Welcome to The Dolphins' SEA Lab, Lakeview Elementary School's Gifted Program! On this page you will find information about our gifted program. Please feel free to explore the topics on this page by using the menu below. Just click on a topic you will like to learn more about. After exploring each topic, click on the "Back to Top Menu" link to return to this menu. Have a splashing day!
 

Gifted Curriculum

The Dolphins' SEA Lab is a Content Gifted Program in Language Arts/Social Studies and Math/Science. Students attend the program on a daily basis and receive gifted curriculum in Reading, Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, and Science. The SEA Lab currently has two teachers of the gifted who provide instruction in these subject areas. One teacher is responsible for the Language Arts/Social Studies instruction and the other teacher is responsible for the Math/Science instruction. The gifted curriculum consists of addressing the Sunshine State Standards while implementing the Gifted Goals and Objectives provided by the District. In addition, supplemental gifted materials are also infused throughout the curriculum in order to meet the needs of all gifted students. In Reading/Language Arts, teachers use the Junior Great Books series as the gifted curriculum, while Voyages Math is used in the instruction of Math. Along with the gifted curriculum materials, students are also exposed to regular curriculum materials such as Houghton-Mifflin for Reading and Harcourt for Math.

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Program Goal & Objectives

The following program goal and objectives are targeted for every student who attends our gifted program.

Program Goal

The student will demonstrate growth in critical thinking.

Objectives

Given statements, relationships, and their grounds, the student will be able to judge whether a statement follows a premise (deductive reasoning). (1.1)

Given statements, relationships, and their grounds, the student will be able to judge whether an observation statement is reliable. (1.3)

Additional Information

For a complete listing of Miami-Dade County Public Schools Gifted Goals and Objectives click on the following link. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to access this file.

Gifted Program Goals and Objectives

To find out more about Miami-Dade County Public Schools Gifted Program and Advanced Academics follow this link:

The Division of Advanced Academic Programs

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About the Gifted Program

Philosophy
Program Procedures
Lines of Communication

Philosophy

Miami-Dade County Public Schools recognizes that gifted education is an important part of the educational services offered by the District. A quality curriculum, which meets the needs of all students at all levels of development, must be diverse and complex enough to reflect the various levels of student’s ability. Every student has a right to learn and advance his/her unique potential.

The curriculum for the gifted provides opportunities for acceleration, enrichment, higher thinking skills, creative production, identifying real problems, seeking solutions, participating in simulations and independent study in areas of interests to the student.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools assume the responsibility for providing gifted students with a continuity of educational experiences matched to their unique learning characteristics, needs, and interest. To accomplish these goals, comprehensive programs for the gifted are offered from kindergarten through grade twelve.

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Program Procedures

Attendance | Emergency Contact Card |Evaluating Student Progress
Home Learning | Parent Conferences | Withdrawals

ATTENDANCE

Regular and punctual attendance is important in order to fulfill the educational needs of every gifted child. The education of your child can be seriously affected by absences. If an absence occurs, a note must be sent to your child’s teacher stating the nature of the absence in order for it to be excused. Students granted an excused absence will make-up all class work within 48 hours to receive a grade, if work is not completed a failing grade will be given. Any absence, which is unexplained by a written note, will be unexcused. Any unexcused absence will result in a failing grade issued for any work missed on the day(s) in question.

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EMERGENCY CONTACT CARD

Please make sure that you complete and sign the emergency contact card provided to you at the time your child enters the program. It is very important for emergency and administrative reasons, that every student maintain an up-to-date emergency contact card. Please notify our gifted program immediately if you have a change of address, phone numbers, emergency contacts, or place of employment.

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EVALUATING STUDENT PROGRESS

Your child’s progress will be evaluated through progress reports (given half-way through each nine-week period), report cards (given at the completion of each nine-week period), and through your child’s individual Gifted Education Plan (EP). Furthermore, your child’s Gifted Educational Plan (EP) will be updated every two years at which time a parent/teacher conference will be scheduled to evaluate your child’s progress in the gifted program and to develop new goals and objectives based on his or her academic strength.

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HOME LEARNING

Home Learning is an integral factor in fostering the academic achievement of students and in extending school activities into the home and the community. Home Learning should provide reinforcement and extension of class instruction, and should serve as a basis for further study and preparation for future class assignments. Your child will receive home learning assignments every day, Monday through Friday. If the assignment is to be written, children are expected to return the completed assignment each day. Please review your child’s home learning every night. Older children may have longer assignments, which are due within a few days or a week.

Frequency and Quantity of Home Learning Assignments

K-1: Daily (5 days a week) for 30 minutes
2-3: Daily (5 days a week) for 45 minutes
4-5: Daily (5 days a week) for 60 minutes

These times do not reflect the additional 30 minutes that are required to be devoted to daily independent reading.

