’09 TAGT: Educator Perspective by Marie Riley

Thank you for the opportunity to attend the TAGT Conference December 3-4.    The conference provided an opportunity to visit with and share ideas with teachers from throughout Texas.  From these discussions my repertoire of ideas for teaching science expanded.  As for conference sessions, Melanie Ringman and I presented The Gifted and Technology which was attended by a standing room crowd of around one hundred.  Participants seemed to appreciate our presentations as we are still getting requests for copies of our presentation.

As for the highlights of the convention, this was my first time to hear Jan Davidson speak.  I was impressed with her knowledge based on research.  Having never read any of her books, I was impressed enough to look for Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Minds. 

As for the rest of the conference, it was extremely frustrating that a number of the sessions that I wanted to attend were closed.  The highlight of the sessions that I was able to attend was Exploratory Labs for Middle School Science.  Presenter for the session was Beverly Corey.  Not only did the session provide some hands on guides to inquiry labs, but afforded me the opportunity to share ideas with other middle school science teachers on ways to incorporate gifted strategies into the science program.