The annual conference was held at Fountain Woods School
Last week, Fountain Woods Elementary School hosted the Burlington County Gifted Consortium’s annual STEM conference. The conference is designed to give gifted education teachers an opportunity to network and share ideas.
“The majority of school districts only have one gifted education teacher. We needed an avenue to be able to get together to make sure our curricula are rigorous and relevant and up to date,” said Stephanie Caracci, Fountain Woods Elementary School gifted and talented instructor. “The teachers really networked, and when somebody had a question, five teachers were willing to share what they do in their classroom.”
A group of gifted education teachers founded the Burlington County Gifted Consortium in 2004 to help support gifted programs in the community. The group meets several times each year. In addition to the STEM conference, the group also meets to discuss the identification process of gifted education students as well as event planning.
STEM — which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — typically involves hands-on projects.
“They have to work through the STEM process. They’re constantly coming up with an idea, creating it, coming up with a way to improve it through a plan, imagining it and then creating it again,” Caracci said.
At the conference, the instructors discussed the various STEM challenges they use in their respective schools.
“We presented STEM challenges that we have used in our own schools to each other and show how they can be transformed and used for any unit of instruction,” Caracci said. “We also discussed how in the past, we’ve used Facebook to get our kids together during projects.”
Caracci, who has been teaching gifted education classes in the district for 23 years, added technology has advanced the way the students work in many ways. They’re now able to FaceTime with their peers when they have a question on a project as opposed to having to wait until the following school day.
“FaceTime is the new pen pal. They can show the bridges as they’re building, and they can ask questions on how to improve each other’s bridges,” Caracci said in reference to a project that requires students to build bridges out of toothpicks.
Caracci added a huge benefit of the conferences is building a relationship with neighbouring districts.
“The wealth of knowledge available as a resource is tremendous,” Caracci said.
Caracci says one of her biggest challenges as a gifted education teacher is continually finding new ways to intrigue students, as there are no textbooks involved. Therefore, the majority of gifted education classes are project-based. The students typically attend these classes once per week in addition to their regular classes.
In Burlington Township, gifted education classes begin in kindergarten and last until eighth grade. Students must be re-evaluated each year to determine if they still fit into the gifted education criteria. In high school, Advanced Placement classes take the place of gifted education.
Caracci says the purpose of the gifted education classes is to enrich the already existing curriculum and to provide an extra challenge for the gifted education students.
“Many gifted students begin the school year already knowing half of that grade’s curriculum,” Caracci said. “Gifted classes provide opportunities for students to enrich the core content knowledge and are an essential component needed to meet the needs of this unique population.”
She added watching the students challenge themselves is one of the things she loves most about teaching gifted education.
“I like the challenge of providing problem-solving opportunities and seeing my students actively engaged in imagining, planning, creating and improving each project.” Caracci said.
