Developing Children's Talents: Guidelines for Schools is an introduction to some of the issues and ideas currently being explored by Australian educators as they attempt to nurture individual differences and encourage talents. Topics include:

·         Policy Development

·         What is Talent?

·         Disadvantage and Giftedness –

·         Developing a School Policy

·         Identification of Talent Scales for Rating/Identifying Characteristics of Gifted and Talented Students

·         Making Provision for the Gifted and Talented

·         Possibilities for Provision

·         Acceleration, Enrichment and Extension.

This book in the follow up to the first book in the series Team Brainstorming, which introduces a number of thinking challenges that can be used as part of an organised Thinkathon Day.  While the first resource covered quick and depp thinking strategies, this resource covers applied thinking challenges. 

In an applied thinking challenge, the depth of the thinking is increased.  Teamwork and thinking skills developed in the earlier resource are built upon further in this one.  Applied thinking in the classroom is considered throught the discussion of a number of strategies. 

Within this book, strategies, ideas and suggestions are made for organising a successful Thinkathon.  Ready to copy posters, rules, score sheets and challenges are included.  This should be viewed with the first book in the series.

This is a practical book which includes strategies from Gardner and de Bono among others.  In writing the book, the authors have kept in mind the potential for change that today’s curriculum faces.  This book introduces:

·         Problem solving through strategic thinking

·         Working in groups

·         Ways of improving the collaborative team effort

·         Communication to an audience through the presentation of problem solutions

The book includes a rationale for teaching thinking, a framework for creative thinking and an application of the Multiple Intelligence framework.  Ideas for quick thinking incorporating Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences as well as deep thinking including PMI, CAF (consider all factors) and Six Hat Thinking are explored in detail.  Practical examples and ready-made challenges are included.

The sixty activities included in this book cover all aspects of thinking, writing and communicating.  There is a wide choice of themes, study areas, issues and applications.  The activities may be used independently or integrated within the curriculum.  The keynotes include: exploration, discovery, cooperation and creative problem solving.  Sections on thinking skills include: critical thinking, divergent thinking, creative thinking, problem solving.

Described as a book about language, thinking and learning, this resource presents a programme intended to help children to develop the capacity to think and talk about some of the structures behind thinking.  This program incorporates Top Level Structure and Meta-language and includes activities to facilitate children’s thinking.

Described as a book about language, thinking and learning, this resource presents a programme intended to help children to develop the capacity to think and talk about some of the structures behind thinking.  This program incorporates Top Level Structure and Meta-language and includes activities to facilitate children’s thinking.

TRACKS is a resource manual for teachers and is designed to encourage the identification of talented children and provide an appropriate and fulfilling program.  The book includes strategies and models and techniques for developing thinking skills.  Tracks concludes with a wide range of activities for gifted children on blackline masters.

Strategies and models include:

·         Divergent thinking model

·         Multi-talent approach

·         Creative thinking skills

·         Inquiry

·         Problem solving

·         Bloom’s Taxonomy

Designed specifically for primary students, this book incorporates the ideas of Bloom’s Taxonomy for Multiple Intelligences in a practical and fun manner.

 The activities cover themes such as:

·         Seasons

·         Measuring Time

·         Cycles in Our World

·         Olympics

·         Shoes

·         Once upon a time

·         The Hobbit

·         Living things

·         Space

·         Mass Media

·         Surfing

·         Health- Eat for life

·         The Velveteen Rabbit

·         Frog Prince

and can be used by teachers to supplement their own classroom ideas. The integrated units of work includes activities which are individually coded for Multiple Intelligences. The activities have clearly defined learning outcomes, are all reproducible, promote creative thinking… and draw out the children’s intellectual capabilities.

Nutrition and Learning. Maximise Brain Power and Boost your memory. Lift your mood and improve your IQ. Tips to prevent and reverse mental aging.

Thinking in Themes shows the teacher how to create a classroom environment in which children of all ability levels can develop their thinking skills.  The book offers open-ended learning challenges which have been constructed around a thinking skills framework and which encourages learners to think in a variety of ways.

