EDUCATION WEEK is offering two free online chats tomorrow, Thursday the 24th. One is on Response to Intervention; the other is on using digital tools to personalize learning for student strengths and weaknesses. Find out more or sign up for a reminder at the respective links.
DO THE JAVITS JUMP. CEC points out that some members of congress are campaigning to save Javits funding for gifted education, in the tug of war that seems to take place periodically (we'd swear this seems to happen monthly). Find out more about what's going on and how you can act at the CEC site.
GIFTED LISTSERV. A Mensa listserv is the home of many discussions by parents (mostly mothers) of gifted kids on various aspects of giftedness, and occasionally on twice-exceptionalities. Recent topics: success stories in public schools; a request for advice on challenge and enrichment for a second-grader; reflections by the participants on challenges growing up at the extreme end of the bell curve; gifted preschoolers; summer camp; and what to do with a DS10 who won't stop talking. The site is public but registration is required; it is moderated. Find out more and subscribe.
DIVERSE LEARNERS. More than 90 percent of all middle and high school teachers surveyed in the new MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Preparing Students for College and Careers say that strengthening programs and resources to help diverse learners with the highest needs meet college- and career-ready standards should be a priority in education. Among that group, 59 percent say helping diverse learners "must be done as one of the highest priorities in education." Find the report "Teaching Diverse Learners" at the MetLife site.
WORKING MEMORY: THREE LAYERS. If your gifted but disorganized child has you paying attention to articles on executive function and working memory, check out a write-up on a recent study of working memory -- its three components and their functions.
AND FINALLY, THIS. A study in Australia shows that lots of relatively young kids (95 percent of those 7-10 in the study) use social media, and that many of them feel there isn't much risk in social networking; this in spite of the fact that "the majority of surveyed students (72.4 per cent) indicated they had received unwelcome or unpleasant contact by strangers via their social networking profile," according to a report on the study. Find out more, and why do kids always do stuff that worries their parents!?