Compacting Curriculum - is everything we are required to teach necessary for all students? What if they already know what we are going to be teaching? Do they need to learn it again or can we streamline the learning so that students are skipping over material they already know or have learned quicker than the pace set by the teacher? One solution is compacting the curriculum where we cut the fat from the lesson and allow students to digest only the meaty parts so that they can dig in deeper or e...
Jun 24, 2025•11 min
Tiered Lessons - differentiation isn't about making 30 lessons plans for 30 students. It is about determining the various levels of understanding in your classroom and making sure you meet the needs of those students. This should be deliberate and planned and that's where tiered lessons come in. These are about designing a lesson keeping in mind the needs of those on expected level, those who might be struggling, and those who need additional challenge.
May 20, 2025•10 min
What are some good books to read about raising gifted children? - as a parent of a gifted child you are probably discovering there are some different behaviors than might be in a typical child that parent books don't discuss. Luckily there are plenty of parenting books on how to raise a well-adjusted gifted child too. But how do you know which ones are worth reading? This Todd Talk discusses some of the parenting books used in book chats and the advantages they offer.
Apr 21, 2025•14 min•Season 4Ep. 4
5 Things Never to Say to Your Gifted Child - sometimes as parents we say things to our children that we wish we hadn't. Things such as "I wish you were more like..." or "why were you ever born". We can do this with our gifted children as well and the expectations we hold for their gifts. Here are 5 of the things you should avoid saying to your gifted child and the reason you should not say them.
Mar 24, 2025•14 min•Season 4Ep. 3
5 Ways to Work With Your Gifted Child's Teacher - for parents of gifted children, teachers should have the same goal about a child which is ensure he or she is growing as a learner. This would seemingly put both of them on the same page but there are times parents and teachers find themselves at odds with one another. This can especially happen with a child that the teacher does not fully understand how to work with. This is why having a positive relationship with your gifted child's teacher is ...
Feb 25, 2025•16 min•Season 4Ep. 2
5 things every administrator should know about gifted - like a lot of people in education, many administrators have not had a lot of training in working with gifted students so have some preconceived notions about them. After all, we don't know what we don't know. This Todd Talk discusses 5 things that every administrator should be aware of when working with this population of students.
Jan 25, 2025•6 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Metacognition (Executive Functioning Skills) - metacognition is an awareness of your own thoughts. But how do you teach students to be aware of this? You provide them structure to be able to think about their thinking. This is anything from gaining a greater awareness of oneself by figuring out how you learn best, to seeing your thought process by showing your work, reflecting upon work you have already done to determine what went well and what could have been improved.
Aug 02, 2024•27 min
Perseverance/Grit (Executive Functioning Skills) - perseverance is the ability to follow through or to push through when faced with obstacles. This is something we would like all of our students to have when coming to the classroom, but how deliberate are we about teaching such skills. This tutorial provides some very specific strategies or activities on how to be purposeful in creating a classroom culture where grit is encouraged and fostered.
Jul 05, 2024•41 min
Planning (Executive Functioning Skills) - We always expect students to have a plan, but do we always show them how to do it? What if we were more deliberate about teaching students how you plan out a long term project, or a study schedule for an upcoming test, or even their workload for the current day? Tools and strategies are shared here for teaching to help students understand what goes into planning and why there is value in it.
Jun 07, 2024•25 min
Organization (Executive Functioning Skills) - there are many aspects to organization for a student at school. There is their schoolwork, their materials, their personal belongings, their time, and their thoughts. We explore several strategies for how a students might go about organizing these things so that they can effectively work on what it is there are supposed to be which is learning.
May 03, 2024•36 min
Task initiation (Executive Functioning Skills) - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Similarly, you can give a student a task, but it doesn't mean they are going to get started on it. How do we teach kids to avoid procrastination and to get started on their work in a timely manner? These ten strategies are ways you might consider deliberately teaching this skill to your students.
Apr 05, 2024•28 min
Time Management (Executive Functioning Skills) - you can plan and organize yourself all you want, but if you are unable to manage the time you are allotted, nothing is going to get done. Teachers either micromanage a student's time so much that the students do not learn to do this for themselves, or we give them a big block of time with no guidance for how to manage it. What if instead we gave them some guidance for how to manage their time and then the space to do so?
Mar 01, 2024•30 min
Focus (Executive Functioning Skills) - none of the other executive functioning skills work effectively if a student is not able to focus. Developing this skill through setting the environment, having teacher clarity, and being aware of mindfulness are just some of the strategies shared in order to build the focus endurance of your students.
Feb 02, 2024•41 min
Self Control/Regulation (Executive Functioning Skills) - are you unable to keep your emotions in check? Can you not resist the urge to do something when it tempts you? Do you find yourself blurting out answers the second they pop into your head? If the answer is yes to any of these you might have a self-control/self-regulation issues. This is either not giving in when something distracts your focus or being able to deescalate yourself when you are getting emotionally worked up. Some think this h...
Jan 05, 2024•39 min
Flexibility (Executive Functioning Skills) - all of the other executive functioning skills do not really work if you are not flexible with your thinking. Your plans change, the time management is wrecked by an assembly, and trying to keep your focus might be affected by circumstances beyond your control. You have to adapt and be flexible when things do not go how you intended them to. This is not just the classroom, this is life. How then do you purposefully teach children to have flexibility? S...
Dec 01, 2023•40 min
Overview of Executive Functioning Skills - Executive functioning skills are the things that successful people do on a daily basis which leads to their achievement. It includes skills such as task initiation, planning, attention, and time management. These are skills we expect many of our students to possess, but how deliberately do we teach them? This will give you a basic overview of 10 executive functioning skills and how they might be taught in the classroom. This introduces a series of Todd ...