Activities are developed to be used in a learning centre approach and incorporate ideas developed by Bloom.  Advice on setting up and preparing students is also included.

Includes a  number of photocopiable activity cards on the themes:

·         The zoo

·         Work and leisure

·         Me and my school

·         The farm

·         Communication

·         Transport

The units within this quite large resource are organised around Bloom’s Original Taxonomy of Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.  Practical activities are presented in a stimulating visual format.  Photocopy ready, or change the headings to update the taxonomy and you’re away!

Units include:

A number of practical activities based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Thinking.  The level of each activity is indicated on a matrix at the beginning of each theme.  Themes include:

·         Arachnids

·         Frogs and Toads

·         The animal world

·         Monkeys

·         Fish and Undersea life

·         Robots and computers

·         Science Fiction

·         Astronomy

Many practical ideas for oral activities that are organized thematically so that talking and thinking can be linked as an integral part of classroom activities. The activities are of an open-ended nature so elementary children can respond in their own way and their own pace.

‘Creative talk, effective talk and the ability to co-operate are the skills of the future,’ says Joan Dalton. ‘And the way children can develop these skills is by learning to work co-operatively in small groups.’

Adventures in Thinking sets out very quickly how this can be accomplished in the classroom.  Detailed strategies are given for:

The book also includes a ‘Festival of practical ideas’ containing over 400 oral activities to use with children of all abilities in the primary school.  Joan Dalton is particularly concerned to provide challenge for all children and children with special needs.

Practical unit outlines based on cooperative strategies are included on the themes:

This book is a practical guide for teachers and school administrators on ways to recognise, understand, challenge and extend children with special abilities.  Filled with practical and manageable classroom approaches and strategies that support a range of learning and the development of a variety of thinking skills, this resource includes:

·         Bloom’s Taxonomy

·         Taylor’s Multiple Talent Model

·         Krathwohl’s Taxonomy of the Affective Domain

Sample units include:

·         The Circus

·         Inventors

·         Giants

·         Futuristics

·         Project Zarbon

This series of four books presents an educational adaptation of the six hats method by the originator of this method.

Authored by Dr. Edward de Bono, this series of teacher resource books for levels P-Adult helps thinkers to conduct a richer, more balanced exploration of any subject. An individual or group can "put on" one of the coloured hats to perform a specific thinking operation; the hat serves as a tool to guide the thinking process. Six Thinking Hats is quick and fun to teach and easy to learn.

Each book contains teacher notes, reproducible activities, sample lesson plans to integrate the tools across the curriculum, and more.

“The development of thinking skills is a fundamental priority in the primary school curriculum and vitally important in today’s rapidly changing world”.

This video presents innovative ideas for developing thinking skills within the classroom.  The video features an interview with Edward De Bono and introduces Kimberley park State School and the way that the teachers are successfully implementing the Six Hats across all year levels and KLAs. The emphasis is on using Six Hats within the curriculum.

The contents of this book should be good news for just about everybody. The book is partly for those of us who struggle to improve our performance and have some responsibility for helping others to do the same. But it is also for those we seek to help and our critics. We may be called leaders, professionals, teachers, trainers, educators, managers, therapists, counsellors or parents. The name does not matter much. What matters is our shared desire to make the most of our own lives and to help others to do the same while addressing their concerns. Sometimes the struggle can be unrewarding. Sometimes we need to look for a new direction. This book is about a new direction.

A Revolution of Minds has begun (Douglas, 1994, p. 1).

A profitable new direction in uncertain times for anyone involved in improving creativity and performance, including their own.

Did you know:

These and other revolutionary ideas have emerged in recent years from some fascinating brain and mind research. For the first time ever we are beginning to understand how our minds function! A Revolution of Minds has begun.

Drawing on the work of the leaders of the Revolution, Graham Douglas explains what is happening in simple language and revisits and redefines the concepts of needs and willpower.

But he goes much further. Drawing on his own extensive experience in human development, management, training, government and business he integrates this new understanding of the mind into an integrative low-cost training tool called the SOARA (Satisfying-Optimum- Achievable- Results- Ahead) Process of Integrative Thinking.

