(Re)Discovering Excitement in Learning:
An Interview with Leapfrog Educators

To find out more about how Leapfrog educators create dynamic, challenging learning environments for our youngest Summer Program students (PreK-3rd graders), we recently interviewed four master teachers from the 2003 Leapfrog program. Emily Hayden, currently on leave from Joseph Sears School in Kenilworth, has taught at CTD since 1992. Selene Stewart teaches in Oak Park and loops from first- through third-grade with the same students. Andrea Cocke has taught children from preschool through second grade in both public and private settings for 10 years. Michelle Brashears taught fifth and third grades in Illinois before her current position teaching sixth grade in California.

What distinguishes a young gifted child from one who is not gifted? How do you handle giftedness in your classroom?

Hayden: Gifted children wonder and ask difficult questions. They love projects and solving mysteries. They express themselves in sophisticated language and love to trade ideas with peers and teachers. They are undaunted by open-ended assignments and call upon vast knowledge reserves to solve problems. Often, gifted children become experts in esoteric fields, such as archaeology, zoology, or astronomy. Gifted children can direct their energy in original ways. Working with gifted children can be confounding, exhausting, inspiring, exciting, and always rewarding.

Stewart: Gifted children show advancement in cognitive development. They already grasp "grade-level" material, learn new material in a shorter time, or think more abstractly than kids their age. I combine acceleration, compacting, and enrichment to meet their needs. Acceleration exposes students to content designed for older students. Compacting increases the pace of grade-level material. Enrichment expands the breadth of what is covered and permits more integrative projects involving higher-order thinking.

Cocke: Gifted children are blessed with attention, rich literature, conversation and experiences. Dealing with these characteristics in the classroom is a gift!

Brashears: Gifted children are eager to learn and learn quickly. They think creatively and enjoy challenging, critical thinking activities. Gifted children also love problem-solving and find unconventional solutions. In my regular classroom, I put gifted students together and provide more challenging projects. I select harder novels and assign more involved writing assignments.

How do Leapfrog students compare to your school-year students?

Hayden: Leapfrog students are inquisitive, eager to learn, undaunted by new approaches to subjects, and effective at communicating. Leapfrog students love projects and can initiate and complete them with a minimum of teacher guidance. Leapfroggers also love playing games with their newfound knowledge and often form strong bonds with classmates.

Stewart: Actually, some of my school-year students attend CTD programs. Leapfrog students are motivated to learn and enjoy trying things that older students and adults do. They like to know how skills and concepts apply to the real world. They are better at integrating many skills into a single project than other students their age.

Cocke: Leapfrog students are very similar to my other students. Leapfrog students are incredibly motivated and inquisitive. Every day the children came in full of questions and ideas about the world around them – a teacher's dream!

Brashears: Leapfrog students are more motivated and curious about the world. They have extensive backgrounds in many areas, and they come to school excited to learn. They ask great questions and enjoy challenge.

What distinguishes an effective Leapfrog teacher?

Hayden: Successful teachers create a variety of experiences to challenge different kinds of learners, aim to bring out the best in every child, and shouldn’t fear lots of classroom activity. Students should feel comfortable making mistakes and encouraged to participate in activities to stimulate them in different ways. Teachers should stress process –how to think and analyze – as well as product –what they have learned. Successful teachers are organized but flexible; have consistent rules yet allow for different needs; and have a sense of humor. Teaching and learning should be fun!

Stewart: Leapfroggers want to connect what they learn to the real world. They may respond negatively to tasks that aren’t justified. Conversely, when the importance of a skill is explained, gifted children are eager to take on the responsibility of acquiring that skill. Young gifted children are more unevenly capable than older gifted kids. They develop their gifts in areas that interest them intensely. They may be able to tell you everything about twelve different types of clouds but not be reading yet. An effective teacher builds a program that can take gifted kids farther – both in areas of strength and weakness.

Cocke: Successful teaching requires an open and fresh mind, a willingness to think outside of the box, and a great deal of patience.

Brashears: Gifted children need to be involved directly in learning. Hands-on activities keep students engaged. A successful teacher needs to plan extra activities for students who move through the material quickly. A fast-paced learning environment is key. Gifted children need challenge; assigning more of the same work is not as meaningful to them as additional work that involves critical thinking.

Describe an activity that characterizes the learning environment Leapfrog students need.

