Registration, Lobby area of Gathering Place

George Lynn, author of  "Genius!: Nurturing the Spirit of the Wild, Odd, and Oppositional Child," will examine why educators and caregivers use diagnostic labels for children and how this does and does not serve the child or the process. He will offer a reframing exercise for finding the hidden genius in the challenged and challenging twice-exceptional learner. Three practical strategies for building the prospects for success for these students will be shared.

Trends in Technology that Support Universal Design for Learning
Carolyn Staudt, Ph.D.
President, The Concord Consortium, Boston, MA

Carolyn Staudt will acquaint participants with the capacity of technology to support diverse students by providing a variety of learning and assessment environments or Universal Design for Learning (UDL) using the "Thinking Reader," a commercial middle-school reading comprehension package and "UDL Science," a current research and development project focused on grades 3-6 science. Both feature spoken outputs, variable prompts, and other UDL features. UDL Science includes the use of real-time data acquisition, the use of interactive models, and alternative assessments that can include responses made by drawing or annotating graphics and require little or no writing.

Developing 21st Century Skills: Digital inspiration Manorama Talaiver, Ed.D..
Director, ITTIP, Longwood University, VA

Dr. Talaiver will share professional development models for school divisions to facilitate engaged learning experiences in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) areas for ALL students.  She believes that STEM learning can and should be made accessible to ALL children, including those who are different learners.  She will share the success factors and challenges of ‘Digispired,’ a special project designed to teach computer programming skills to underrepresented middle school students.  Dr. Talaiver will discuss a current Longwood University project involvin 85 middle school students in six school divisions in Virginia. Dr. Talaiver will make tips and techniques available to inspire all teachers to reach even their most uninspired students through technology.

Will describe the innovative programs for twice exceptional learners in Prince George's County Public Schools.

What's worked for us
Julie Kuhn, John Beecher-Dioghan, Brian Potts, Student Panelists Moderator: Ann Bracken

A panel of GT/LD high school and college students will share their thoughts and strategies for success in this provocative session. Each speaker will briefly describe his or her school-related strengths and weaknesses, recount the programs/schools they have attended, and comment on a host of relevant issues for GT/LD students. They will share helpful strategies, insights about teachers or programs, and their visions for the future. Participants will learn by hearing thoughtful teenagers relate how to make it through the system relying on strengths and working around weaker areas.

What works: Experiencing science/math/technology
Robert Kedell, Motivation Education, Brandon Shifflett, Sherri Morisco, Howard County Public Schools, Discussant:  Linda Townsend, ITTIP

Panelists will share their considerable experience in engaging students and promoting math and science learning. Sherri Morisco will address science learning and lessons learned at "Space Camp." Robert Kedell will explain how "Motivation Education" translates the work of research and field experts into doable, highly active and motivational activities for youth through direct instruction using active simulations addressing socio-emotional learning; the use of technology tools to demonstrate understandings, and the application of a planned matrix of learning addressing the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Brandon Shifflet will speak specifically about results from the school-based application of motivation education's model at Lime-kiln middle school.

The most important educational practice when working with "Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties," is to utilize Strength-Based Instruction. But how can we teach to the strengths of these students when there are so many obstacles that prevent them from accessing rigorous instruction? In this presentation, participants will practice utilizing a tool that allows staff and parents to plan for removing obstacles in rigorous lessons so that all students can not only succeed but thrive.

Making Connections: Reaching all students through the arts

Rebecca Braukus, Andrew Spang, Linda Newton,Howard County Public Schools, Moderator: Janice Webber, AEMS, MD

In this educational era of testing, testing, and more testing, the arts are often placed at risk within a school setting.  This is unfortunate as many students learn in non-traditional ways.  Arts Integration advocates instructional methods that appeal to all the intelligences.  It allows teachers to design instructional methods to connect with students’ learning styles using combinations of experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation.  The panel will discuss a rationale for integrating the arts in the general classroom, how to implement this teaching strategy, and its benefits for students.

Imagination Quest (IQ) is based on the premise that arts-based teaching can help generate a fair system of education accommodating different ways of learning and acknowledging and respecting different cultures and backgrounds. By fostering learning through the arts, the IQ model seeks to improve teacher effectiveness with all learners, provide opportunities for ownership and invention, pursue educational equity, and ensure access to knowledge for all students. IQ has reached nearly two thousand teachers as well as principals, parents, caregivers, and students across the U.S.

The secret garden: Using poetry & arts
Ann Bracken, M.Ed., Special Educator, Coach, Poetry Therapist

The expressive arts offer a fun and engaging way to connect with students. Drawing on best practices in education, expressive arts, and brain-based learning, this presentation will focus on innovative ways to use the arts for teaching academic and social skills. Using an interactive format, participants will join in several activities designed to both motivate students and deliver academic material.

Genius! Nurturing the spirit of the wild oppositional child
George Lynn, M.A., M.P.A., L.M.H.C. 
Psychologist and author in private practice
Bellevue, Washington

In this thought-provoking session, George Lynn will discuss the need for new paradigms of education and parenting for difficult children. He uses the Jungian metaphor of "archetype" to delineate the core challenges and gifts, that is, the "soft diagnoses" of children with wild, odd, and oppositional behavior also diagnosed as ADHD, Tourette's syndrome, Asperger's syndrome, and Nonverbal Learning Disability. To empower teachers and parents, he suggests creative strategies for individual children occupying different archetypes.

