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Sunday, October 27, 2013

Depth and Complexity

Just to get my post started (which has been sitting open for 45 minutes now thanks to 2 adorable little ones who want to play with mommy in the ball pit)...


I felt like the day needed an icon to go with it :) Between playing with the kids, breaking up hair pulling fights, trying to clean anything, and the constant question, "When is Aunt Gwenie getting here?" I may never finish this post!

So I have been constantly looking at my classes and students this year to find a way to motivate and engage them. They have needed more in these areas than any group I have had before. One of the things I had purchased this summer was a set of Depth and Complexity Science Task Cards from TpT. I loved them! I could not wait to use them in my classroom this year. Well, here we are at the end of October, and i just got a chance to use them. I knew before we could use them, I would have to go over what the cards meant, the different icons and so on. 

Well, a friend emailed me this news story Friday about a small town using reflection to help their city get more sunlight, and I thought this was a great chance to get started with depth and complexity. 



 Depth and Complexity (developed by Dr. Sandra Kaplan) is a way to integrate higher level thinking skills into every day learning. It is geared towards GT studies, but I think it has a purpose for all students.I loved that there were so many ways for students to show they understood the material. My first impression of depth and complexity was that it had to be based on a reading selection. Now that we used it, and I researched more this weekend, I can see its use on just specific topics that we are learning. I found lots of great resources that all sparked ides. There are a bunch on Teachers Pay Teacher and at JTaylorEducation.com, and you will start to see some pop up in my TpT store soon, as well. In the meantime, if you get a chance, take a look at Depth and Complexity and see if it is something that would benefit your kids. 

If you want to start using Depth and Complexity, I recommend these resources to get started.

Icons:
Activities from TpT: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Search:depth+and+complexity/Page:1
How do I use it? http://www.sracs.org/media/assets/Depth_Complexity_Icon_Chart.pdfhttp://kc3rd.pbworks.com/f/GATE-ICONS-final.pdf

On another note, I posted some new physical science interactive notebook foldables and activities. I hope you find them useful!




FYI: I was able to write the last 85% of this post because Aunt Gwenie and Grandma did indeed get here. Thank goodness for them :)



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