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PARENT CONFERENCES

We appreciate the interest you express in the progress of your child. Parents are welcomed to schedule conferences with the teacher throughout the year to discuss mutual problems, grades, proposals, or problems. Conferences may be arranged with the teacher at a mutually convenient time and setting and they may be requested by the parent, teachers, or administration. To schedule an appointment for a conference, please call (305) 757-1535 and ask to speak to or leave a message for your child's Teacher of the Gifted.

WITHDRAWALS

Parents are reminded that gifted students may not be withdrawn from any gifted program unless the parent has given consent to such a withdrawal. Furthermore, a conference must precede a student’s withdrawal from the program. The parents will receive a Notification of Meeting informing them of when and where such a conference will take place. Reasons for withdrawal may include: moving out of the area, lack of achievement in the program, parent request, or other.

All withdrawals due to parental requests require a written statement from the parent indicating the specific reasons for the withdrawal. Parents also need to note that even though their child is withdrawn from the program, they will always remain gifted while attending school in the Miami-Dade County Public School system. Moreover, the parent has the right to place their child back into the gifted program at any time. When parent is ready to place their child back into the gifted program, they simply need to inform the school’s administration of their decision. Administration will then get in contact with the region’s staffing specialist in order to schedule a conference to place the child back in the gifted program and develop a new gifted Educational Plan (EP).

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Lines of Communication

Open lines of communication are vital elements in any school program. It becomes even more important when a special program with a selected group of students is in operation such as the gifted program. The relationship between school and home is always better enhanced through discussion of mutual problems, grades, proposals, or programs. We invite and urge parents to participate in any way possible in order to further enrich their child’s potential. 

Suggested ways in which effective communication may be established: 

1.    Concerns should be openly discussed with the teacher of the gifted whenever they arise. Parents may express their concerns through a written note or through a telephone phone call. Please call our school at (305) 757-1535 and ask to speak to or leave a message for your child's Teacher of the Gifted. 

2.    Parent-teacher conferences may be scheduled during a time that’s convenient for both the parent and the teacher. To schedule a parent-teacher conference please call (305) 757-1535. 

3.    Student progress will be assessed through progress reports (given half-way through each nine-week period), report cards (given at the completion of each nine-week period), and through your child’s individual Gifted Education Plan (EP). 

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About the Gifted Child

 *The following information was acquired by the Florida Association for the Gifted (FLAG) and by the Florida Gifted Network (FGN) formerly known as PALS. You can visit their websites for more information on the gifted child.

Misconceptions and Myths about Gifted Learners

Misconceptions about students who are gifted are nothing new. These misconceptions have given way to myths such as the following:

Identifying Characteristics of Gifted Learners

The following cognitive and affective characteristics often describe students who are gifted:

Special Needs of Learners Who are Gifted

Research by Dr. Joyce Van Tassel-Baska (College of William and Mary) and other scholars confirms the belief of legions of teachers and parents that students who are gifted have special needs:

For More Information Please Visit the Following Links

Articles on Gifted & Talented Students

ERIC Digests on Gifted Education

Florida Association for the Gifted

Florida Gifted Network (Formerly PALS)

International/National Resources for Gifted Education

National Association for Gifted Children

Resources for Parents of Gifted Children

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Glossary of Gifted Terms

The following is a list of terms that are commonly associated with gifted learners and gifted programs. For a list of my sources of information, please scroll down.

Ability Grouping
An instructional strategy whereby students of similar ability are placed together in a setting that offers curriculum and instruction geared to the abilities of the individuals who make up the group.

Acceleration
Any time a student is working ahead of grade level it is referred to as acceleration. Acceleration is faster presentation of content to more closely match the speed at which gifted students learn. There are actually many kinds of acceleration and can range from grade skipping to compacting in one subject area. Acceleration through curriculum compacting allows the student to complete the normal amount of work in less than the normal amount of time within a school year.

Assessment
The process of evaluating student learning with formal and/or informal assessments. In gifted education, teachers attempt to evaluate student products or performance to tailor education to student needs and interests.

Bloom's Taxonomy
A classification of thinking organized by level of complexity. Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are the six levels. Knowledge is the lowers level of thinking, while evaluation is the highest level of thinking.

Compacting
Compacting deals with eliminating repetition, minimizing drill, and accelerating instruction in basic skills or lower level classes so that gifted students can move to more challenging material.

Content Acceleration
Content acceleration refers to the practice of presenting curriculum content earlier or at a faster pace in order to match the speed at which gifted students learn.

Convergent Thinking
Thinking that brings together information focused on solving a problem (especially solving problems that have a single correct solution).

Creativity
Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergent thinking.

Critical Thinking
Cultivated analytical skills that allow students to logically comprehend and solve complex concepts or problems. Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesizing, and critiquing.

