Keynotes

Personality, Learning and Thinking: When Styles Collide

Karen Frost

Adult's Program

Individual Learning Profiles: Beyond Visual/ Auditory/ Kinesthetic

This workshop goes beyond generalizations about “learning styles” to discuss practical questions about educational decisions based on a child’s profile of strengths and struggles. Profiles will be discussed regarding strengths and struggles in accessing, encoding, and demonstrating learning. Suitable for parents and educators. Highly relevant to 2E (Gifted/LD).

Diana Abramo is an educational therapist. She focuses on helping children (and their parents)  identify their neurological preferences, strengths, and weaknesses in learning, then use  them to modify and prioritize a learning program. She will receive an Ed.M. degree from Harvard’s Mind, Brain and Education program in May, 2010; her advisor is Howard Gardner (Multiple Intelligences). She completed all the course work for a Ph.D. in Community Psychology with a research minor; Dr. Mel Levine’s Schools Attuned Training; a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in 2E with Dr. Susan Baum; and has studied at the National Center for the Study of Gifted and Talented Children. She is member of the Learning and the Brain Society. Her prior professional work included counseling, research, and program development. She worked for 11 years each in the fields of AIDS education and rape survivor counseling, and developed nation-wide programs in these areas. She has also been the project coordinator on CDC grants, and taught and designed evaluation. She is the mother of two gifted children, one 2E in a gifted public school program, and another whom she has homeschooled for the last 10 years Her home base is NYC, she consults by phone, and is living in Cambridge this year until Fall 2010.

IEP Writing for Fun & Profit

About 15% of the population has a learning disability ― highly gifted kids included. If your child is “twice exceptional”, having a well-written IEP is more than half the battle to getting a good education for your child. And an IEP can provide gifted accommodations, too. In this discussion, we will talk about how to write a good IEP.

Liz Cademy Pfeffer is the CMO (Chief Maternal Officer) of the Pfeffer family: herself, one “mad engineer” husband and 2 high-energy high-gifted kids, one 2E. In a previous life, Liz used her MBA in Finance to help manufacturers develop reporting systems and financial plans. Now, she bills herself as a professional polymath, doing things as diverse as designing and selling t-shirts (as Cartesian Bear Industries), serving as an informal advocate to the gifted AS/NLD community, building furniture, and working at science fiction cons. Liz  has been knitting at an advanced level for close to 4 decades (yikes!), and has taken up chainmail due to knitter's burn-out. Currently, she is doing the finish work on a major addition on her house, and coordinating building professionals. A different kind of professional help may be necessary after the building is finished.

Make a Chainmail Bracelet

Have you ever wanted to learn to make chainmail? In this one hour course, you will learn the techniques to make a bracelet of European 4 in 1, the chainmail weave used in armor. Adults and teens only, 10 student limit. Materials fee: $5.00

Anna Caveney is an education consultant. She has designed and implemented individualized curricula for homeschooling teenagers, developed a theory of the emotional foundations of underachievement and led workshops addressing the challenges and joys of being highly gifted. She has created and taught classes in calculus, thinking skills and peer counseling. She runs the Young Adult program at BIQ.

Ryan Caveney M.S., is a physicist and mathematician. He has studied at MIT, Princeton and Johns Hopkins, and once taught 9th grade science in Gloucester, MA -- for 13 days. He works near Washington, DC as a contractor to the federal government, including a stint at NASA designing algorithms for weather satellites and interplanetary laser communication systems. His hobby of reading technical research on the influence of biology on personality and society is a continuation of his childhood interest in figuring out why he was so different from the other inmates. His wife, Anna, is the young adult program at this conference.

Keynote: The Prequel

New to personality type? Confused by those four-letter words you keep seeing? Words like INTP and ESFJ? Then, come to this session before the keynote for an overview of the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator).  It’ll help the Keynote make much more sense.  I promise.

Karen Frost is a personal coach and organizational development consultant, orchestral flutist, jewelry designer, and the mom of a PG college student. She started out as a professional flutist, then spent 20+ years consulting with large corporations such as American Express, Amoco, CNA, Coach Leathergoods, GTE, Manpower, Miller Brewing, and many others. She now focuses more on individuals and less on organizations, specializing in coaching executive women, entrepreneurs, and adults with ADD. She also facilitates classes and sessions for parents of highly gifted kids. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Flute Performance from Vanderbilt University. Except for that $*#@ thesis, she has completed her Masters in Psychology with emphasis in Organizational Psychology and Assessment from National-Louis University. She serves on the board as Artistic VP of the Skokie Valley Symphony and is Membership Co-Chair ChAPT-Chicago Association for Psychological Type

Type Theory – Applied (Parts 1)

Interested in learning more about the MBTI? Building on what we did in the Prequel and the keynote, we’ll talk about the MBTI in more depth, especially as it applies to gifted individuals. Here we’ll examine family dynamics and other communication/conflict issues. We’ll also talk about ways in which you can figure out your type preferences and work on better guesses of the people with which we live and work.

