04-06-2025
County schools challenge young learners at 'Insight Academy' camp
Tuesday morning, students in Sara Appleby's 'Mind Maze' class were working in pairs to solve 'Murdle' mimi detective puzzles at Deer Park Elementary School.
'We're using memory skills, language skills, deduction skills, process of elimination,' Appleby said.
'It's trying to get them to think differently,' Appleby said. 'They have to figure out a solution to a problem that's not obvious. They all solve it differently. They all have different strategies.'
Although schools are out for the summer, the fourth and fifth graders in Appleby's class and others were busy trying out the Scientific Method by experimenting with food, building their skills with integers and learning about history by sticking their hands in water similar to the the icy ocean that surrounded the Titanic when the behemoth ocean liner met its fate in 1912.
The classes were a hands-on collaborative learning experience that was anything but routine, which was intentional by Angie Gunter, Daviess County Public Schools' gifted and talented coordinator.
Tuesday was the second day of DCPS' 'Insight Academy' summer day camp for gifted and talented students at Deer Park.
The 24 students, who came from elementary schools across the district, were invited to participate based on their high scores in math and language arts assessment tests.
While each of the elementary schools has a gifted and talented team that augments the traditional curriculum for promising students, the idea behind the camp is to challenge the students beyond what they traditionally receive in the classroom, Gunter said.
'We have middle school teachers who are teaching these kids,' Gunter said.
The teachers proposed their own topics and crafted the classes.
Having middle school instructors working with the students at the camp both lets the teachers get to know kids who will one day be in their classes, while also giving the students an idea of 'what's expected in middle school,' academically, Gunter said.
The classes were designed to be hands-on and fun, Gunter said.
'These kids signed up to do math in the summer, and they love it,' she said.
Brad Goodall, who was teaching the 'Math with a Twist' class, said the fourth and fifth graders would move through a curriculum during the week that would include some of the pre-algebra they will encounter in middle school.
'Because I teach middle school math, I know what they are going to need,' Goodall said, as they students busily played a competitive card game based on integers. 'We've had a good time working together. If you notice, they are not quiet.'
The game was designed to be active and energetic for the gifted students.
'If they are not challenged, they get bored,' Goodall said. 'I'm trying to keep them as challenged as I can.'
There was also a social element to the camp, Gunter said, as the students learned cooperation and collaboration by working together.
'Some of these kids are the ones that tend to dominate' their traditional classes, Gunter said.
Part of the camp process is teaching 'all these dominant (students) to take turns,' Gunter said.
'Next year, we are going to expand to middle school' and have students from the middle schools as well, who will be taught by high school teachers.
While already gifted students might not seem to need much help with school, providing hands-on and engaging content furthers the district's goals, Gunter said.
'By law, we are supposed to serve and help every kid grow,' Gunter said.
Even a student already considered to be gifted can achieve more, she said.
'If we are not allowing the kids to reach their potential, we are not serving the students,' Gunter said.
