Education can not be for students in any authentic way, if it is not of and by them. --William H. Schubert, President, The John Dewey Society
When you enter Chisholm Middle School on Friday afternoons, there is an unquestionable buzz throughout the building. The whole building is aflutter with activity and the students seem so engaged. In one room, a group of students are using computer aided design programs to create furniture for the district kindergarten room. In another room, students are studying aquatic culture in order to decide on the contents and habitat for an aquarium that will be placed middle school entryway. These students are participating in enrichment clusters that are parts of an Academy of Interest and Talent Development. Each group includes 6th, 7th and 8th graders with different levels of knowledge and creativity. Both groups of students are enrolled in the Academy of Science and Technology. When they entered Chisholm Middle School, they completed interest surveys, and based on their responses and discussions with teachers, these students chose to enter the Academy of Science and Technology.
Although some of the students do well in their traditional middle school classes, a number of students have difficulty motivating themselves to complete school-related tasks. However, in their work for the Academy, they are motivated and very often exceed expectations for their portion of a project. Academies of Inquiry and Talent Development (AITD) are an outgrowth of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM). Some middle schools throughout the country have used the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (Renzulli & Reis, 1997) in order to meet the diverse cognitive and social needs of their students.
The AITD model complements middle school philosophy. Middle school educators are committed to providing a challenging and enjoyable academic experience while, at the same time, maintaining strong support for the social and personal goals of middle level education set forth by the National Middle School Association (NMSA, 1982). Bradley and Manzo (2000) noted that for the past 30 years middle schools have attended to the intellectual, social, emotional and physical needs of young adolescents. It is our belief this model provides opportunities for middle school students to develop their intellectual talents in ways that allow for social and emotional growth as well.
Foundation in SEM
Through a "continuum of services" approach, the SEM provides numerous enrichment and acceleration alternatives that are designed to accommodate the academic strengths, interests, and learning styles of all middle-level students. Rather than labeling students as gifted, the focus is on recognizing behavioral potentials for superior performance and enhancing these potentials by creating an environment where those behaviors can flourish.
The major goal of SEM is to promote both challenging and enjoyable "high-end learning" across the full range of school types, levels, and demographic differences. The model is not intended to replace or minimize existing services to high achieving students, but rather to integrate these services into "a-rising-tide-lifts-all-ships" approach to school improvement.
These are the three major components that make up SEM. The Total Talent Portfolio (TTP) is used to systematically gather and record information about students' abilities, interests, and learning style preferences. This information is then analyzed to make meaningful decisions about necessary curricular modifications and enrichment opportunities.
The second component of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model is a series of techniques that are designed to assess each student's mastery level of regular curricular material; adjust the pace and level of required material to accommodate variations in learning; and provide enrichment and acceleration alternatives for students who have, or can, easily master regular material faster than the normal pace. Curriculum compacting and curriculum differentiation are two procedures that teachers use to accommodate these learning differences.
In the third component of SEM, enrichment learning and teaching strategies are designed to actively engage both teachers and students. Although enrichment learning and teaching can be integrated with the regular curriculum, we have found that we can guarantee opportunities for high-end learning by creating clusters within the school's weekly schedule.
Enrichment clusters are non-graded groups of students who share common interests, and who come together to pursue these interests during specially designated time blocks usually consisting of one-half day per week. There is one "golden rule" for enrichment clusters: Everything students do in the cluster is directed toward producing a product or delivering a service for a real-world audience. There are no predeteremined lesson plans and what takes place within an enrichment cluster is analogous to the workings of a real world entity such as a film studio, research laboratory, publishing company, or historical society. All learning takes place within the context of developing authentic products or services for real world audiences. Divisions of labor are encouraged to insure that maximum respect is given to each student's interests, learning styles, and preferred modes of expression.
Enrichment clusters can revolve around major disciplines, interdisciplinary themes, or cross-disciplinary topics. A theatrical/television production group, for example, might include actors, writers, technical specialists, and costume designers. Within such a cluster, students direct their how-to knowledge, thinking skills, and interpersonal relations toward producing a product or service. Instead of lesson plans or unit plans, they are guided by six questions.
· What do people with an interest in this area—for example, filmmaking—do?
· What products do they create and/or what services do they provide?
· What knowledge, materials, and other resources do we need to authentically complete activities in this area?
· What methods do they use to carry out their work?
· How, and with whom, do they communicate the results of their work? In what ways can we use the product or service to affect the intended audience?
Middle-school enrichment clusters have created newspapers, designed playgrounds, and developed small businesses. While some of these clusters have outlived their original scheduled meetings, there are other clusters whose life was shortened because there was no structure to support them.
