The document outlines strategies for creating challenging and meaningful classroom experiences, particularly for gifted learners, by using concepts from 'Understanding by Design'. It emphasizes the importance of developing enduring understandings and essential questions to guide inquiry and deepen students' understanding of complex topics, including real-world applications such as cryptography. Additionally, it discusses the use of technology to enhance learning and engagement through authentic assessments and projects.

1. Classroom Makeover:
Differentiating to Create
Classrooms of Challenge
and Consequence
Dr. Liz Fogarty
East Carolina University

2. Taking Inventory
Themes Curriculum Compacting
Name a few from recent units or Have you done this before:
lessons. YES NO
In what subject areas?
Anchor Activities Tiered Assignments
Have you used these? Have you tiered assignments
before?
Which subject areas?

6. Understanding by Design
O Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

7. Understanding by Design
When creating an instructional
unit, begin with the end in
mind. Ask yourself these
questions…
1. What is worth knowing?
2. What is important for students to
know and do?
3. What enduring understandings should
students take away from the study?

8. Enduring Understandings
Next,define the enduring
understandings.
• Overarching
• Topical

9. Enduring Understandings
Topical
Overarching
A president is Watergate was a
not the law. major constitutional
crisis, not a “third-
rate burglary” or
mere election
shenanigans
between political
Parties.

10. Essential Questions
Next, craft essential
questions.
• Overarching
• Topical
“Given particular subject matter or a particular concept, it is
easy to ask trivial questions … It is also easy to ask
impossibly difficult questions. The trick is to find the medium
questions that can be answered and that take you
somewhere.” Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education,
1960, p. 40

11. Essential Questions
O Cause genuine and relevant inquiry
Provoke deep thought, lively
discussions, sustained inquiry, and
new understanding
O Require students to consider
alternatives, weigh evidence,
support their ideas, and justify their
answers.
O Stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking of
big ideas and assumptions
O Spark meaningful connections
O Naturally occur
?????

12. Essential Questions
Overarching Topical
In what ways does What do ceremonial
art reflect, as well as masks reveal about
shape, culture? the Inca culture?

13. WHERE Process
O Where: Outline where the unit is headed, and
make sure students are aware of expectations.
O Hook: Use a thought provoking focus point such
as a photograph, a relic, an oddity, a
problem, etc.
O Explore/Enable/Equip: Provide learning
experiences that allow students to explore big
ideas through guided instruction and coaching.
O Rethink/Reflect: Provide ways to get students
to use and rethink concepts as well as
revise, rehearse, and refine as needed.
O Exhibit/Evaluate: Reveal what students know
through final performances and other
assessments for real-world audiences.

14. Etarvmitcrja
(Cryptography)

15. Agent Sheila Toler
Agent Kristen Argent

17. Etarvmitcrja
(Cryptography)

18. Agent Sheila Toler
Agent Kristen Argent

19. Which is more effective at
protecting secrets: codes or
ciphers?
Substitution Ciphers
Ceasar Shift Ciphers
Letter Shift Substitution Ciphers
Number Shift Ciphers
Grid Transposition Ciphers
Random Transposition Ciphers Algorithms

20. Real-World Problem-Solving
and Problem-Finding
Important aspect of curriculum for the
gifted.
O Allows students to apply their
learning
O Allows students to utilize analytical
thinking skills to solve a problem or
find problems to solve
O Encourages development of social
capital

23. Essential Questions
O Which is more effective at protecting
secrets: codes or ciphers?
O Why has cryptography evolved?
O How has cryptography covertly
shaped the world?
O Is cryptography good or evil?
O Is cryptography an effective military
weapon?
O Can we fight an invasion of privacy
with an invasion of privacy? (Patriot
Act)

25. Technology-infused Products
for Authentic Audiences
Important aspect of curriculum for the
gifted.
O Allows students to apply their
learning
O Forces students to take risks
O Develops students’ creative
productivity – allows gifts to
manifest themselves

26. Moving from Cute
Counts

27. “Cute”

28. Making CSI Badges

29. Crime Scene
Investigator
ID #AIG07200804 Authorization Level:
Date Issued: L1
7/14/08

30. Hamster Caretaker Log

31. Whiskers
Caretaking Log
• Put him in his ball.
• Refill his water.
• Replenish his food.
• Add bedding if needed.
• Put him back in his cage.
• Give him a yogurt treat.
• Sign log.
Signature Date Comments

32. Hanging Crime Scene Tape
Around The Classroom

34. How Can We Turn This
Unit From “Cute” Into
“Counts”?

35. Develop An Essential Question

36. Essential Question
Examples:
1. Is there always a change or an
exchange in an environment when
a person or object enters?
2. Are fingerprints an infallible source
of identification?
3. Can blood be used to determine
the identity of a perpetrator?

37. Add in real-
world
problem
solving and
real-world
problem
finding.

38. Explain that we have been
summoned to solve a crime. Briefly
discuss the specifics of the crime:
• The class pet, Whiskers, is missing.
• A ransom note has been left at the
scene.
• There are no witnesses.

39. Develop Technology Infused
Products for Authentic Audiences
• Students utilize many different technology devices
and technological processes to create an end product
of a virtual case file.
• Devices include: a Smartboard, digital
cameras, Palm pilots, iPods, a
scanner, laptops, specialized lighting, and
microscopes.
• Processes include:
downloading, uploading, scanning, creating
podcasts, creating files with security codes, and
searching data bases.

40. Your Lessons and Units
Make curriculum appropriate for
gifted learners by moving from cute
counts:
O Enduring understandings and
essential questions
O Real-world problems
O Authentic audiences

41. Questions
?????