Dodie Merritt's Topics

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    Workshop Descriptions
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Primary Education Thinking Skills (PETS™)

Thinking specialists Dudley the Detective, Isabel the Inventor, Sybil the Scientist, Max the Magician, Yolanda the Yarnspinner, and Jordan the Judge take primary students on an empowering metacognitive journey through whole class lessons and small group activities in divergent, convergent, evaluative, and visual thinking! Both instructional and diagnostic, this curriculum exposes all students to higher level thinking skills, provides challenging activities for talented learners, and builds behavioral portfolios for identification purposes.

Books that go with this workshop:

P.E.T.S.™
P.E.T.S.™ 2
P.E.T.S.™ 3
Kindergarten P.E.T.S.™

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Differentiating Your Curriculum with BLOOMin’ Strategies                                                 

There’s no better way to begin meeting the needs of the students in your mixed ability classroom than by aligning elements of your curriculum with Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives. Engage students with questions or activities appropriately designed for differing levels of student readiness.   After re-visiting the six levels of the taxonomy (with an emphasis on the higher level thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) through a variety of fun activities, explore the strategies and possibilities for a lesson or unit you’d like to begin differentiating for your students during this hands-on, interactive workshop.

Books that go with this workshop:

Blooms & Beyond
Using Blooms Handbook
Questioning Set

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From Questioning to Thinking:  A Taxonomy of Choices

Differentiate the ways students interact with curriculum content in order to meet the variety of needs in your mixed ability classroom.  Fat questions!  Creative, productive thought!  Active questions!  Critical thought!  Product choice!  Tiered activities!  Focus on questioning strategies and developing activities that demand higher level thinking skills to support learning at all levels.

Books that go with this workshop:

Questioning Set
Product Criteria Cards
Australia Questivities ™
Dinosaurs Questivities™
Human Body Questivities™
Insects Questivities™
Japan Questivities™
Weather Questivities™

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Gifted Education:  A Parent-Teacher Collaboration

Only when there’s well understood communication between home and school are gifted children more likely to lead happier and more productive lives.  What is “gifted” anyhow?  How are gifted students identified?  Why do they act the way they do sometimes?  What are “overexcitabilities”?  Is there a difference between teacher pleasers and gifted learners?  What kind of language builds bridges between parents and teachers?  This forum will welcome your questions and concerns.

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 Integrating Critical & Creative Thinking Skills into Your Primary Classroom

A 2 day workshop

About the Workshop:

Looking for activities that inspire critical and creative thinking in your primary K-3 classroom? Primary

Education Thinking Skills is a flexible, fun and stimulating approach to teaching higher level thinking skills.  Learn how to engage your students with problem-solving strategies in convergent, divergent, evaluative, and visual thinking through a series of whole class lessons and small group activities. This interactive workshop will include hands-on activities and lots of discussion. Come brainstorm, solve some mysteries, and make some criterion-based choices today—and spark higher level thinking in your classroom tomorrow!

On Day 1, you will explore critical and creative questioning strategies appropriate for primary

students. You will be encouraged to bring a lesson to which you can apply these questioning strategies and

begin to align elements of your curriculum with questions designed for differing levels of student readiness.  You will also work with a cadre of “thinking specialists” on whole class and small group activities that introduce primary students to some building blocks of thinking that support successful learning. The building blocks of thinking may be used to create a firm foundation for successful reading, writing, and learning in your students. Returning on Day 2, you will work in grade level groups on applications of these approaches to your class lessons, on delivery systems, and on addressing particular areas of interest.

Workshop Topics:

Books that go with this workshop:

P.E.T.S.™
P.E.T.S.™ 2
P.E.T.S.™ 3
Kindergarten P.E.T.S.™
Questioning Set

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Differentiating Your Curriculum:  Product options, Management, and Assessment  

Presenting students with a range of differentiated product offerings for performance assessment that span learning modalities, learning styles, and cognitive levels taps into student strengths, allowing them to share what they know effectively.   Explore resources for differentiating product choice, then consider a variety of management strategies like TTT menus, Polette’s research organizers, and Coil’s ILPs™.  See how criteria effectively set product expectations for students as well as form the basis for user-friendly rubrics.   Finally, compare simple versus complex, holistic versus analytic, formative versus summative, and task-specific versus unit rubrics for assessing products before determining the best approach for your students.

Books that go with this workshop: 

Solving the Assessment Puzzle: Piece by Piece
Product Criteria Cards
Activities and Assessments
Products Tool Bag 1
Products Tool Bag 2
Products Tool Bag 3
Successful Teaching in the Differentiated Classroom. 

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Independent Study:  Where Creative Minds Expand

(1-2 Hour Conference Session )

When student interests stretch beyond the reaches of the core curriculum, it’s time for independent study!  Intrigue students with opportunities that directly reflect these interests as well as enrich their school experience.  Adaptable teacher management checklists, student organizational strategies, parent communications, and project assessment tools from an established independent study pull-out program will be shared in this session.  From kindergarten to high school, create excitement and challenge for your students through investigations of choice!

Books that go with this workshop: 

Independent Study: Where Creative Minds Expand
Spec Sheets for Independent Study

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Curriculum Differentiation:  A Concept Map  

Gain an understanding of and rationale for curriculum differentiation in this introductory session.  Explore its four facets — content, process, product, and environment — as well as instructional strategies and curriculum models that support differentiation in the classroom and facilitate reaching students with different readiness levels, interests, and experiences.  Consider differentiation strategies such as questioning, lesson tiering, compacting, learning contracts, independent study, flexible grouping, and multiple performance assessments as ways to reach those mixed abilities in your classroom.

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The Gifted Child:  Fact or Fiction?  Monster or Madonna?  Sage or slug?   

What is “gifted” anyhow?  Isn’t every child gifted in some way?  How are those gifted students identified?  Why do gifted kids act they way they do sometimes?  What is meant by “overexcitabilities”?  Is there a difference between teacher pleasers and gifted learners?  Explore the myths, the realities, and the confusions that plague the gifted child and those who love them.

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Mind Games:  A Middle School Forum for Self-Awareness

What do middle-schoolers want to talk about more than anything else?  Themselves, of course!  Springboarding from this fixation, students in this program explore the ever-mysterious workings of their adolescent minds.  What’s the basic anatomical structure of the brain?  What’s intelligence?  How do they learn?  How does understanding learning styles tie into being  pro-active, not reactive, students?  Join us for insights into an evolving program that’s striving to support the whole gifted student, affectively and intellectually.

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   Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gap 

Every educator faces the challenge of raising achievement for all students.  The "achievement gap” refers to the disparity in academic performance between sub-groups of students, particularly low income and minority students. This workshop focuses on a variety of research-based strategies that can be used in schools to help raise student achievement.

In this practical and interactive workshop, you will learn a variety of proven strategies to help students:

·         Set short and long term goals
·         Manage time and organizational skills
·          Improve study skills
·         Learn how to take tests and understand other assessments

You will also learn ways to:

·         Address different learning styles while teaching the standards to all students
·         Design tiered lessons and units
·         Use formative assessments to drive instruction

Recommended books:
Becoming an Achiever
Successful Teaching in the Differentiated Classroom Differentiation, RTI and Achievement: How They Work Together