Curriculum Compacting
Curriculum Compacting is an instructional technique that is specifically designed to make appropriate curricular adjustments for students in any curricular area and at any grade level. Essentially, the procedure involves (1) defining the goals and outcomes of a particular unit or segment of instruction, (2) determining and documenting which students have already mastered most or all of a specified set of learning outcomes, and (3) providing replacement strategies for material already mastered through the use of instructional options that enable a more challenging and productive use of the student's time.

Curriculum Differentiation
Curriculum differentiation includes a set of activities, a program, or a plan of instruction that is designed to meet the unique needs, styles, or interests of the gifted child by adapting the pace, level, or kind of curriculum to be presented. It includes different education experiences that allow for acceleration, stimulation of high level thinking, divergent thinking, and convergent thinking.

Divergent Thinking
"Thinking outside of the box." Thinking that moves away in diverging directions so as to involve a variety of aspects and which sometimes lead to novel ideas and solutions; associated with creativity.

Education Plan
A written document which states the student's unique characteristics and needs, educational goals and objectives to meet those needs, and instructional materials and services to be provided.

Enrichment
Experiences and activities scheduled that are above and beyond the basic curriculum offered in the classroom or the school. The emphasis is on breadth of knowledge as opposed to worrying about speed or level. It contains deeper coverage of content and it contrasts with acceleration.

Flexible Grouping
Flexible Grouping for the delivery of instruction is the cornerstone of appropriate differentiation for the gifted student. Flexible grouping occurs when there is a whole group assessment or instruction initially; and then the students are divided by their needs for review, re-teaching, practice, or enrichment. Such grouping could be a single lesson or objective, a set of skills, a unit of study, or a major concept or theme. Flexible grouping creates temporary groups for an hour, a day, a week, or a month or so. It does not create permanent groups.

Formal Assessment
Formal assessment is a structured, infrequent measure of learner achievement. Formal assessment means the use of test and exams. A teacher might use a test or exam once in a term to evaluate learners’ knowledge or ability. Exams are used to measure a learner’s progress. Formal assessment procedures contain specific rules for administration, scoring, and interpretation; generally norm-referenced and/or standardized.

Gifted
Gifted children are those considered by educational systems to have significantly higher than normal levels of one or more forms of intelligence.

Higher-Order Thinking Skills
Thinking skills which include more complex thinking, including abstract reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. Higher order thinking skills require the manipulation of information, not just retention. Examples include application, synthesis, analysis and evaluation.

Independent Study
A self-directed style of learning. Independent studies are usually done with the help of a teacher; however, the role of the teacher is limited. The student and the teacher identify problems or topics of interest to the student. They develop a plan for investigation and identify the type of product the project will produce (i.e. paper, invention, presentation, etc.).

Individualized Instruction
Content and pacing of instruction geared toward the individual's unique learning styles, abilities, needs, and goals.

Informal Assessment
Informal assessment includes special activities such as group or individual projects, experiments, oral presentations, demonstrations, or performances. Some informal assessments may be drawn from typical classroom activities such as assignments, journals, essays, reports, literature discussion groups, or reading logs. Other times, it will be difficult to show student progress using actual work, so teachers will need to keep notes or checklists to record their observations from student-teacher conferences or informal classroom interactions. Sometimes informal assessment is as simple as stopping during instruction to observe or to discuss with the students how learning is progressing.

Integrated Curriculum
Combination of content from two or more subjects to enhance meaning through interconnectedness of knowledge.

Intelligence
Intelligence is a general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
An intelligence quotient or IQ is a score derived from a set of standardized tests that were developed with the purpose of measuring a person's cognitive abilities ("intelligence") in relation to their age group.

Learning Styles
Learning styles are different ways that a person can learn. Most people favor some particular method of interacting with, taking in, and processing stimuli or information.

Lower-Order Thinking Skills
Thinking skills which include memorizing and recalling facts or information.

Multiple Intelligences
Constructs of intelligence that include more aspects of mental ability than the conventional concept of intelligence. Howard Gardner proposed seven intelligences: musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. He recently added an eighth intelligence: naturalist. Conventional IQ tests measure mainly logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligence.

Open-Ended Tasks
Open-ended or divergent tasks promote open-mindedness and invite many answers or possibilities. They can stimulate the exploration of concepts and ideas and facilitate creative and critical thinking processes. Emphasis is on the individual. These are the kinds of tasks and questions that challenge students and their thinking.

Overachiever
The overachiever is a child who performs at a higher level than would be normally expected.

Perfectionism
A drive for excellence, an intrinsic motivation that through striving for perfection lead to outstanding accomplishments. This is healthy perfectionism. Perfectionism that tends to be disabling is extrinsically motivated by a belief that one is worthless in the eyes of others unless one can present oneself and one's work perfectly.