Walking the path with the 2E learner: Emotions and learning

Katharina Boser, Ph.D., President, Individual Differences in Learning Association, Howard County, MD

Learn to recognize the characteristics of students who are both gifted and have learning differences. These extremes of strengths and challenges can result in complex and difficult behaviors. Twice-exceptional (2e) students often don't fit in, don't like to follow rules, struggle with social situations and under-perform, leading to a lack of confidence, self-esteem, and poor social and academic outcomes. Explore how hands-on techniques can help teachers and parents work together with 2e students and deal with frustrations. Dr. Boser will highlight a set of professional development materials for 2E students Walking the Path with the Twice Exceptional (2E) Learner. developed by IDL with HCPSS staff and students.

What I learned about what works for dyslexia: It's in the mind's eye
Thomas G. West, Author of In the Mind's Eye, Thinking like Einstein

Thomas West will focus on what he has learned from extensive case study research and personal experience about the talents of those with dyslexia and others more or less like them. These special talents and capabilities are often hidden beneath academic difficulties and not apparent until these individuals have moved beyond the conventional school curriculum and academic tests and measures. West will discuss ways of recognizing and developing such talents and abilities -- those that are extremely important in work and life although they may not be appreciated in other settings. West will argue that major advances in computer information visualization technologies promise to transform education and the workplace by greatly increasing the value of visual talents for understanding patterns in complex systems in business, the sciences and other fields. Many of those who rely heavily on visual thinking (some with dyslexia or other language difficulties) are already leaders in areas of technological innovation as well as science and entrepreneurial business. Often it is believed that mastery in science (as well as other fields) is mainly the memorization of a set of facts. However, among top scientific organizations, what everyone really wants is genuine innovation and new discoveries. West will provide examples of how dyslexics and other strong visual thinkers, given the right circumstances and educational context, can become engines of innovation and discovery.

Will review arts integration programs in the state of Maryland.

Finding and using students strengths at home and in school
Edwin Oliver, Ed.D., Psychologist, Baltimore Lab School, Julie Morrison, Ph.D., Psychologist in private practice, Cynthia Wilcox, Psychologist with Thrive

Members of the panel entitled Finding Students' Strengths at Home and in School will use case vignettes to illustrate both formal and informal ways to assess students' strengths and nurture them through high interest learning. Julie Morrison, Psy.D., a psychologist in private practice who conducts psychological evaluations, will emphasize the need to shift from a disability perspective; to create an interpersonal environment that is most likely to allow a child's strengths to emerge; to reintegrate disparate recommendations that may otherwise further "fragment" the child; and to use of the feedback session to highlight the child's strengths to bolster the child's sense of self and engender hope in the family. Eddie Oliver, Psy.D., a psychologist at the Baltimore Lab School, will present a tool that he developed to explore a student's interests; discuss his role in encouraging other members of the team to think 'outside the box', meeting students where they are; and explain ways in which it is possible to capitalize on student strengths in high interest learning environments, while acknowledging the challenge of a strength-based approached in a system that often requires justification of a disability to access special services. Cynthia Wilcox, Ph.D., a psychologist at Thrive, a mind-body healthcare center, will explain how she conceptualizes the 'whole child' and then uses this frame in individual and family therapy to recognize and nurture both child and family strengths.

Mentoring programs can effectively provide support to gifted/learning disabled students and highly able students who are not succeeding in the regular education classroom. Representatives from both Howard and Montgomery County Public Schools will share their experiences in implementing programs based on one-on-one relationships that help students realize their creative and intellectual potential.

Three perspectives on college planning, preparation, and selection will be shared to help families who are eyeing the process from a distance or in the throes of college visits. Judy Bass, an educational planner specializing in students with learning differences, will offer practical advice on preparation, fostering independence in students, and college services. Ben Mitchell will share his unique perspective as an admissions officer at the country's only college designed for students with learning disabilities. Rebekah Dixon, a twice-exceptional graduate of HCPSS and pre-med student at Auburn University will share what worked to make her successful.

What Works: Building better executive skills
Joyce Cooper-Kahn, Ph.D.,  Psychological Resource Associates, MD

Dr. Cooper-Kahn, author of "Late, Lost and Unprepared" will focus her presentation on practical strategies to help students with executive skills weaknesses.  Disorganized thinking, disorganization of materials, and difficulty initiating tasks are just some of the executive difficulties that can lead students to underperform in school and can cause secondary problems, such as frustration and self-doubt.  How can we help students to access their strengths at the same time that we are helping them to build better abilities to organize and manage tasks?  Learn how to design interventions that work.

Acquiring skills in reading, spelling, and writing is complex and challenging for many students with language-based learning differences. There are so many subskills to be mastered, memorized, and quickly executed in most day-to-day language arts tasks. Using multisensory approaches enhances a student's ability to retain and retrieve these subskills in a more efficient and effective manner. Research from the fields of neuropsychology, gerontology and speech/language pathology help us to understand why multisensory approaches improve a student's ability to learn language-based information. This session will focus on multisensory strategies to use with students of all ages, who are learning to read, spell and write, and will examine some of the research supporting why these methods work.

Joan Green will present several affordable software treasures and other resources that can be used help twice-exceptional children, their families, and professionals who support them. Inexpensive and free interactive multi-sensory programs will be shown and strategies will be discussed that can be used to improve weak areas of communication, cognition, and literacy as well as offer accelerated learning in stronger areas. She will review resources that families and rehabilitation and education professionals can use to quickly zero in on the technology that can be integrated into daily routines to improve outcomes and make learning more enjoyable.