The Structure of AITDs
Within AITDs, students and teachers who share a common interest in a curricular area (e.g. science, literature, or math) are clustered over the three or four years that they are in middle school. Middle school students choose one of six or more academies to enter when they begin middle school. Each academy is guided by a teacher/facilitator (this is usually a teacher, but occasionally had been a member of the community) who shares an interest in the general areas of that field. Potential academies might include: The Academy of Literature, Language Arts, and the Humanities, The Academy of Applied Mathematics, The Academy of Social Sciences, The Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, The Academy of Physical and Life Sciences, The Academy of Sport and Leisure Studies, and The Academy of Computer Science and Technology.
AITDs provide a vehicle for sustained and meaningful relationships among middle school students with common interests and with adults who share the same general areas of interest. The AITD plan also respects the strong emphasis that middle schools place on teaming by providing an opportunity for students and adults with common interests to work in real world problem solving situations.
The idea for AITDs grew out of research and development dealing with a component of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) called enrichment clusters (Reis, Gentry, & Park, 1995; Renzulli, 1994; Renzulli & Reis, 1997). Our experience with middle school enrichment clusters indicated that middle level students frequently express an eagerness to remain together for additional, and usually more challenging involvement in their respective areas of interest. It is for this reason that we have developed this plan, not unlike the practice of "looping," to keep the same group of students and adults together during designated time blocks for the duration of their middle school years. Figure 2 illustrates the potential enrichment clusters that might be included in the Academy of Social Sciences. This figure also points out exploratory experiences and methodological processes that are designed to motivate students towards forming clusters and to provide them with authentic skills that are necessary for focusing cluster activity on applications of knowledge.
The AITD model was developed taking into consideration middle school philosophy and the unique characteristics of adolescent learners. This learning experience is designed to provide high levels of challenge and to capitalize on special areas of student and teacher interests.
The objectives of AITDs are based on two fundamental concepts around which all learning activities within the AITDs are organized. These concepts are authentic learning and real-life problems. Authentic learning consists of applying relevant knowledge, thinking skills, and interpersonal skills to the solution of real problems. Real-life problems require a personal frame of reference for the individual or group pursuing the problem, they do not have existing or unique solutions for persons addressing the problem, and they are directed toward a real audience with a purpose.
Authentic learning should be viewed as the vehicle through which everything, from basic skills to advanced content and processes, "comes together" in the form of student-developed products and services. This kind of learning represents a synthesis and an application of content, process, and personal involvement. The student's role is transformed from one of lesson-learner to first-hand inquirer, and the role of the teacher changes from an instructor and disseminator of knowledge to a combination of coach, resource procurer, mentor, and, at times, a partner or colleague. Although products play an important role in creating authentic learning situations, a major goal is the development and application of a wide range of cognitive, affective, and motivational processes.
In many ways our view of authentic learning compliments the guidelines Beane (1993) proposes for middle school curriculum. He states one guideline as follows: "The central purpose of the middle school curriculum should be helping early adolescents explore self and social meanings at this time in their lives" (p.18. ) We believe that self-selected, authentic investigations create an important "space" for middle school young people to find points of personal engagement. Beane also states that "the middle school curriculum should be firmly grounded in democracy" (p.19.) He believes that democratic curriculum can only be conceived when all people, both adults and students, collaborate to determine the curriculum. Like Beane, we firmly believe that authentic, interest based, investigative experiences, mutually determined by students and teachers, will provide the most powerful and meaningful learning experiences.
Given the diverse needs of middle school students, AITD provides a structure to organize learning around interests in such a way that the students pursue their intellectual growth while facilitating social and emotional growth.
References
Beane, J. (1993). The Middle School: Natural Home of Integrated Curriculum. Educational Leadership. 49, 2, 9-13.
Bradley, A., & Manzo, K. K. (2000, October 4). The weak link in today's standards-driven environment, the middle grades are under pressure to produce–and ill-equipped to deliver. (Special Report). Education Week, p. 3-8.
National Middle School Association. (1982). This We Believe. Columbus, OH: Author.
Reis, S. M., Gentry, M., & Park, S. (1995). Extending the Pedagogy of Gifted Education to all Students. Storrs, CT: The University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.
Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. M. (1997). The schoolwide enrichment model: A how-to guide for educational excellence (2nd ed.). Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press, Inc.
Renzulli, J. S. (1994). Schools for talent development: A practical plan for total school improvement. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press, Inc.
About the author
Joseph Renzulli is the Neag Professor of Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Connecticut where he also serves as the Director of The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Email: renzulli@uconn.edu.
Susannah Richards is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the Graduate School at the College of New Rochelle. Her areas of interest include gifted education, reading engagement, and middle level education. Before completing her doctorate at the University of Connecticut, she taught at the elementary and middle school level for 11 years. Email: susannahr@commongroup.net.
For more information, see the website www.gifted.uconn.edu/.
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