Workshop in Lithuania “Teaching teachers gifted kids education” (sharing of experience after the 1st GATE training)
Workshop in Bulgaria “Gifted kids“ teachers training” (sharing of experience after the 1st GATE training)
Workshop in Lithuania “Train the gifted pupils trainers” (sharing of experience after 2nd GATE training)
Workshop in Bulgaria “Train the trainers” (sharing of experience after 2nd GATE training)
After the training in Rishon LeZion, the representatives of the ZinevArt and Bulgarian schools team conducted several different activities.
The first one, which took place in May, 2023, in Steampowered Kids, the Robinson Crusoe style sessions were instigated with a group of six youngsters of 5th class age.
All of these children are talented or gifted and display the traits that were covered in the training in Israel. This went on for five two hour sessions on Saturdays. All that was done differently was that the practical elements were more of a focus than the theoretical. This is because the kids were originally with Steampowered Kids for robotics courses and the trainer sort of bolted this in. It was a great success if we measure success in engagement and willingness to participate.
Another event was organized for Alphabet school also in May, 2023, which is a private school where Gary Rowlands runs an after school STEAM class for one hour two days a week. These are for years 4 / 5 AND 5 / 6. The same thing was done there except that the group started looking at lessons and practices that can fit into approximately 45 minutes. Again the group discussed the course and asked what they thought in general. Exercises were done with drawing shapes in a set of squares that when divided would have exactly half the area of the square and how many were possible. The group looked at physics in dance and used center of gravity, levers and balance. Further to this the students wrote a short text on what they thought the differences were between talented and gifted students and did they think that they were, would it change their perception of themselves and how they would go on to learn. This was then explored over the following weeks and lessons were implemented with the structure of main tasks / challenges and with them extended tasks for those who were more able to progress while other groups remained working on the core tasks. A number of these extended tasks were discussion oriented as well as art oriented, things like stop motion animation, story writing and drawing.
The final group of events were Wednesday evening group sessions for the gifted children to come and work with their parents. These were agreed with the parents prior to asking and looking for agreement from the kids. During the meeting with the parents many things about the relationships the parents had with their children and many of the challenges were discussed. The ability of the parents to really understand the children’s potential and not closing them down. There were literally huge moves forward in the communication between the children and the parents. Many of these came about when the children were working in two groups and the parents in another. After this both presented their work with opportunities for the trainer to ask questions and then the groups to ask each other.
Workshop with teachers in Latvia (sharing of experience after 1st GATE training)
Workshop with teachers in Latvia (sharing of experience after 2nd GATE training)
Training event was a part of the event for teachers which was invited by ISMA and it was organized for 2 days. The topic of the training was broader, but we teachers had a separate GATE workshop and gained the knowledge about gifted pupils education.
