The 23rd annual
Edufest, a conference for parents, teachers, administrators, and coordinators on gifted and talented education, took place late last month. The first-ever hybrid Edufest consisted of 20 different live lectures broken up into strands that were presented over the course of three days. Sessions included topics such as creativity, differentiation, cultivating thinking in the classroom, and curriculum design. Edufest organizers explained that the goal of the three-day conference was for participants to walk away with “many meaningful, energizing, and fun ways to differentiate for children of all ability levels.”
Tamara Fisher and Jeff Danielian kicked off the three-day conference by welcoming attendees, both virtually and in-person at Boise State University. Dr. Joseph Renzulli began the opening keynote by starting with the question, “What is the major goal of gifted education?”
“I like to say it very simply,” Renzulli said. “It is to increase the world’s reservoir of highly creative and productive people.” His opening keynote went on to explain the opportunities and resources we can make available to improve creative productivity, something Renzulli explained as the center-focus of his work at the University of Connecticut.
Dr. Sally Reis, also of UConn, then shared new research she has been conducting on creative and talented women. She began by presenting recent headlines and statistics that showcased the importance of the topic. “Why are over 90% of patents held by men?,” Reis said. “Are women less creative than men or are there a number of barriers for women?”
Her research found that each of the 15 highly creative women in her study acknowledged their own creativity, purposefully focused on creative work, and scheduled time for it. “The faces of these women gave me great hope for our field,” Reis said. “It gave me hope that we can encourage creativity and that women and young girls can be taught to identify some of their creative blocks.” Reis went on to express that one of the best gifts teachers can provide young women is time to focus and create.
“We need to praise more than effort, but creativity and intelligence,” she said. “Women and girls both deserve and should be given the chance both to create and contribute.”
Both Renzulli and Reis then joined the conference virtually to respond to questions from participants and kick off the strands.
Strands attended by the authors are featured below.
Tell me about it! — Dr. Estee Aiken
Dr. Aiken is chair of the Division of Education at the University of Montana Western and previously served as an elementary classroom teacher and a differential coach for gifted learners. Her three-day strand focused on asking learners better questions, and more importantly, how to obtain better answers from students stuck in the thought process of learning. Students often struggle with writing, and twice-exceptional learners are no exception. They often feel they are not good enough, or that they lack time and structure to write effectively. Young learners may also claim they are bored, and educators might assume that gifted learners already have the structuring skills to compose well-written stories.
Throughout this strand, Aiken broke down how to guide students through non-stressful writing prompts. Many educators learn the academics of teaching, but participants in this strand also practiced each of the authentic prompts. It was enjoyable to work through practical applications that can develop and evolve in a classroom.
One resource Aiken used was Thinking Routines, available through
pz.harvard.edu. For those with young learners in need of better prompts, Aiken is an excellent professor to teach children and adults how to see, think, and wonder just a bit more.
What’s Your Problem? — Dr. Angela Housand
Dr. Housand also offered a strand focused on the difficulties of writing and practical applications to encourage learners to generate novel ideas and projects. A professor at the University of North Carolina, Housand stated that ideas and interests are already swirling within our minds, and that learners can use brainstorming techniques to come up with topics. Housand also explored how educators can nurture the creative process.
[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“What is the major goal of gifted education? I like to say it very simply. It is to increase the world’s reservoir of highly creative and productive people.”[/perfectpullquote]
Housand illuminated the difference between interests and passions for a subject. If educators can tap into a learner’s passion for a topic, this may lead to more creative and expansive ideas. In this strand, Housand also reviewed different types of exploratory learning, including curiosity, project building, investigations, and performances.
There is no one way to start and finish a project, but Housand’s Topic Focusing Grid can be employed to support educators’ efforts to lead students in turning ideas into projects. This can be valuable for any educator seeking a practical and in-depth, step-by-step approach for idea generation and project creation.
Cultivating a Culture of Thinking and Enhancing Academic Discourse in the Classroom — Dr. Jann Leppien
Dr. Leppien focused her sessions on fostering a culture of thinking in classroom settings. She provided activities, prompts, materials, and resources to help educators dive into a framework of creating a strong culture of thinking.
