For a month I've been excited when thinking about “what will be learned” (by me and others) before-during-after a conference of OAGC, Ohio Association for Gifted Children.  I'm hoping to network with other educators after moving to Columbus, but don't yet have “connections” so I'm writing this section to communicate with you.

tips for viewing:   If it's possible, view this page on a large screen;  then when you put This Page into the left frame – and put The HomePage into the right frame the links will work better because linked-to sections appear in the proper frames, so both pages remain in the proper frame (on left-side for This Page, right-side for HomePage).   But if you have a small screen, probably it's best to keep this page as-is and its links will open in a New Tab.     {and end-of-page explains why this page has extra-large fonts}

some of my Verbal-and-Visual Representations

Based on topics in talk-abstracts for the conference, it seems that the how-and-why of metacognition (re: its process-and-benefits) will be a minor part of our learning.  But this has been a major interest of mine;  it was a main focus for my PhD work (in C&I at U of WI) about Scientific Method, and since then I've generalized this into a flexibly improvised “process” that people use to Solve Problems, to Make Things Better.  When you see my verbal-and-visual models for Problem-Solving Process (that I call Design Process) I'm hoping you'll respond by thinking “these are beautifully elegant, and might be educationally useful,” and maybe you'll want us to work together in co-creating better education.  As described in the HomePage of my website about Education for Problem Solving, we have reasons to expect that using Design Process will increase transfers of problem-solving skills, especially if we help students recognize bridges between school and life so they will be motivated by expecting useful transfers-of-learning from school into life.

Compared with other students, I think a larger proportion of gifted students (although not all) will want to make “deep dives” into thinking about the process of Design-and-Science, to develop deep understandings that are cognitive-and-metacognitive.

I'm also hoping for “elegant and useful” responses when you understand how playing my colorized keyboard — with colors (red, blue, green) that show the notes of three main chords — can make it easier to improvise harmonious melodies during chord progressions.

two sources of benefits:  As you know, educators have observed that students generally get benefits from using metacognition.  And scientists are discovering that when people play music (pre-composed or self-improvised) they get major benefits – mental, emotional, physical – that are especially valuable for young people, because at this stage of life their musical experiences can help them develop more of the full potential for what they can become.

I've heard videos about the experiences of gifted people, have been thinking about my own life.  I never was in a “gifted program” and — except for the challenge of staying alive during the summer between 7th and 8th grade in small-town Iowa, before a liberating move (thanks, Mom & Dad) to the freedom of large-town California — my “gifted experiences” have been fairly normal, although on a road less traveled as an adult.

BTW, This page has large fonts because Whova (the phone app used by the conference) opens links inside Whova – and the fonts are tiny – instead of in a browser, so the fonts extra-large to make them easier to read.