Publications & Presentations

Learning Forward

Navigating Change: Secrets of a Change Agent

Expand how you think about initiating and maintaining change in your work as an instructional coach, principal, or other “change agent.” Evaluate change levers that are often overlooked and how they might be used to impact teacher beliefs/practices and implement system change. Experience using a strategic review process to design your own plan for using these levers to implement change in your system.

National Association of Gifted Children

Ensuring Equity Across Educational Systems: Changing Perspectives Through Gifted Minority Student Identification

The disproportionality of minority students in gifted programs has been well documented (e.g., Boothe & Stanley, 2004; VanTassel-Baska & Sambaugh, 2007) and is increasingly an area of focus at the national level. Many organizations such as the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and the Davidson Institute have compiled lists of best practices to identify minority students for gifted programming. However, school districts continue to struggle with the actual implementation of such suggestions because of limiting local contextual factors. During the 2015-2016 school year, TCSD utilized an action-research approach to leverage local factors to implement national recommendations.

WIDA

Ensuring Equity Across Educational Systems

Districts often struggle with equitable identification of EL students in special programs. Typically, EL students are over identified for remedial programs while under identified for gifted programming. This is a visible indicator of inequity in a system that reinforces misperceptions about student ability. This session outlines a framework using ACCESS scores to make those systems more equitable. Participants will leave with a process and tools to advocate for change.

University of Wyoming Literacy Conference

The Impact of Language on Reading Achievement for All Children

Diagnosing student learning needs can be a very complex process—for both classroom teachers and school systems. However, we know that identifying specific needs is critical in creating the right supports for students. This session will present a framework for examining reading and language/vocabulary scores to better target interventions and other supports.

University of Wyoming Literacy Conference

Student Led Book Groups for High Ability Readers

Expand how you think about initiating and maintaining change in your work as an instructional coach, principal, or other “change agent.” Evaluate change levers that are often overlooked and how they might be used to impact teacher beliefs/practices and implement system change. Experience using a strategic review process to design your own plan for using these levers to implement change in your system.

National Association of Bilingual Educators

Equitable Identification of Gifted EL and Former EL Students

The underrepresentation of minority students in gifted programs is well documented. Researchers and practitioners advocate for broader identification processes to identify language learners for whom standardized scores are often not accurate representations of their abilities. However, school districts continue to use test scores as their main qualification method. This is due to many factors, but perhaps most impactful is the pressure to use the same identification criteria for all students in order to make the process “fair” and “defensible.” This session outlines an identification process that is more equitable for second language students and describes how other districts can engage in similar work to create a process that works for them.

A Middle School Dual Immersion Framework

Ransom, C, Mertaugh, A, & Rooks, M. Collaborative Language Development: A Middle School Dual Immersion Framework. The Language Educator. Jan/Feb 2017, 40-43.

This article describes how middles school teachers collaborate within a framework to effectively implement a dual immersion program.

Keys to Diversifying Gifted Education

D'Orio, W. (2017). Keys to Diversifying Gifted Learning. Education Update, 59(12), 2-6.

Christi Roberts and Chad Ransom are quoted in this ASCD piece that encourages school districts to view the face of gifted education differently.