Where: Terrence Murphy (Keynote, Adult Sessions, Vendors & Information) and Opus (Kidsʼ Program) Halls, University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis campus
Schedule
8:30 - 9:00 Check-in and pick up program
9:00 - 12:00 Childrenʼs morning session
9:00 - 10:30 Welcome, MCGT Friend of the Gifted Award,
Keynote Address
10:45 - 11:45 Adult Breakout Session I
11:45 - 1:00 Lunch for adults and students
1:00 - 4:00 Childrenʼs afternoon session
1:00 - 1:20 MCGT Annual Meeting
1:30 - 2:30 Adult Breakout Session II
2:45 - 3:45 Adult Breakout Session IV
4:10 - 4:30 Book Swap session for students
All day Vendors & information
Children’s Program: Open only to children of registered adults who attend the conference. Kids in kindergarten through 7th grade must pre-register. They will choose a morning and an afternoon class led by experienced teachers - course descriptions inside. There are no facilities for children younger than kindergarten.
Older kids may register to attend adult sessions or sign up to be volunteers in various areas of the conference (including assisting teachers in one of the kids’ classes or helping set up and clean up). Contact Shari at crowriver@mcgt.net for more information on volunteer opportunities at the conference.
Lunch: All will eat together in “Food for Thought.”
Please mark lunch choices on the registration form.
Vendors: Best Prep, Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University and Northwestern University Midwest Academic Talent Search, Concordia Language Villages, Edina Center for Academic Excellence, Friedrichs Education, Minnesota College Savings Plan, MCGT (books from a number of publishers), Ruf Estimates™ of Levels of Giftedness, Stories with Holes, Usborne Books. (Some vendors may not be able to take credit card orders.)
Information and Catalogs: Destination Imagination, Educational Impressions, Free Spirit Publishing, Great Potential Press, Intermediate District 287, Mensa, Mindware, Minnesota Academic Excellence Foundation, MCGT Homeschoolers Chapter, National Association for Gifted Children, Pieces of Learning, Prufrock Press, Tutor Doctor, University of St. Thomas College of
Education, Youth Enrichment League and more.
Cost: $55 for members, $70 for non-members (but pay the member rate if you join with your registration), $25 for second adult in the same family and $35 for each child in kindergarten through seventh grade whose parent(s) or guardian is attending the Conference. The fee includes lunch and snack. No credit cards accepted.
Incentive for early registration: If you register by Oct. 26 (postmark) you are entitled to pick up on the day of the conference a set of 12 “Frequently Asked Questions” brochures (National Association for Gifted Children publications) or a coupon for $2.00 off a purchase made at the MCGT table.
ADULT REGISTRATION
√ Each participant must register, using one registration form per family.
√ Those who are not members of MCGT, or whose membership has expired, may join when they register.
√ Check out some of the Adult session titles on back.
√ Indicate lunch preferences.
√ Registration deadline is November 4, 2013 to guarantee a lunch.
STUDENT REGISTRATION
√ Every child must register and attend with parent or guardian who is registered for the conference. Postcards will be sent on November 8th to confirm each child’s class choices.
√ Cost per child is $35.00.
√ Registrations with postmarks of October 26 or earlier will be considered first-day registrations and given equal consideration for class choices. Postmarks will determine placements after that until classes are filled.
√ There are no facilities for children under kindergarten age.
√ Indicate lunch preferences.
√ Registration deadline is November 4, 2013.
Keynote Speaker – Ann Robinson
Dr. Ann Robinson is Professor of Education and founding Director of the Center for Gifted Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is a former editor of the Gifted Child Quarterly, serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association for Gifted Children as the Past President and received the Early Leader, the Early Scholar, and the Distinguished Service Awards from the Association. In 2004, she and co-author Sidney Moon received the Gifted Child Quarterly Paper Year Award for a qualitative study, “The National Study of State and Local Advocacy in Gifted Education.” She was a charter board member of the Special Interest Group on Giftedness and Talent of the American Educational Research Association. In 2000, Ann was recognized as the Purdue University Alumna of Distinction for the College of Education. Her own institution honored her with the University Award of Faculty Excellence in Research in 1999 and the University of Award for Public Service in 2001. Ann is the Past President of the Arkansans for Gifted and Talented Education, the Past President of the Arkansas Association of Gifted Education Administrators, and is active in advocacy at the state and national levels. She has held visiting appointments at Cambridge University, at Brunel University near London at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. In 2006, her text, Best Practices in Gifted Education: An Evidence-based Guide was published with co-authors Bruce Shore and Donna Enersen. As a service publication of the National Association for Gifted Children, the guide summarizes 29 practices with research support for use with high ability learners. Over half of them are instructional and curricular practices and include content speci\ic pedagogy in reading, language arts, history, inquiry-based science, mathematics, the arts, and career education.
Ann is an enthusiastic reader of biographies, recommends them as a strategy for differentiating the curriculum for high ability learners, and has designed a series of instructional guides, Blueprints for Biography’s for classroom teachers keyed to trade book biographies. The guides focus on instructional strategies in reading, language arts, and social studies to promote higher level thinking, talent development, and interest-based investigations.