Nov 03, 2023•36 min
Overview of Executive Functioning Skills - Executive functioning skills are the things that successful people do on a daily basis which leads to their achievement. It includes skills such as task initiation, planning, attention, and time management. These are skills we expect many of our students to possess, but how deliberately do we teach them? This will give you a basic overview of 10 executive functioning skills and how they might be taught in the classroom. This introduces a series of Todd ...
Oct 06, 2023•41 min
Trends (Depth and Complexity icon) - trends are patterns that take place over a period of time. This period of time could be a month, could be a year, could be several years. By observing the patterns in this trend, we can try and predict where the trend will go next. By doing this you can take advantage of fortunate trends while avoiding negative ones.
Jun 21, 2023•14 min
Multiple Perspectives (Depth and Complexity icon) - It is often said that there are two sides to every story. In reality, there are as many sides to the story as there were people present. Yet the story is usually only told from one of these perspectives. If we are going to truly understand something, we have to consider more than our own perspective. Understanding another perspective doesn't mean you agree with them. It simply gives you a better view of the big idea. Considering multiple perspe...
May 31, 2023•11 min
Unanswered Questions (Depth and Complexity icon) - Often in school, students are presented with questions that they are expected to find a correct answer to. This could be a math problem, how to spell a word, the name of a figure, event, or date in history, or how sounds waves work. In life however, sometimes there is no easy answer, and there are even times when there is no answer. How do we cope with these unanswered questions? And why do we ponder them when we know there is the likelihood tha...
Apr 26, 2023•18 min
Ethics (Depth and Complexity icon) - ethics are the gray areas we encounter when looking at a situation. For example, it is wrong to shout in the classroom. In fact, it is a rule. But what if someone injured themselves and you needed to yell for help? Wouldn't that make you action justified? A great way to learn about ethics is for students to take part in debates where they are arguing for or against something that doesn't have a clear answer.
Mar 29, 2023•20 min
Rules (Depth and Complexity icon) - rules are fairly simple aren't they? You either can do something or you can't. And if you break a rule, there are consequences or punishments that might follow. But it is not that simple. There are different rules that apply to different situations differently. There is the severity of the rule that was broken as well as the consequence for doing so. And then there are the ever pesky unwritten rules. These are rules that most people know and yet they are not w...
Feb 28, 2023•16 min
Big Idea (Depth and Complexity icon) - what's the big idea? We often ask this question. The big idea is what you are supposed to get or be learning from something. These are sometimes called essential questions or learning objectives, but ultimately the big idea is what it all boils down to. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the book jacket of a novel. On this, the publisher has to include enough of the big idea to entice you to want to read it, but not so much that it ruins the story for yo...
Jan 31, 2023•16 min
Patterns (Depth and Complexity icons) - in this video we will discuss how students can look for patterns in academics, in sports, and in their own lives in order to try and predict the most probable outcome. Sometimes these patterns can be obvious and easy to figure out, sometimes you need to look a little deeper to see the multi-layers of patterns occurring. Although not an exact science, recognizing patterns in order to determine what may happen can be a very valuable skill to possess.
Dec 19, 2022•20 min
Details - the devil is in the details and this couldn't be more true. Details are what allow people to fully understand something and without them, something may get lost. This Depth and Complexity icon is all about getting students to explain themselves thoroughly so that whatever they are trying to communicate makes sense. These details are especially important when trying to teach someone something. If you leave details out that are needed, they will not know how to do it.
Nov 30, 2022•16 min
Over Time - 1 of the 11 icons in the Depth and Complexity thinking framework, this is a complexity icon that takes a look at how things change (and sometimes do not) change over a given period of time. This might be an hour, it could be years, it could be centuries. Because it is such a complex idea to grasp, using as many concrete and specific examples as possible can help students to see how over time works. This is especially important for those studying history in determining how and why thi...
Oct 31, 2022•19 min
Language of the Discipline - 1 of the 11 icons in the Depth and Complexity thinking framework, Language of the Discipline means helping students to understand the context of the language being used. What might mean one thing in one discipline might change in another. For example, if I use the term add in math, students would then add numbers together. If I used add in ELA, it would mean students would need to give additional detail or examples. This icon is designed to have students push past th...
Sep 30, 2022•13 min
Introduction to Depth and Complexity Framework - this is a learning platform developed at the California Department of Education that centers around 11 icons designed to push the thinking of students to the next level. The icons are broken down into 8 focusing on depth; patterns, trends, details, big idea, rules, unanswered questions, ethics, and language of the discipline. There are also 3 complexity icons; across disciplines, over time, and multiple perspectives. This Todd Talk walks you throu...
Aug 31, 2022•32 min
Student Choice - One way you can certainly challenge students in the classroom is to provide them with choices. This could be a choice in topics learned, choice in how this is learned, choice with who you learn it with, and choice in how you are going to determine mastery. By providing students with this choice is allows them to A) challenge themselves because they know their potential better than anyone, B) teaches them independent learning and how to manage their time, and C) takes the ceiling...
Sep 01, 2021•21 min•Season 2Ep. 13
STEM Challenges - STEM is more than just putting science, technology, engineering, and math together, it is about using the engineering design process which is 1) Ask, 2) Imagine, 3) Plan, 4) Create, and 5) Improve. A good way to learn this process is to have students work on STEM design challenges. These can last 15 minutes, they can last a few days, they can take a month depending on how you set them up. This ToddCast walks you through three examples which are available for free at www.thegift...
Aug 18, 2021•24 min•Season 2Ep. 12
