Keynote Speakers

Sandra N. Kaplan

“Matching Content and Instruction: Teaching in the Content Areas”

Differentiated Curriculum and Differentiated Instruction are often perceived as synonymous terms. The ineffectiveness of realizing that differentiated curriculum requires differentiated instruction often results in students who are underachievers, the attrition of students from the gifted program, and other factors that deny the importance of the relationship between curriculum and pedagogical practices. Presentations will be provided that focus on the alignment of differentiated curricular ideas and differentiated pedagogical practices. Actual demonstrations, as well as other forms of presentation will be utilized in order to facilitate participants understandings and competencies between the alignment between curriculum and instruction.

Sandra N. Kaplan has been a teacher and administrator of gifted programs in an urban school district in California. Currently, she is a Clinical Professor in Learning and Instruction at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. She has authored articles and books on the nature and scope of differentiated curriculum for gifted students. Her primary area of concern is modifying the core and differentiated curriculum to meet the needs of inner-city, urban, gifted learners. She is a past president of the California Association for the Gifted (CAG) and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). She has been nationally recognized for her contributions to gifted education.