Enhance your differentiation skills and ability to cater to gifted learners
GERRIC’s Mini-COGE courses are practical professional development for educators to support high potential and gifted students. High potential students are not necessarily high achievers; we focus on how to engage and support these students to reach their potential.
The Mini-COGE will help you to;
- identify gifted, high potential and talented students;
- differentiate the curriculum for high potential students;
- implement ability grouping or acceleration;
- understand gifted education research and best practices; and
- develop an existing (or create a new) unit of work to best suit the needs of the differentiated classroom and gifted students.
The unit of work allows you to implement practical changes to curriculum, assessment and pedagogy, receive feedback from other educators and the GERRIC academic presenter, and provide ongoing impact to you and your students.
GERRIC also offers add-on courses, the Mini-COGE Advanced: More curriculum differentiation and the Mini-COGE Advanced: Gifted learners with disability for teachers who have completed the Mini-COGE.
Course details
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Content areas:
- Myths and stereotypes
- Gagné’s differentiated model of giftedness and talent
- Characteristics of intellectually gifted students
- Identification of gifted students
- Behavioural characteristics of gifted and talented students
- Underachievement
- Ability grouping
- Acceleration
- Distinguishing myths from realities: research
- Curriculum models: differentiation
- Assessment
- Instructional strategies
- Lesson plan: application
- This course is NESA accredited and can be used for mandatory accreditation hours.
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Exciting new Professional Learning that helps you utilise the content of Mini-COGE into your context through a guided action research project.
Part A - 1 day
Exploring areas of need in your context and developing an action research focus to tackle this area of need.
Part B - 3 x 40-minute sessions
Small group mentoring sessions take place with an academic throughout the project implementation period.
Part C - 1 day
Presentation of project findings. Next steps development
Please contact the GERRIC office at gerric@unsw.edu.au to book this for your school.
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Curriculum compacting is “a procedure used to streamline the regular curriculum for students who are capable of mastering it at a faster pace… [it] helps prevent our academically talented and high potential students from repeating academic content that they already learned…” (Reis, Renzulli & Burns, 2016)
This type of differentiation and support gives students a voice in what they learn and how they learn. It is the only way to serve students with a variety of needs, aptitude, readiness and learning preferences in a mixed ability classroom (which is all classrooms). Differentiation allows teachers to adapt teaching strategies to provide relevant and engaging learning experiences for the broad range of students in their classroom.
In this session, teachers will learn how to compact the curriculum for students who have mastered outcomes, supporting their development further. The session will also explore how to utilise the time saved by compacting the curriculum. Teachers will practice new curriculum models, write independent research projects and develop individual learning plans.
Skills/competencies/knowledge gained:
Teachers will:
- expand their repertoire of teaching strategies to suit the intellectual development and characteristics of students
- plan learning and teaching programs using contemporary knowledge and understanding of curriculum
- support colleagues in selecting and applying effective teaching strategies
- develop and apply a comprehensive range of assessment strategies to diagnose learning needs.
Prerequisites:
Attendees must have completed the Mini-COGE Day 1 & 2.
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What is not often well-known or well-understood is that students who are gifted may also have a special need or disability— just as students with disabilities may also be gifted. The term “twice-exceptional,” also referred to as “Gifted Learners with Disability” (GLD), is used to describe gifted children who have the characteristics of gifted students with the potential for high achievement and give evidence of one or more disabilities as defined by federal or state eligibility criteria. These disabilities may include specific learning disabilities, speech and language disorders, physical disabilities, autism spectrum, or other impairments such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
How can we transform experiences for marginalised students so they can develop their potential? It is in everyone’s interest to support all students and not to neglect those who are intellectually gifted, sometimes with concurrent disability or disadvantage, which can result in lack of educational opportunity.
This course builds on the knowledge learned on Mini-COGE. In this session, teachers will learn in greater detail what we mean by Gifted Learners with Disability (GLD), their most common strengths and challenges, identification, and classroom practice. Strategies that support the strengths of GLD students, whilst supporting their disability to enhance educational and socioemotional outcomes will be explored. Moreover, strategies that can increase the engagement of GLD students will be applied through the development of Individual Education Plans.
Skills/competencies/knowledge gained:
Teachers will:
- expand their repertoire of teaching strategies that support the academic development and characteristics of GLD students
- critically analyse what information is needed to create Individual Education Plans that support both the intellectual ability, the disabilities, and social-emotional development of a student
- develop strategies that help with identification of GLD students.
Prerequisites:
Attendees must have completed the Mini-COGE Day 1 & 2
Professional development for your school
Our in-service sessions are delivered face to face or online to individual or clusters of schools in Australia.
Please contact the GERRIC office at gerric@unsw.edu.au to discuss the different options available for us to deliver a program to meet the needs of your school staff and student population. We will travel anywhere in Australia or the world.
Session dates
Tickets for the Mini-COGE 2023 UNSW session are available now. Click on the dates below to register.
Sold out for your desired session? We recommend registering for a later course, so you have a place guaranteed and then emailing us to be added to the waitlist for an earlier session. If space becomes available in an earlier session, we can transfer your ticket. Contact us at gerric@unsw.edu.au.
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There are currently no scheduled dates for this course. Please stay tuned for new dates in 2023/24.
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There are currently no scheduled dates for this course. Please stay tuned for new dates in 2023/24.
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There are currently no scheduled dates for this course. Please stay tuned for new dates in 2023/24. If your school is interested in providing this course as an in-service please email us at gerric@unsw.edu.au
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There are currently no scheduled dates for this course. Please stay tuned for new dates in 2023/24. If your school is interested in providing this course as an in-service please email us at gerric@unsw.edu.au
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Our in-service sessions are delivered face to face or online to individual or clusters of schools in Australia. Our staff will liaise with you to deliver a program to meet the needs of your school staff and student population.
Email us at gerric@unsw.edu.au.