Type Theory – Applied (Parts 2)

Want to know even more about type? Still having trouble deciding which type fits best? In this session we’ll discuss the subscales of the MBTI to see what constitutes each type letter. You’ll also learn why people with similar types differ greatly even when the type letters are similar. We’ll also discuss your “shadow” function and your “demon”...underdeveloped parts of your personality that can trip you up when you least expect it.

Slicing and Dicing -- Using an understanding of types to increase the satisfaction and joy in your family life

How do you cut an onion? Well, that depends -- French Onion soup, or chili? eat or examine under a microscope? flavor or aroma or both? Take a brief tour, with lots of stops for discussion, through several ways of slicing and dicing human personality. We'll talk about many aspects of family life including child rearing and educating, relating to your mate, and self-care, and how ideas from different approaches to personality can inform and enlighten our experiences as parents, partners and humans.

Mika Gustavson, MA, MFT, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in helping the gifted to thrive. A certified SENG-Model Parent Group Facilitator, she leads groups for parents of gifted, twice-exceptional, anxious and intense children, as well as providing trainings and presentations for parents, educators and other professionals on issues related to giftedness. Her articles have been published in the 2e Newsletter, the NAGC UK magazine and the California Homeschooler and she is a member of the Gifted Homeschooler Forum's Professional Outreach Committee. She maintains a private practice in the Silicon Valley in California, where she lives with her husband, son, two cats, two guinea pigs and a dog, some gifted, some 2e and all beloved.

First Time Conference Goers

This will include a brief presentation on terminology you are likely to hear during the weekend, which presentations are aimed at newcomers, and other introductory material. A good chunk of this period will be spent doing Q&A with the attendees.

Carolyn K. is the winner of the NAGC Community Service award, and PAGE Neuber-Pregler award, for her work on Hoagies' Gifted Education Page (www.hoagiesgifted.org), and she writes for the Gifted Education Communicator.

Learning Disabilities in Gifted / Talented Kids & Adults

What are learning disabilities and how are gifted / talented kids at particular risk for them?  This presentation covers the most common kinds of learning disabilities, their diagnosis, and treatment, with an eye on how they uniquely affect gifted individuals and their families.

Erick Medina Psy.D. is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he majored in philosophy, and Rutgers University, where he obtained his doctorate in clinical psychology. He did post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Vanguard, and at the Integrated Center for Child Development in Canton, MA, and has taught at the high school as well as college level. He currently does psychotherapeutic as well as neuropsychological work with children, adolescents, and adults, and also works with couples and groups.

Executive Function and Dysfunction in Gifted / Talented Kids & Adults

What is / are (the) Executive Function(s)?  This presentation covers some of the latest findings and most important findings on this important topic, and discusses how they affect learning and social development in gifted individuals.

Conversations with Lisa

Come and ask Lisa whatever you'd like - she is here to be a resource for you. Come parents, other adults, young adults, children - you guide the conversation.

Lisa Rainen Lisa has been a professional gifted educator for 9 years, working first in a self-contained gifted classroom then at the middle school level, creating and implementing a program.  She holds strongly to the idea that gifted education is not just a classroom matter, and teaching is more than just a classroom job.  She likes to spend time thinking, reading, and gathering experience about the social and emotional needs of gifted people; issues involving gender, sexual orientation, and androgyny with gifted people; and the particular needs of the highly and profoundly gifted.  She has also presented on mathematics and gifted learners.

Lisa also works with a number of people who are both gifted and learning disabled, and frequently with people who are ADHD.  She does a lot of one on one work with homeschooled gifted. 

Other Sides of Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration

In this session, we will once again be exploring the Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD), going well beyond the basics of Over-Excitabilities and the 5 Levels. While a bit will inevitably be a repetition of my 2009 presentation, most of it will not be. This is not an introductory presentation, but a brief overview will be available on Saturday morning for those totally unfamiliar with TPD

Josh Shaine is a migrant teacher, working for homeschool families, public and private schools, and whatever else comes down the pike. He works predominantly with gifted children, with a focus on underachievers and hg/pg issues. He is also slowly researching non-linear thinking styles.

Melinda Stewart is currently the Director of Counseling at Groton School in Groton, MA, Ms. Stewart has worked with gifted children and adolescents in a variety of settings over the last 28 years.  She is the founder and former director of Voyagers, Inc., and has been on the staffs of the Stone Center at Wellesley College and McLean Hospital.  She is the mother of two PG children, one currently in college and one currently homeschooled.

