Description: It is hard to argue with the observation that the generation of students now moving into and through our educational system is by far the most visually stimulated generation that system has ever had to teach. In fact, research shows that 65% of our students are visual learners. This “hands-on” research-based workshop is designed to provide practical, effective strategies that optimize the teaching and learning process, while complementing existing programs and curricula. Workshop participants will learn teaching strategies and techniques to increase student achievement in each module’s content areas.
Objectives of the Visual Teacher Alliance (VTA) Gifted and Talented Workshop Modules are:
- Empowering students to challenge themselves academically
- Developing skills in logic and creative thinking
- Nurturing student self-expression and development of talent
VTA provides opportunities for children in grades Pre-K-12 to grow and be challenged through:
- differentiated learning in the classroom
- interdisciplinary motivational activities
- independent studies
- grade and subject acceleration (if qualified)
- extracurricular activities
- small group instruction
Each workshop module is 6-hours of hands-on/eyes-on activities designed to integrate visual teaching skills into the subject-specific curricula.
back to top
Content – Activities are practical, easy-to-implement visual teaching applications that include:
- Brain-compatible strategies: Brain-Based learning is a dynamic, interdisciplinary, system-wide approach based on the way current research in neuroscience suggests our brain naturally learns best.
- Lateral thinking skills
- Utilizing the visual cortex for retention
- Using color and music as teaching tools
- Methods of visual learning
- Photography
- Communicating with imagery: passive, neutral and active
- Encoding/decoding images for TAKS
- Identifying visual internal/external learners
- Constructing visual thinking maps
- Watergraphs: Moving ELL students from visual communication to language acquisition
Critical/Creative Thinking Skills and the Six Methods of Visual Learning: Pedagogy and Imagery
Content – Activities are practical, easy-to-implement teaching applications that include:
- Full spectrum visual learning: simple vs. complex
- Active and performance-based learning: holistic vs. analytic
- Dynamic translation: developmental vs. summarative
- Multidisciplinary approach: task-specific vs. unit rubrics
- Using the Six Methods of Visual Learning
- Multiple Intelligences
- Photography/Imagery as a language: the grammar of a symbol
- Dissecting standards, elements and intellectual traits into patterns of critical/creative thought:
- Standards: clarity, accuracy, relevance, logicalness, breadth, precision, significance, completeness, fairness and depth
- Teaching Critical Thinking With the Poem Analysis Method
- Kohlberg's Six Stages of Moral Development
- deBono's Six Thinking Hats
- Media Literacy
Whole Brain Visual Thinking: Building a New Level of Cognition
Content – Activities are practical, easy-to-implement technology applications that include:
- Who is the Visual Teacher?: The three-layered definition.
-Socratic Teaching
- Inquiry-Based Instruction
- Parallel Curriculum Model: Interrelated approaches to course content.
- Kaplan Layered Model for Differentiating Curriculum: A visual approach to altering the content, process and products of the curriculum.
- Depth & Complexity Thinking Processes
- Mind Maps, Graphic Organizers & Glyphs)
- Whole Brain Thinking
- Visual Representation: Preparing for STAAR - Playing Chess - The Dyslexic Student - Using the Internet in the Classroom - Reading Visual Thoughts
Twice Exceptional: Brilliant Chaos - The Competition of Strengths Vs. Weaknesses
Content – Activities are practical, easy-to-implement technology applications that include:
- Who is the Visual Teacher?: The three-layered definition.
-Twice Exceptional Defined
- Gifted Combinations: Autism - Asperger's Syndrome - ADHD - Dysgraphia - Dyspraxia - Tourette's Sydrome - Dyslexia- Irlen Syndrome.
- Emotional Intelligence
- Visual Literacy
- Visual Culture
- 15 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning
In Search of the 21st Century Classroom - The Visual Quest
Content – Activities are practical, easy-to-implement technology applications that include:
- Differentiated Curriculum/Relevance to CSCOPE
- Using Skype (Video-conferencing) in the Classroom
- Cell Phones in the Classroom: From Toy to Tool.
- Cyberbullying: Definition & Prevention
- iPods in the Classroom: Teacher/Student Connectivity
- Virtual Reality & Video Games in the Classroom: Myths & Benefits
- Electronic Portfolios: Professional & Student-based
-Digital Storytelling: Hardware/Software & Resources
-Visual Journaling
-Authentic vs. Traditional Assessment
-Independent Investigation Model: 7 Stages of Research
Visual Literacy - Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners
4.5% of high school dropouts are gifted, and they leave school in part because of school-related issues. One would expect a very small percentage of such children to drop out, given the ease with which they can excel in school. To expect more than one in ten would be hard to justify. Therefore, with only 2.27% of people scoring above 130 on IQ tests, to expect greater than 0.227% of dropouts to be gifted would be ostensibly far-fetched. Unfortunately, the actual percentage is closer to twenty times that. According to the Achievement Trap, this problem is even more pronounced among economically disadvantaged students.
