WAETAG 2023
Spring
SUMMIT
April 22, 2023
Columbia Basin College, Pasco, WA
Collaborate
& Create
This one-day event will be jam-packed with live professional development workshops designed to help you take your teaching to the next level. Best of all, you’ll leave the Spring Summit armed with customized materials and plans that can be immediately applied in your own classrooms.
Members please log in to receive the discounted member rate.
SUMMIT SPEAKERS
Join a community of dedicated educators and learn from some of the best in the business.
Nick Castilleja
Highly Capable Teacher on Special Assignment, Pasco School District
Wendy Clark
Highly Capable Coordinator, West Valley School District
Katie Coder
Advanced Learning TOSA, Oak Harbor School District
Lisa Connolly
ELD/Dual Language District Instructional Coach, OCDE Project GLAD Trainer, NBCT, Pasco School District
Robert Fawcett
Middle School Teacher, West Valley School District
Jen Flo
Regional Administrator for Advanced Learning and Teacher Support with ESD 113
Osziel Garza
ELD/Dual Language District Instructional Coach, OCDE Project GLAD Trainer, NBCT, Pasco School District
Jann Leppien
Professor Emerita, Graduate Studies in Gifted Education
Neddy Martinez
ELD/Dual Language District Instructional Coach, OCDE Project GLAD Trainer, NBCT, Pasco School District
Rebecca O'Brien
Director for the Center for Gifted Education and Equitable Identification at Whitworth University
Sarah Pack
Highly Capable Teacher on Special Assignment, Pasco School District
Shannon Swanson Harvey
Elementary HiCap Teacher for Walla Walla Public Schools
Summit Schedule
Chose between twelve two-hour long workshops facilitated by experts in the field, tailored to all levels of experience, and structured to prioritize collaboration and individualized planning.
REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
9:00 – 9:30 AM
WORKSHOP SESSION I
9:30 – 11:30 AM
Rebecca O'Brien, Ph.D.
Meeting the Needs of Advanced Learners in K-1 Classrooms
Imagine… Instruction as an invitation for students to show and grow their potential! Infusing content-based lessons with strategies to promote critical and creative thinking serves multiple purposes, including building students’ skills in these areas and inviting them to demonstrate their potential. We will explore examples of primary-grade lessons designed to encourage higher-level thinking behaviors and discuss how students, particularly those from diverse and underserved backgrounds might express their potential in response to higher level thinking. We will also discuss how to easily integrate opportunities to measure and support advanced student learning so that it encourages maximum growth.
Robert Fawcett
Introduction to Depth and Complexity Icons and how to Introduce them to Students
Participants will be introduced to the Depth & Complexity icons as tools to help students focus on classroom content in different and more in depth ways.
Sarah Pack
Anchor Activities: Engaging Students Who Finish Early
This training introduces teachers and principals to instructional resources for students who finish early. Participants will explore multiple math and ELA activities that foster critical and creative thinking among students who finish classroom assignments earlier than their peers. Participants will engage in some of these tasks and reflect with other participants to brainstorm ways to implement these activities with their students.
SEL Needs and Strategies for HiCap and 2E Learners
We all know that meeting students' social emotional needs are critical in order for them to be fully engaged in their academic growth and overall mental health. When it comes to our gifted and 2E learners, we must view these unique needs through the lens of giftedness. During our session, we will discuss some of the most common needs and share strategies for meeting those needs both in and out of the classroom.
LUNCH
11:30 – 12:15 PM
WORKSHOP SESSION II
12:15 – 2:15 PM
Sarah Pack
Bite-Sized Project-Based Learning
This training is differentiated for every teacher’s level of readiness to tackle project-based, problem-based learning, and genius hour (i.e., PBL). This training will guide participants through PBL stations that help them get the information that is most beneficial to each person. Teachers who are brand new to PBL can slowly wade into the PBL pool by learning about different PBL frameworks and analyze how examples of PBL units use those frameworks to help students gain 21st century skills. Teachers who are getting ready to start a PBL unit, or teachers who have given one or two PBL units a try and are ready to improve the experience for their students, will learn about different project management strategies that can help teachers manage the chaos that comes with PBL units. Finally, teachers who have experience implementing PBL units and are ready to design their own will explore a decision-making tool that helps teachers DIY their PBL.
Katie Coder
Meeting the Dual Needs of Twice-Exceptional Learners: A Strengths-Based Approach
Utilizing strength-based approaches is essential in addressing the learning needs of twice-exceptional (2e) students. By recognizing the strengths and challenges that 2e learners have in the classroom, educators can plan to meet their dual needs in a way that honors the students’ unique abilities. Participants will be guided through a small group activity using profiles to examine the complexities of a 2e learner and create a dual-differentiated approach for a lesson using student strengths.