Problem-Based Learning
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a learner-centered educational method. In PBL learners are progressively given more and more responsibility for their own education and become increasingly independent of the teacher for their education. PBL produces independent learners who can continue to learn on their own in life and in their chosen careers. The responsibility of the teacher in PBL is to provide the educational materials and guidance that facilitate learning. Moreover, PBL is based on real world problems. It is based on the messy, complex problems encountered in the real world as a stimulus for learning and for integrating and organizing learned information in ways that will ensure its recall and application to future problems. The problems in PBL are also designed to challenge learners to develop effective problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Research and Independent Study
A self-directed style of learning. Research and independent study are usually done with the help of a teacher; however, the role of the teacher is limited. The student and the teacher identify problems or topics of interest to the student. They develop a plan for investigation and identify the type of product the project will produce (i.e. paper, invention, presentation, etc.). One important goal of independent study is to teach children that there are several ways to gather information and learn things.

Rubric
A tool for assessment made by the teacher. This tool explains what is expected in the assignment and how each component of the assignment will be assessed or graded.

Service Learning
Service learning has been defined in many ways, but the core of its definition lies in connecting learning with community service. Moreover, service learning is a method of learning through curriculum integration and active participation in well-organized service activities in communities. The origin of service learning has been attributed to John Dewey's understanding of community as a primary resource of educational opportunities and of learning as an interaction with one's environments. Researchers suggest that gifted students benefit from service learning because it provides them with challenging extended curricula which stimulate advanced critical thinking skills, higher level thinking processes, and problem-solving abilities, and also enhance a self-directed independent learning ability. Benefits of service learning for gifted students either academically or socio-emotionally include: increased academic skills in relevant subjects (e.g., grammar, math, computer, art, public speaking, etc.); an enhanced sense of confidence, self-efficacy, perseverance, and responsibility; and new perspectives on political (e.g., governments), interpersonal (e.g., coworkers), or occupational (e.g., career goals) relationships.

Socratic Method
Dialog and discussion conducted by the gifted students in order to expose logic, meaning, and truth.

Underachievement
A significant difference between ability and performance. A gifted underachiever is often defined as having superior intelligence, yet working below grade level. Some underachievers may withdraw, others may become disruptive.

Sources of Information

A Glossary of Gifted Education

A Parent’s Glossary of Terms for Gifted Education

Curriculum Compacting

Flexible Grouping Practices (PowerPoint)

Gifted and Talented Glossary

Gifted Common Terms

Problem-Based Learning (PBL)

Questioning Techniques for Gifted Students

Service Learning

Wikipedia Encyclopedia

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About Critical Thinking

The following information was acquired from the M-DCPS Comprehensive Reading Plan Companion (by Barbara Fowler, Longview Community College) and from the Critical and Creative Thinking website.

Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels are still useful today as students develop their critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesizing, and critiquing.

Below you will find all six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The first three levels (knowledge, comprehension, and application) fall into the lower-order thinking skills category. While the last three levels (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) fall into the higher-order thinking skills category. In each level you will find a brief description, key words, and question stems you can use to develop questions that will help increase your child’s comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Level 1: Knowledge – exhibits previously learned material by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers.

Key Words: who, what, why, when, where, which, choose, find, how, define, label, show, spell, list, match, name, relate, tell, recall, select

Questions:

Level 2: Comprehension – demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions and stating main ideas.

Key Words: compare, contrast, demonstrate, interpret, explain, extend, illustrate, infer, outline, relate, rephrase, translate, summarize, show, classify

Questions:

Level 3: Application – solving problems by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way.

Key Words: apply, build, choose, construct, develop, interview, make use of, organize, experiment with, plan, select, solve, utilize, model, identify

Questions: 

Level 4: Analysis – examining and breaking information into parts by identifying motives or causes; making inferences and finding evidence to support generalizations.

Key Words: analyze, categorize, classify, compare, contrast, discover, dissect, divide, examine, inspect, simplify, survey, take part in, test for, distinguish, list, distinction, theme, relationships, function, motive, inference, assumption, conclusion

Questions: 

Level 5: Synthesis – compiling information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions.

Key Words: build, choose, combine, compile, compose, construct, create, design, develop, estimate, formulate, imagine, invent, make up, originate, plan, predict, propose, solve, solution, suppose, discuss, modify, change, improve, adapt, minimize, maximize, delete, elaborate, test, improve, happen, change

Questions: 

Level 6: Evaluation – presenting and defending opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria.

Key Words: award, choose, conclude, criticize, decide, defend, determine, dispute, evaluate, judge, justify, measure, compare, mark, rate, recommend, rule on, select, agree, interpret, explain, appraise, prioritize, opinion, support, importance, criteria, prove, disprove, assess, influence, perceive, value, estimate, influence, deduct

Questions: 

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