Narrative+Description





Greystone Elementary is a part of Hoover City Schools in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. It a very affluent school district and Greystone Elementary is the most affluent of all their ten elementary schools. There are 597 students as of November at Greystone Elementary. There are 117 enrichment students which represents 20% of the total student population and 35% of the third through fifth grade population. Hoover City Schools services their students with a Schoolwide Enrichment Model with a third through fifth grade pullout program for students who are identified as needing enrichment services. Students are identified in second grade and are continually monitored through fifth grade to ensure no student is overlooked.

Once students are identified, they are pulled out of the regular classroom for three hours a week. During this time, the enrichment teachers develop concept-based units based on student interest shown through surveys taken the prior year. Students are assigned units based on the results of their surveys. Each student has the opportunity for choice and freedom once they enter my classroom. Flexible learning areas, teacher and student led goals, student project/product choice, and various methods and media for learning materials are provided. Students can use multimedia or other various materials to present their knowledge. They are encouraged to step out and take risks in order to learn something new during this time. Students are also given the opportunity to design their own rubrics for the projects/presentations they do.

Working and collaborating with teachers are an important part of my gifted specialist duties. During this year, I have been collaborating with teachers to learn how to incorporate anchor activities in their classroom, use compacting and contracting to allow students who have mastered the material already to continue to be challenged, and use socratic circles in order to encourage higher levels of thinking during reading activities. I have offered a professional development seminar, worked with three different teachers in their classroom, and had numerous discussions with teachers during their break times. This is a very important piece to me and I found that most of the teachers had little to know knowledge of how to incorporate these differentiation techniques effectively.

As an enrichment teacher, I have many duties throughout the school day. The very first duty is our school daily broadcast. Student written news reports are broadcast daily to assist in making announcements, leading the pledge, and helping students keep up with current events. I lead this team of students in using the equipment, planning, and writing the scripts, and presenting the broadcast on a daily basis.

I am also the school communication director. I am responsible for sending parent news updates on a weekly basis as well as communicating with them during an emergency situation. I use a program purchased by Hoover City Schools called SchoolMessenger to do this.

Since I have a strong background in technology, I am responsible for providing teachers with technology support, professional development, and ideas of ways to use technology in their classroom. I am very busy, so I generally use a screen capturing program to create tutorial videos and classroom idea videos. This is the only way I can multiply myself in the schedule I have this year.

My gifted specialist position duties are to help teachers differentiate for the high ability learners in their classroom, but what I teach them is good for all learners. I also collaborate with the kindergarten through second grade teachers to provide enrichment opportunities for their students who do not yet get the opportunity to be pulled out to our enrichment classroom. This gives me the chance to get to know the students so that I am more familiar with them when I am working with them in second grade. This year we are focusing on careers and mapping skills and will do enrichment activities with these students using speakers, presentations, and technology.