of democracy" in which students are exposed to a range of ideas, values, and cultures. Instead of selective environments in which students are exposed to homogenized populations of peers, they interact with people whose experiences are sometimes radically different from what they experience in their own families. Educators can also help to foster this kind of interaction in a variety of ways:
seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/262189_democracy09.html
Genius Welcomed at the Davidson Institute
You may be familiar with some of the Davidson Institute's exciting programs, such as the Davidson Academy in Nevada, which seeks to provide accelerated educational opportunities to gifted adolescents, in partnership with the University of Nevada, Reno.
www.davidsonacademy.unr.edu
For those of you who aren't close enough to take advantage of this opportunity, the Institute also offers a wealth of online resources. In their "Genius Denied" newsletter, the researchers of the Davidson Institute answer your questions about issues pertaining to gifted education and the needs of gifted students. Some topics covered include underachievement, mentorship, and gifted program funding. They also include a wealth of links related to the newsletter topics.
www.gt-cybersource.org/Articles.aspx?ArticleID=46
The Perfect Score
If you teach high school language-arts, you're probably aware how difficult it can be for students to get a perfect score on an essay. But one student has done just that, on no less a test than the SAT—and at age 13. Sarah Schwab of Santa Barbara did just that—making her possibly the first student to attain a perfect score on this section of the SAT since its inception:
www.ksby.com/home/headlines/2331051.html
Catch Them Early
That's the message of this article: it's important that gifted children's unique abilities be recognized and fostered long before they reach school. The article chronicles the experience of one parent of a gifted child and her efforts to find appropriate resources, as well as discussing early "warning" signs that your child just might be gifted—and what to do with them:
www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060222/LIVING/602220309/1007/LIVING
ADD-ing to Giftedness
Increasingly, parents and teachers may feel the desire to encourage young children to conform to a rigid set of behaviors and attitudes—and this set of expectations may be even narrower for the gifted, who are also expected to perform at a high level. Unfortunately, that approach may backfire, resulting in misdiagnosis of bright and inquisitive—and high-energy—gifted children as ADHD. This article recommends some steps that can be taken to ensure that your child's needs are properly identified:
www.gt-cybersource.org/Record.aspx?NavID=2_0&rid=11510
SAT—Satisfaction Guaranteed (For Some)
A new study suggests that the SAT may be an even better predictor of success for some students than previously thought. Research done by a group of education experts including Lubinski and Benbow suggests that junior-high age students who score highly on the SATs were more likely than a comparison group of graduate students to enjoy professional success later in life. But money can't always buy happiness: both groups reported equal satisfaction with their lives:
www.scienceblog.com/cms/sat_gauges_more_than_collegiate_success_10084.html
Beyond Gifted Education: Differentiation
We in gifted education have long been involved with strategies to differentiate curriculum for the most able students. But we're not the only ones to recognize its value. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development offers some exciting resources for educators in all areas on how to differentiate for students based on a range of criteria:
www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/index.jsp
Evolving Grammar
Parse this—researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences have recently found that there's a portion of our brains that has specifically evolved to cope with grammar. The study found that while both apes and humans make use of brain areas that read simple language structures, the brain architecture necessary for more complex grammatical constructions has only evolved in humans:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060216233042.htm
Citizens of the World (Wide Web)
We've probably all heard the chestnuts about how children who spend hours at the computer are losing out on vital socialization experiences—but what is sometimes easy to forget is that often they're communicating with other people while they're doing it. In fact, according to a new study, young people who spend a lot of time on the Internet are not only developing rich social networks, they're increasing their awareness of problems and situations in the larger world. Instead of confining their social networks to their neighborhood, they develop connections with like-minded people across the world:
www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-2049863,00.html
