Shelagh Gallagher | Workshops and Presentations

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Shelagh Gallagher: Workshops & Presentations

Royal Fireworks Press is pleased to make Dr Shelagh Gallagher available for speaking engagements on gifted education and workshops on Problem Based Learning and other topics, including the Common Core. She offers practical and inspiring guidance on how to become an effective facilitator, how to conduct PBL projects, how to find original resources and how to mobilize and motivate group dynamics.

Her presentations are truly interdisciplinary and relevant not only to teachers of social studies and history but to all teachers needing to develop their pedagogical skills.

Dr Gallagher has made presentations nationwide on issues related to gifted education with Keynotes in Arkansas, New Mexico, Iowa, Ohio Sample Titles: Gifted Education and the Common Core; Education for Expertise; Aligning Gifted Curriculum with Gifted Development

See below for a description of the workshops. Reports from attendees.

Conference organizers, school administrators, and teachers are advised to contact us as soon as possible to make booking arrangements.

You can see a video of the final part of Dr Gallagher’s Keynote Speech to the Arkansas Gifted And Talented Education Conference in Little Rock, February 2009.

Problem-Based Learning Workshops in a specific subject or across the curriculum

One-day PBL Workshops:

Meeting Common Core Standards Through Problem-Based Learning. Common Core standards require educators to increase rigor in the curriculum—but how can you increase rigor and still engage students in the excitement of learning? Problem-based learning is one way. In PBL students are presented with an ill-structured problem that requires them to conduct research, analyze primary source documents, draw inferences, and create evidence-based solutions. The structure of PBL allows many opportunities to build in Common Core skills including non-fiction reading, analysis, research, writing, speaking, and listening.

In this workshop participants will receive an overview of PBL, experience a demonstration lesson, look at ‘best practice’ examples that integrate PBL and CC standards, and receive fundamental instruction in creating a unit that engages the imagination while it trains the mind.

Engaged, Educated Students through Problem-Based Learning. Mark Twain once said, “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way”. This is the philosophy behind Problem-Based Learning (PBL): immerse students in real world problems in order to learn the core curriculum. While searching for a solution students simultaneously learn content and improve their skills in research, higher order thinking, decision making, collaboration and more. Students leave the experience more motivated and better educated.

Workshop participants will be introduced to PBL through a brief simulation of the first stage of a PBL unit*. Having experienced PBL from the students’ point of view, teachers will be ready to learn how to put PBL into practice. During the course of the day teachers will learn: 1) the three fundamentals of PBL, 2) the flow of a PBL problem, 3) how and when to embed instruction; 4) assessment opportunities, and 5) the basics of creating a PBL unit.

*Note: the simulation will be tailored to the needs of the group

An Introduction to PBLISS: Problem-Based Learning in the Social Sciences (High School Social Studies). Similar to An Introduction to Problem-Based Learning but focused exclusively on the Problem Based Learning in the Social Studies series: Excluded! All Work and No Play.

Two-day PBL Workshop:

An Introduction to PBL and Problem Development

Day 1: An Extended Introduction to PBL. Similar to An Introduction to PBL, however, this workshop has an extended simulation that presents moments from several different stages of a PBL unit. Throughout the day participants alternate between being ‘students’ in a PBL problem and learning about the structure and goals of PBL

Day 2: Designing a PBL Unit. Participants work on designing a PBL unit for their own classrooms. In the morning session teachers write a problem together to learn what problem design entails, including creating a problem map, selecting a stakeholder, writing the problem engagement and testing the design. By the end of the morning teachers have learned that a single real world event can be the source of many different PBL units! In the afternoon teachers are encouraged to work in teams or on their own on a unit specific to their needs. Time is structured to ensure that teachers make good progress on their units by the time they share their results at the end of the day. Ample opportunity for question and answer and individualized help will be incorporated in this highly interactive workshop! Note: the two days do not have to be consecutive; however, Designing a PBL Unit must be preceded by an introductory workshop

Five-Day Workshops:

Summer workshops are available for districts interested in more comprehensive PBL curriculum development. These workshops are tailored to district needs and incorporate significant time for one-on-one mentoring from Dr. Gallagher. A three to five day workshop starts with the Two Day workshop described above; districts can then choose to incorporate one or more additional element described below.

Layering Depth and Complexity into PBL units. With the basics of a PBL unit in place, discussion turns to incorporating ‘value added’ into the units through conceptual reasoning, higher order thinking tools, differentiated lessons and rigorous content.

Assessment in PBL. Building Problem Log assessment portfolios: how to structure formative and summative assessments to fit the PBL environment. Also included is a discussion of PBL research and the factors that are essential to ensure that students learn required content and skills.

PBL in Action. Turning from curriculum to instruction, topics for this workshop include ensuring the first day goes well, supporting self-directed learning, ‘metacognitive’ questioning, and classroom management.

Gifted Education

One-day workshops:

Productive Questioning in the Classroom. Teachers get very little direct instruction in effective questioning techniques, but good questioning skills are essential to cultivating students’ higher order thinking. Too often, asking an effective question can seem like a hit-or-miss affair. Sometimes the kids respond brilliantly, sometimes questions fall flat. This workshop will start with a quick review of the basics of effective questioning and then move to practice in planning and asking questions. Teachers will also have a chance to try different methods of monitoring their questioning.

Designed to Fit: Educational Needs of Gifted Adolescents. Adolescence may well be the most important time to provide differentiated curriculum for gifted students; ironically, it is the time when it is least likely to happen. The workshop begins with an up-to-date description of the gifted student at adolescence; comparisons between gifted adolescents and their teenage classmates provide a foundation for understanding why advanced students need something different from pure acceleration. Research on non-achievement and underachievement of gifted adolescents adds to this foundation. A final comparison, this time with adult experts, shifts the conversation from discussion of how gifted adolescents are different from their peers to how to maximize similarities they already share with adult innovators.

In the afternoon teachers will be introduced to a framework that explains why some students are resistant to the very kinds of thinking that are needed for expertise, and how to open the door to those forms of thought. Using brief case studies to ground the conversation, teachers will discuss the impact a student’s beliefs can have on learning and the importance of encouraging an advanced viewpoints. A description of ‘best practice’ in instruction for gifted adolescents is presented in this context; current models of curriculum and instruction are reviewed so teachers have methods to help students move from naive to sophisticated thought.

The Twice Exceptional Student: Curious Dilemmas at the Intersection of Gifted and Special Education. Some gifted students, probably more than we know, are ‘twice exceptional’: gifted with Learning Disabilities, gifted with Pervasive Developmental Disorders, gifted and ADHD, gifted and… From identification to differentiation to socialization twice exceptional children require us to reconsider ‘standard practice’. What can or should you expect from a twice exceptional child? Does differentiation ‘look’ the same for the twice exceptional gifted child as it does for the typically developing gifted child? Do developmental delays look the same when combined with giftedness? What role does giftedness play on an IEP? All of these issues will be explored during the day-long workshop through case studies, simulated exercises, and group discussion. Come prepared for an engaging, interactive day!

Booking Arrangements

For details of fees, and to book Shelagh Gallagher for a workshop or presentation, contact:

Dr TM Kemnitz, Royal Fireworks Press Telephone: (845)-726-4444 Fax: (845)-726-3824 email: mail@rfwp.com