Critical Thinking
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🤖 Why VEX Robotics Belongs in the Gifted Classroom: It’s Not Just About Coding!
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The Power of a Confidence Meter — Teaching Students That It’s Okay Not to Know Yet
#smithingifted: The Power of a Confidence Meter Confidence doesn’t always equal understanding, especially for gifted learners! In the #smithingifted Learning & Innovation Lab, students use a simple Confidence Meter—Not Sure, Maybe, Pretty Sure, or Very Sure—to reflect on their understanding before and after learning challenges. Using our Micro:bit Coding Academy as an example, students learn…
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💻 Why Coding Belongs in the Gifted Classroom
It’s Not Really About Teaching Kids to Code By Beth Smith, M. Ed. | #smithingifted When people hear that we use coding in #smithingifted, they may assume I’m trying to turn every student into a computer programmer. I’m not. Some of my students may eventually become software engineers. Others may become doctors, teachers, architects, scientists,…
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#smithingifted Teacher Lab: Where Teaching Ideas Get Tested
The #smithingifted Teacher Lab is a place where teaching ideas move from theory into real classrooms. I’ll share the successes, challenges, surprises, and adjustments that come from using gifted education, STEM, robotics, technology, and creative-thinking strategies with real students. But the Teacher Lab isn’t just about my classroom—teachers who use #smithingifted curriculum can share their…
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Why I Use the 24 Math Game in My 3rd–5th Grade Gifted Classroom
The 24 Math Game is a simple but powerful way to build number sense, flexible thinking, problem solving, and productive struggle in the 3rd–5th grade gifted classroom. Students use four numbers and different operations to make 24, but the real learning goes far beyond getting the correct answer. Students must explain and defend their reasoning…
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Why Vocabulary Matters So Much in the 3rd–5th Grade Gifted Classroom
This blog post explains why vocabulary is essential in the 3rd–5th grade gifted classroom. Strong vocabulary helps students understand complex ideas, communicate with precision, make connections across subjects, and engage in higher-level thinking. Rather than memorizing long definitions, gifted students benefit from visual, interactive, and meaningful vocabulary instruction that encourages them to apply words in…
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Sometimes the Best Learning Is Locked: Using Breakout EDU in Grades 3–8
This blog post explores how Breakout EDU can transform grades 3–8 classrooms by turning academic content into engaging, collaborative problem-solving experiences. It highlights how Breakout EDU supports critical thinking, productive struggle, communication, perseverance, differentiation, and student reflection across subjects like math, reading, science, and social studies. The post also encourages teachers to move students from…
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Every Drop Counts: Exploring New Mexico’s Water Resources in the Global Innovation Lab 💧🌵
This blog post explores New Mexico’s water resources through The Global Innovation Lab’s Every Drop Counts challenge, helping students connect science, geography, agriculture, technology, law, and systems thinking. It also explains how the Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado Rio Grande case and the 2026 Supreme Court settlement affect groundwater use, farming, communities, industry, and…
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Snap Circuits Jr. in the Gifted Classroom: Where Curiosity Meets Circuitry ⚡🧠
Snap Circuits Jr. is more than a fun electronics kit—it’s a powerful tool for building critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, systems thinking, and perseverance in the gifted classroom. ⚡🧠 By moving students beyond simply following directions and challenging them to predict, troubleshoot, redesign, and invent their own circuits, teachers can transform hands-on STEM play into…
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📚 DIBELS and Gifted Students: What the Scores Tell Us—and What They Don’t
This post explains why DIBELS can be a helpful reading assessment for gifted students, but should never be used as the only measure of their ability or instructional needs. Gifted students may quickly reach the assessment ceiling, show uneven results, or need more advanced reading opportunities beyond grade-level benchmarks. The key is to use DIBELS…