Giftedness and Depression/Self-Injury: Parents and Caregivers Session

While psychological studies often find that the rate of depression/self-injury among gifted adolescents is comparable to that of the general population, many in the community feel anecdotal evidence supports the notion that the gifted are more likely to have these problems.  In this session, a (labeled) gifted student will discuss her experiences with giftedness, depression, and self-injury.  Topics that have been discussed in past years include conversation strategies, therapy (and strategies for making it work), but the session will be in Q&A format, so please come with any questions you may have.

Young adults are welcome to attend.

Zoë Thorkildsen is a recent graduate from the graduate economics program at University of Maryland, and is currently working doing research in Alexandria VA.  Her background in giftedness comes primarily from her experiences as a gifted teenager, both in the public school system and through specialized programs.  In addition, she majored in psychology as an undergraduate, and enjoys researching giftedness, pedagogy, and psychology during her free time.  She is shy, but not anti-social, and she invites you to talk to her.

The Origin of Fundamental Personality Traits

If we were designing the brain from scratch, one chief goal would be to make it flexible—to make it capable of the widest possible variety of thinking and feeling styles.   This could be accomplished by selecting two or three aspects of the brain’s information processing system (e.g., level of activity) and making them the master parameters—the volume, tone, and balance knobs, as it were.  We'll propose a set of extremely basic parameters and then map them precisely to the major neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, et al).  We’ll then map those transmitters to six fundamental personality traits—which in fact comprise an expansion of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Eric Van entered Harvard in 1972 as one of future Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow's particle physics tutees and graduated in 1978 as one of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop's students. He has spent the last six years back at Harvard, as a Special Student affiliated with the Graduate Department of Psychology, taking 20 undergraduate courses in the field in preparation for an eventual Ph.D. He lives in Watertown, Mass.

Gifted and Talented clients in therapy/Open Conversation

Aimee will be sharing some of what she has learned through her project that has looked at the issues that arise in the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist. In addition, roughly half of this session will be spent in Q&A with attendees, dealing with issues such as testing.

Aimee Yermish (aimee@davincilearning.org) is an educational therapist specializing in work with children who are gifted, learning-disabled, or twice-exceptional, providing assessment, enrichment, remediation, mentoring, individualized program development, and parent and teacher guidance. She draws upon her analytical background as a research scientist and her practical background as a classroom teacher in order to create individualized strategies for each child.  In addition, she is in progress towards a doctorate in clinical psychology; this presentation is drawn from her dissertation research.

Children's Program

Totally Balanced Description

This paragraph perfectly captures the activity that will be run during these sessions. It captured the excitement that participants will feel in doing these things.

T. B. A. Nounced

T.B. has been presenting at BIQs for as long as there have been BIQs. Almost every workshop has been well received and a lot of fun for the kids. Every conference, the organizers look forward to seeing how many sessions T.B. would like to do.

Sword Play

Stewart Ferguson

Family Logic

Pete Gast has been involved in gifted education since he attended the Illinois Math and Science Academy for high school.  He is a math geek, a computer programmer, an avid fan of role-playing games, a tutor, and a consultant, all of which makes him about half a Josh, which is about of a third of Josh past his wildest expectations.

Multimedia Art

Susan Eiseman Levitin comes to BIQ from a long background of art and education. This is her fourth fifth year attending and presenting. Currently, she homeschools her 9, 11 and 15 year olds, and is an active member of a number of homeschooled communities.

Weaving

Hand-on Exploration of the Bicycle

Lawrence E. Pfeffer, Ph.D. is a multi-faceted Engineer, and parent of two gifted children. He has BA (UCSD) and MS, PhD. from Stanford; see <http://arl.stanford.edu/> His professional interests range from particle physics, software, robotics, electronics and aeronautics to biomedical engineering. He has published 18 technical articles. His other interests include building/inventing things, science fiction, cooking, early music and chocolate. He is a serious tool user (his car no longer fits in his garage!) and believes that "specialization is for insects." His current home project is a repRap: an open-source three-dimensional printer that can reproduce its own parts, and make lots of useful things besides. See http://www.reprap.org or his blog at http://repstrap-cerberus.blogspot.com/

Make a Small Electrical Motor

Zome Tools Building Session

Connor Shea is a lifelong homeschooler who is also a part time college student.  He is thirteen years old and enjoys acting, math, chemistry, and dungeons and dragons.  Connor is a Boy Scout and Davidson Young Scholar.

Boffer Making

Internationally-known Persis Thorndike has been running Children's programming at science fiction conventions, home schooling, and gifted and talented conferences for the past 7 years, and has assisted in the activities room at the New England Folk Festival for over 11 years. Mother of a home-schooled 13-year-old, Persis draws from a broad range of interests to plan captivating and entertaining children's activities to keep kids in the 6-12 age range happy and occupied at conferences and conventions.

Ice Breakers; Free Style Costuming

Not Your Every Day Masks - plaster bandage masks, part 1

Not Your Every Day Masks - plaster bandage masks, part 2

Origami