A Change for the New Year

In the past year~ I have dedicated many of my blogs to the idea of innovation and creativity in the classroom. I am proud to announce that I will continue to share creative strategies for the classroom in a new venue called the Gifted and Enrichment Group.

In this blog~ I hope to share ideas that I have tried and tested in the classroom as well as expound upon theories and research developed for gifted and talented learners. While the term gifted is used~ I believe these ideas can work in all classrooms and help lift all students to higher levels of achievement. In fact~ gifted education concepts can really assist general classroom teachers~ as well as those who work with higher performing students~ in meeting their learning goals by differentiating instruction and helping to build upon students strengths and interests.

The principles of gifted education~ developed by researchers such as Joseph Renzulli~ are based upon knowing your students~ discovering their interests~ building curriculum around those interests~ developing authentic products through investigative-type projects and other means~ and impacting real audiences. These are concepts that can help learning come alive in any classroom with any group of students~ no matter their IQ.

In addition~ I want to present solutions to the challenges that gifted teachers and enrichment specialists face when entering other peoples classrooms with the goal of providing gifted services. Likewise~ this forum can also serve as a means to help general education teachers~ who have their own group of gifted students or who are tasked to co-teach with gifted teachers.

Im excited to share these ideas with you and to learn from you as well. Gifted education truly is a passion of mine~ and I believe one of the reasons is that the philosophy really resonates with me and makes sense. I hope you find this information equally useful and interesting.

Wishing you success in the classroom and beyond~

Steve Haberlin