Anyone can quickly learn to use this unique tool to improve their creativity and performance by applying it to any problem. Among other things it offers simple new techniques for:

The problem-centred thinking tasks contained in this book are developed to motivate students to produce creative ideas that lead to the solution of the problems.

The materials are designed to be used in a variety of different ways.  Some may be used as:

·         Instructor-lead activities with small groups

·         Learning Centre activities

·         Take home activities

·         Warm up activities

More games to develop students Creative imagination through role play and imagery.  A follow up on the first book of Bob Eberle’s: SCAMPER.

The explicit teaching of thinking skills is acknowledged as an important element in developing students’ thinking capacity. This book gives teachers a manageable framework for empowering students with thinking skills - the ability to reason, to make informed judgements, to critically evaluate information and to think creatively. Through well directed modules on methods such as Six Thinking Hats, Brainstorming, Questioning Techniques, Thinking Keys, Graphic Organisers, Bloom’s and Problem Solving, teachers are able to gain familiarity with a range of ‘thinking’ tools, develop strategies for their use and incorporate them into their classrooms.

By using the holistic models presented in this book, teachers can structure curricula in ways that give them more time to teach students. Included are six innovative curriculum models to stimulate the minds of elementary, middle, and high school students. By using these models, students can learn how to problem-solve with the realization that there is not always a formula or one right answer.

What comes first–assessment or instruction? By using the holistic models presented in this book, teachers can structure curricula in ways that give them more time to teach students. Included are six innovative curriculum models to stimulate the minds of elementary, middle, and high school students. By using these models, students can learn how to problem-solve with the realization that there is not always a formula or one right answer.

Explore 6 Curricula Models:

Features:

Unit outlines incorporating thinking skills include:

Written for primary students, Start Them Thinking: A handbook of classroom strategies for the early years  introduces young students to the fun and challenge of skilful thinking. This book provides teachers with practical strategies and lesson plans for co-operative classroom interactions.  It answers the questions a teacher must deal with to produce a thinking classroom, and outline methods for establishing the appropriate classroom atmosphere to foster thinking skills.

Contents include:

·         Critical thinking strategies such as organising information, attribute identification, perceiving patterns, comparing and contrasting, ordering and sequencing.

·         Creative thinking strategies such as brainstorming, visualising, mapping, prediction, personification, inferring and generalising.

·         Problem solving and decision making.

In this book you will find useful forms, planning outlines and graphic organisers.  They will help with the visual organisation of information.  Eight different sections in the book present different graphic organisers and outlines.  The sections include:

Incorporating Bloom’s and William’s Taxonomies as well as the theory of Multiple Intelligences, these outlines will help you design your class so you can effectively and efficiently teach students with different styles of learning.

“Strengthen student thinking skills with thirteen skill-based interdisciplinary units”.

The information and activities within this resource is structured according to a variety of models and taxonomies:

·         Bloom’s Taxonomy is used to inspire creative thinking skills

·         Activities based on Multiple Intelligences allow students to work from their strengths

·         Activities based on William’s Taxonomy help students develop thinking skills

Each unit also offers ideas for research topics, subjects for creative writing topics and suggestions for students products and performances.  Suitable for middle and upper primary students.

Interdisciplinary Units include:

·         Batteries

·         Bicycles

·         Bionic people, robots and artificial intelligence

·         Careers in science

·         Colour, light and optical illusions

·         Dinosaurs, predators and prey, and endangered species

·         Insects

·         Oceans

·         Planets

·         Plants

·         Rocks and minerals

·         Weather

·         Things that fly

Eric Frangenheim has produced a how-to-do-it book that teachers will find very helpful, even if they are already familiar with some of the strategies discussed, for it goes beyond merely cataloguing these to showing how they may be linked into a coherent approach to the teaching of thinking as a central focus of classroom learning. This book encourages lesson planning to promote the "Thinking Classroom".

After explaining his personal teaching philosophy, Frangenheim outlines clearly and concisely nine analysis and evaluation strategies, five creative thinking strategies and nine cooperative learning strategies, as well as providing a set of