Hayden: As an opening activity in my architecture class, I read The Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Pinkwater, a story about a man who convinces his neighbors to accept his unique home and motivates them to express their own individuality through their homes. After reading the story, students use their creativity and information from class to make their own homes. The book provides an exciting springboard to get students to express themselves in an architectural manner and make use of what they have learned.

Stewart: In Kindergarten Meteorology, I combine discussion and hands-on work to enforce their understanding of what meteorologists do. Students brainstorm the elements of weather that meteorologists might measure. When they arrive at "wind," I ask them what could be measured about the wind. They arrive at "direction" and "strength." Then, I ask them for ways to measure wind strength and ideas for an instrument that might do this. I show them a cup anemometer and ask students to describe how to use it to measure wind speed. The lesson culminates with the students building cup anemometers and using them to measure and compare daily wind speeds.

Brashears: A highlight for students in my three-dimensional math class is constructing a geodesic dome out of newspaper and masking tape to show what they know about how domes are used in architecture. The students work in groups to roll newspapers into tubes and measure and cut them into pieces of different lengths. Finally, they form hexagons with the tubes to create the foundation for the dome. Students communicate and cooperate extensively in order to complete the project: a solid, five-foot tall geodome. The students crawl inside for a group photo.

How do you accommodate differing levels of ability in your Leapfrog classroom?

Hayden: I plan many varied activities emphasizing different learning styles: visual, tactile, kinesthetic, etc. The idea is for students to have immediate success with some activities and challenge with others. I mix whole class discussions, small group work, and one-on-one activities to provide different environments and regularly check in with students to mold lessons to their individual abilities.

Stewart: I try to present two levels of activities: activities 1-2 years above grade-level, and activities 3-4 years above grade-level. Leapfrog kids enjoy and grasp parts of advanced subject material. With a wide range of difficulties presented, everyone receives some "just right" activities as well as some that stretch them.

Cocke: I use hands-on experiments, constructive-open ended activities, and lots of literature. I often set up “centers,” where I use a range of learning materials, literature and lessons spread throughout the classroom. At one center students might build with blocks, while they construct the Sears Tower with poster board, learn about the people involved in the architecture process, and examine books about Frank Lloyd Wright at others. This format lends itself well to differentiating instruction.

Brashears: A few students always finish quickly. I use extra activities and learning games for those students, or I have them work on an ongoing project or some type of manipulative activity that correlates with the topic of study. I pick projects that can be adjusted for additional difficulty.

How has the Leapfrog program impacted children in your classes?

Hayden: Leapfrog provides students with content not typically covered in school –
content beyond the basics of reading, math, social studies, and science. In addition, Leapfrog students learn how to approach new material and analyze and synthesize information in unique ways.

Stewart: Leapfrog impacts every child differently. Some enjoy further developing their ideas; some discover that there are other kids who love a subject as they do; some encounter challenge for the first time, and learn to handle frustration; some learn to use their stronger abilities to improve weaker ones.

Cocke: One of the most important effects is that they realize there are other children who have the same interests and ideas about the world.

Brashears: Being with students like themselves helps students build confidence socially. Many create lasting friendships with students from other schools. The Leapfrog curriculum centers on unique topics, so students experience fresh, interesting material. Some kids develop new interests to explore independently.

Finally, can you describe a memorable incident from your Leapfrog teaching experience?

Hayden: I need to show many gifted children how to complete challenging projects to make full use of their “gifts.” One child was convinced he could not create his own pyramid. I stressed that building a pyramid was important to understanding one. This child ultimately designed and wrote about a pyramid with a rock band motif!

Stewart: Continuing a discussion on water and wind in Kindergarten Meteorology, we discussed the water cycle. The next day we talked about how the constant exchange of warm and cold air in the atmosphere creates wind. One child exclaimed, "They should call it the wind cycle!" Leapfrog kids are abstract thinkers who make connections between the things they are learning.

Cocke: After learning about Chicago's most famous buildings along Lake Shore Drive in architecture class, my students proceeded to construct a model of LSD down the hallway out of blocks. It was amazing.

Brashears: One student took all three classes I taught last summer. At the tail end, the boy's father thanked me. He told me his son had really struggled with boredom and poor performance over the past school year, and that he had rediscovered his excitement for learning in Leapfrog. The father said that every day his son came home bursting with stories about class activities, sharing everything he learned. I was touched to have made a difference.