Creative birthday gift idea

As teachers, we have all attended countless workshops which advocated new teaching methods, materials, or techniques in addressing special student populations. We politely listen as a series of presenters enthusiastically introduce their information in written and verbal form. We return to the classroom, fully intending to use our new skills, but perhaps feeling a bit anxious about their actual applications and ensuing results.

It is my opinion that teachers, like students, must be both physically and mentally involved in the learning process for it to be successful and meaningful. As a former elementary school teacher who is working toward an endorsement in gifted education, I had the opportunity to participate in the 2003 Baylor University Interdisciplinary Creative Problem Solving Conference. Rather than sitting passively and absorbing information presented, I actively participated in the creation and implementation of an interdisciplinary approach to curricular design based upon a creative problem solving model (Isaksen & Treffinger, 1985). I found the experience invaluable because I physically and mentally progressed through the steps of interdisciplinary curricular design and watched them come alive.

The primary purpose of the annual conference is to provide gifted secondary students with a forum to interact and address real-life problems while participating in a problem solving curriculum (M. Witte, personal communication, June 4, 2003). However, the conference also provides teachers of the gifted with an opportunity to interact, design a curriculum, and implement it using the problem-solving process.

My role was that of a counselor, an assistant to the facilitator. I attended planning meetings, helped set up the classroom, are with students, and participated in all of the conference activities. The role of the facilitator was to provide instructions for the activities, guide student learning, and lead them through the steps of the problem-solving process. In addition, prior to the conference, facilitators were trained in the steps of creative problem solving, which are instrumental in the selection of the conference topic, writing the "mess" or problem to be solved, and choosing the theme.

The conference has been an annual event at Baylor since 1989. One of the founders of the conference, Joel McIntosh, president of Prufrock Press, said he came up with the idea because he thought that gifted kids, particularly those in the rural districts, needed to interact with same-age peers. He believed the conference could actually offer a stronger social component than an academic one because it provides a "validating experience" for the students, many of whom had never met other kids like themselves. His hope was that gifted kids would "grapple" with a real-life problem over which they could have an actual effect (J. McIntosh, personal communication, June 6, 2003).

For a number of reasons, the conference also provided an excellent academic learning experience for gifted students. Organizationally speaking, conference planners and facilitators were well trained and experienced. Prior to the conference, facilitators attended a workshop designed to prepare them for implementing the problem-solving curriculum. Rooms, groupings, and materials were well organized so no time was wasted on confusion or missing supplies. The schedule of events created for facilitators, counselors, and students was strictly adhered to, and product development goals were met.

Academically speaking, Sandra Kaplan (1979) developed a number of principles she believed were significant to creating a curriculum that was differentiated for gifted and talented students. Some of these include thematic or problem-solving content based upon topics of interest, multidisciplinary study, the opportunity to learn independently, the integration of higher level thinking skills, and the use of materials and technology to produce products. The conference curriculum definitely adhered to these principles, as I will describe throughout my observations as a counselor.

For the conference and underlying curriculum to be successful, an interesting topic was needed. Prior to each conference, facilitators attend a planning meeting where they discuss potential topics they believe will resonate with young students. The topic is chosen, the mess is written, and a theme is selected. Facilitators, counselors, planners, and administrative support people all confer one last time to finalize the mess and develop generalizations based upon the chosen theme of "perspectives." This year's mess involved a 16-year-old who was being sued by a music company for downloading music off the Internet (see Figure 1).