Teacher-Made Tactile Science Materials with Critical and Creative Thinking Activities for Learners Including Those with Visual Impairments

Résumé du livre

Gifted students with visual impairments are twice exceptional learners and may not evidence their advanced science aptitudes without appropriate accommodations for learning science. However, effective tactile science teaching materials may be easily made. Recent research has shown that when tactile materials are used with "all" students in the class, everyone benefits. This presentation provides many classroom-tested example sets of tactile materials for teaching upper elementary and middle school science concepts. These science concepts include the parts of: a flower, ear, insect, beaver habitat, volcano, hydroelectric power plant, plant cell, and sun. Critical and creative thinking skill strategies to accompany these materials for further developing gifted students' science knowledge also are provided. These include application of the Edward de Bono CoRT Breadth thinking skills and other creative thinking skills, such as making a model or using analogy. This document represents the content of a gifted education conference presentation made at the Iowa Talented and Gifted Association Annual Meeting. [Based on paper presented at the Iowa Talented and Gifted (ITAG) Annual Conference: Reaching for the Future (Des Moines, IA, Oct 13-14, 2014).].