Nick Castilleja
Strategies and Supports for Highly Capable Multi-Lingual Learners
This differentiated digital notebook training is set up for teachers, coordinators, and administrators who work with highly capable multilingual learners to explore the possibilities for recognition and services. The nature and needs of advanced learners who are growing in more than one language are unique, so educators need to design identification practices, services, curriculum, and instruction that respond to those needs! The course workbook prompts participants to view student work through the lenses of identification, nature/needs, and curriculum/instruction of highly capable multilingual learners. At the end of the session, participants will reflect and plan for advocacy through collaborative discussion. Attendees will mature their understanding of highly capable multilingual learners, empowering them to more effectively advocate for identification and services that are more closely aligned with the research and the law. Participants will need a laptop to access the workbook.
Jen Flo & Shannon Swanson Harvey
Developing Choice Boards and Menus with the Depth and Complexity Icons
Explore low prep strategies to provide differentiation in your classroom using choice board, menus and the Depth and Complexity Icons! Educators consistently face the dilemma of creating learning opportunities that constitute an appropriate challenge to students, including the highly capable population. Create and share choice boards and menus while diving into deep and complex thinking using the Icons that benefit all learners. See how these icons open the door to more robust and challenging experiences for your students. Time will be provided for attendees to layer Depth and Complexity into content they currently teach and walk away with a collection of ready to use materials.
WORKSHOP SESSION III
2:30 – 4:30 PM
Osziel Garza, Neddy Martinez, Lisa Connolly
Higher Level Scaffolding for Dual-Language Learners
Participants will learn to apply the Dimensions of Depths and Complexity using GLAD strategies, Sentence Patterning Chart and Observation Charts, to ensure that students learn and think in multiple languages.
Wendy Clark
Tiering and Scaffoding Lessons and Instructional Questions with Depth and Complexity Icons
In classrooms with a wide variety of ability levels working toward similar standards and objectives, creating tiered lessons will help ensure that all students get the level of challenge and support that they need. We will explore several strategies and resources to create tiered lessons incorporating Depth & Complexity thinking prompts. I will share several examples I recently created for classroom teachers ranging from 1st grade math to high school health sciences, and the process I went through while creating them. After exploring the resources and samples, participants will have time to dig in and create their own tiered lessons to be uploaded into a shared folder so that all will leave with a wide variety of tiered lessons.
Nick Castilleja
PD Paint Party: Nature and Needs of Highly Capable Learners
Some say that art is just a line around a person’s thoughts. So, what are your thoughts on what it means to say someone is highly capable? What would the art for those thoughts look like? Get ready to bust out the art supplies and find out! Through guided discussions, participants will collaboratively discuss various perspectives on what the terms “highly capable” and “gifted” and “genius” really mean. Then, each participant will synthesize the discussion into a personal definition and complete an art project based on that definition. This training is perfect for those who do not believe they are creative but are willing to try something out of their comfort zone.
Jann Leppien, Ph.D.
Teaching for Potential: What Potential Looks Like and How to Find it in Your Students
One of the many goals of gifted education is to identify, recognize, and develop student potential. At the heart of the instructional environment for advancing talent is the concept of optimal challenge. An instructional environment that removes the ceiling from learning may result in higher expectations, access to more advanced content, and greater scope for academic growth for all students, including those with high potential who may be overlooked through traditional identification methods. This session will focus on how to design and adjust learning experiences that enable growth for students with high levels of prior knowledge and skill and for those ready to work with content in more complex ways. Lots of instructional strategies will be shared as we consider how to maximize learning and promote continuous growth in our students.
CONFERENCE CONLUSION
4:30 PM
HAPPY HOUR: SIP, SAVOR, AND SYNTHESIZE
5:00 PM
CONFERENCE CONLUSION
Reserve Your Spot
Registration includes:
Live access to all workshops
Six free clock hours
Continental breakfast and lunch
Happy Hour Reception: Sip, Savor, and Synthesize
Attendance is limited to the first 200 people registered to ensure workshops remain ideally sized.
Get to the venue
Columbia Basin College
2600 N. 20th Ave.
Pasco, WA 99301
Free parking is available on campus on a first come basis.
Registration and Meals will be located in Bldg L Room 102,
Workshops will be in Bldg B.
HOTEL
Red Lion Hotel
The Red Lion Hotel is conveniently located across the street from the Columbia Basin College.
We have secured a small block of rooms at a discounted rate of $119 for summit attendees.
Limited rooms are available on a first-come basis until April 8, 2023, so don’t delay in making your reservation.
To book by Phone, please:
- Call 509-547-0701 ext. 0
- Ask to make a reservation at the Pasco Red Lion
- Let them know you are with a group on April 21-23, 2023 – Washington Association of Educators of the Talented and Gifted.
- Give them the group block code WAET0421
- Complete individual reservation with agent.
*This rate is not guaranteed at third party booking sites such as expedia.com and hotels.com.
