Blair HAL Teacher Named Rookie of the Year
Nebraska Association for the Gifted
by Susan Lash
Christi Gochenour received the 2008 Nebraska Association for the Gifted's "Rookie of the Year" award at their annual conference in Omaha on Feb. 29. She was also elected to the Board of Directors of the Nebraska Association for the Gifted.
The "Rookie of the Year" award has been established to honor two Nebraska educators who have been in their position five years or less and who have added life and energy to their high-ability program. This fall, Gochenour was also selected as a member of the Nebraska Educators Aerospace Training Program.
Gochenour was hired in 2007 as the K-12 High-ability Learner Coordinator for the Blair Community Schools for 2007-2008. From the first day of school, she has communicated effectively and positively with students, staff, parents, and the community. One way that she did this was to create a web page for the high-ability program for the Blair website.
This first "rookie" semester, she conducted a Future Problem Solving workshop with Grade 8 high-ability students. This three-day workshop's problem was alternative energy sources. She arranged for three guest speakers from OPPD and Dana. Each student researched a different alternative energy resource and created a PowerPoint to share with all of the Grade 8 science students. The PowerPoints were also posted on the high-ability web page.
Gochenour facilitates a Grade 6 novel group, coaches the Middle School 6-8 Quiz Bowl team, teaches an accelerated Grade 4 math class, and directed a readers' theatre production for Grade 5. The readers' theatre production was recorded into GarageBand and the students created a podcast. She also assisted with the Spelling Bee for Grades 3-8 and the Geography Bee for Grades 6-8.
Gochenour piloted a HAL Student Survival Series for Grades 3-5. The goal was to help students to realize that many share similar concerns. This series allowed them to talk to peers, the counselor, or other adults about school and other topics of interest. In the future, community high-ability adults will share their experiences and career decisions with the students, and guest speakers will discuss the following topics: stress, creativity, perfectionism, test taking, what it means to be gifted, social groups, personality types, and underachieving.
She has taken students to the following ESU #3 workshops: Boosting the Brain (Grades 4-6); Leadership Conferences (Grades 6-8); Thinking Like Leonardo (Grades 6-8); Drawing from the Inside (Grades 8-12); Think About Thinking (Grades 6-8). She also took students to a leadership conference at UNO. She is co-sponsoring a middle school quiz bowl at Westside in April.
Gochenour has participated in the following ESU #3 workshops: Nebraska Future Problem Solving Program Coaches Training; Future City Competition Training; Junior Great Books; Nathan Levy; Educaching: A High-Tech Scavenger Hunt Through the Curriculum; and the Writing Extravaganza.