Leppien, the Margo Long Endowed Chair in Gifted Education at Whitworth University, defined this culture of thinking as “part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all group members.” Intertwined in the sessions was the idea of enculturation, which helps children grow into the intellectual life around them. Leppien prompted the group with big questions, which helped participants reflect on classroom practices. Among them: “What type of thinkers do we want our students to develop into as adults?” This question resonated throughout our group exercises and session.
Leppien reiterated that high-quality questioning supports a culture in which students are not only challenged, but expect to be challenged as they become thoughtful, confident, and independent learners.
Increasing Student Engagement with Choices, Creativity, Complexity, and Curiosity — Dr. Brian Housand
This three-day strand, led by Dr. Housand of the University of North Carolina, was divided into several parts: commitment and choice, curiosity, creativity, consumer to producer, and complexity and simplifying. Housand quoted Howard Gardner in explaining, “We need … for students to get interested, involved, and engaged in wanting to know.”
Housand continued by saying that we want our students to commit to something they are interested in and engage with it. He spoke on the importance of provoking curiosity by asking questions such as, “What do you notice?” or “What do you wonder?”
Housand shared tools to promote creativity and curiosity in the classroom and challenged the audience to take a quiz to find their own creative type. Over the course of the three days, Housand provided examples and activities to implement in the classroom that utilized choice, developed creativity, and promoted curiosity.
Enhancing Curriculum with Creative Productivity — Tamara Fisher Alley & Jeff Danielian
This strand was broken up over two days, with Day 1 led by Danielian and Day 2 led by Fisher Alley. Danielian, director of the La Salle Scholars Program in Providence, Rhode Island, began by sharing not only the positive aspects of creativity, but also the negative consequences that can arise when students’ creativity is not recognized and nurtured. “We want to give them as many tools as we possibly can, all the time, to be able to navigate this world that we are in,” he said. Danielian went on to discuss Renzulli’s Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model and to show how gathering information about student interests can boost learning in the classroom.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”What type of thinkers do we want our students to develop into as adults?”[/perfectpullquote]
Fisher Alley, an author and K-12 gifted education specialist in Montana, spoke about the interpersonal skills that students gain through independent projects of this type, in addition to knowledge acquired.
Both Danielian and Fisher Alley shared personal experiences and examples of students working in high-interest areas. Through both lectures, the potential of success when gifted and advanced learners are provided with opportunities to explore topics of personal interest was evident. The sessions provided tools for educators, parents, advocates, and administrators to add independent, interest-based enrichment and learning to their classrooms.
Classroom Strategies to Engage Thinking and Feeling in Your Students and You — Dr. Brian Housand
Housand designed an engaging three-part strand. He started the session by asking, “Have you ever wondered how to meaningfully and creatively engage your students in the learning process?” This allowed for deep reflection of current practices and left the group with takeaways for how to implement new strategies that engage students creatively.
Along with materials that are designed to help transform educators and students from being passive consumers of information to creative producers of new content, Housand introduced a great acronym: “C.A.P.E.S.” — Credentials, Accuracy, Purpose, Emotion, and Support — which is designed to help students be critical consumers of information. The application of the acronym in the classroom can prompt students to foster a perceptive lens as an engaged community member.
Strand attendees engaged in mini-activities to prompt ideas for creatively engaging students. Participants created their own mixtape, focusing on a core concept, then curated a playlist and created art that represented the mixtape. Housand emphasized that as educators, it is important to have the courage to embrace risk-taking and curiosity, and to foster imagination.
Other sessions offered strategies and guidance around giftedness, and twice-exceptionality. Among them: Cognitive Diversity and Gifted Education: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child with a Uniquely Wired Brain (Dr. Susan Baum); Gifted Education: A Beginner’s Review of Definitions, Identification & Programming (Dr. Marcia Imbeau); Classroom Management for Differentiation: Principles and Practices (Dr. Scott Hunsaker); Designing High-Quality Programs and Services for Gifted Students (Leppien); Quality Curriculum and Instruction for Advanced Learners (Imbeau); GT in ECE: Working with Young Gifted Students (Aiken); I’ll Be Here All Week! (Aiken); and more.