Content - Activities are practical, easy-to-implement applications that complement the four strands of the G/T Curriculum Framework "Scholars & Knowledge", including:
- Differentiated Curriculum/Relevance to CSCOPE
- Learning Styles: Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Kinesthetic, Global & Analytical
- Knowing Your Visual/Spatial Learners
- Defining Giftedness & It's History
- Defining ESL vs. ELL vs. LEP
- Identifying the G/T English Language Learners
- Strategies for Gifted English Language Learners
- Image Mapping, Visual Links, Visual Journals, Mind Mapping
- The Varied Faces of G/T Students: Traditional, Students From Poverty, ELL & Twice Exceptional
- Gifted Students At-Risk
- Five Learning Strategies to Engage Struggling Students
- Top 10 Ways to Annoy a Gifted Student: What to avoid
- Stealth Giftedness
- Exploring the 21st Century Literacies: Visual, Media, Digital, Environmental, Informational, Global & Emotional
- School-Wide Cluster Grouping Model
- STAAR Stomach? 10 tips to ease student anxiety
- 20 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning
* All workshops are in accordance with the Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 89.2 Gifted/Talented Education & Professional Development (Texas only)
* All workshops are Texas Association for the Gifted & Talented (TAGT) approved for the acquisition of the 30-hour Awareness Certificate & the 6-hour Annual Update (Texas only)
*The Visual Teaching Alliance is an approved Texas State Provider for Continuing Profesional Education clock hours (Texas only)
*Approved in various states for local and/or statewide certification renewal and credits and professional development hours.
Presenters
Timothy Gangwer, M.A.
- Co-founder & Executive Director of the Visual Teaching Alliiance
- Taught 10 years in the Houston Independent School District
- Student Teacher Supervisor, University of Texas, Austin
- Certfied National Diffusion Network Trainer, U.S. Department of Education
- Trained over 200,000 educators since 1986
- Author of Visual Impact, Visual Teaching: Using Images to Strengthen Learniing - From Both Sides of the Desk: The Best Teacher I Never Had - American Holidaze - co-author of 7 books and numerous articles
- Co-author of "English Works in America - EL Civics & ESL: Visual Communication Tools for Teachers"
- National/International keynote speaker
- Former Visual Literacy Consultant to the Ministry of Education, Paris, France, Ministry of Education, Toranomon, Japan, Mediterranean Association of International Schools, Casablanca, Morocco and the Association of International Schools in Africa, Abidjan, Ivory Coast
- Served 3-year term on the Executive Board of Directors of the program: IMPACT II--The Teachers Network
- Award-winning songwriter with 10 published musical CDs
- Award-winning digital imagery artist, with published works in galleries, magazines and billboards
- Cover artist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators "ATPE News" magazine
Gloria C. Rzadko-Henry, M.A.
- Art Educator and Historian
- Author of A Moveable Museum
- Co-author of "English Works in America - EL Civics & ESL: Visual Communication Tools for Teachers"
- Trademark Developer of the Watergraph™ Technique (photographic watercolour renderings)
- Co-founder of the Visual Teaching Alliance
- Motivational Speaker
- Trained over 180,000 teachers since 1988
- Watergraph Exhibitions: New York City, NY, Los Angeles, CA, Chicago, IL, Salt Lake City, UT, St George, UT, Washington, D.C., Oklahoma City, OK, Austin, TX, Detroit, MI and Lansing, MI
- Published Watergraphs in educational curricula and Web Site Solutions
- Published Watergraph Poster Series "Masters as Mentors" (limited edition #’s 1-4)
- Featured Artist, "Photo Finishers," Artist Sketchbook, September 2002
- 2002 Nominee, Arts in Education Award, ArtServe, Michigan's 17th Annual Governors' Award for Arts & Cultures
- Featured Artist, "The Watergraph Process: Exploring the World of Art With Instant Photography," Arts & Activities, Spring, 2003
- Comcast Cable Network, Interview With Tom Selhost, January, 2004
- Cable Public Access, The Watergraph Process, February, 2004
back to top
back to top