Enrichment+or+Differentiation

During the time that my school district has been examining different program option, they have sent our gifted education staff to different schools to observe how their programs are structured. During one of these visits, we had a chance to go to a school district that offered a gifted program very different from any that I had heard of. Their program consisted of around fifteen specialized programs (anything from chess strategy, science Olympiad, math competitions to History Day) that students could pick from. Students had to select at least one program to stay in the gifted program, put could in theory pick all of them. They then met with the gifted facilitator during their seminar or during lunch for these specialized program. Each program met about once every two weeks. I can best describe this type of gifted program as an enrichment program. This section will take a closer look at what research says about enrichment and also about another hot topic in schools right now, differentiation.

Enrichment is not a new subject in gifted education. Joseph Renzulli's Enrichment Triad has been used as a guide for developing gifted programs since 1977. In the Enrichment Triad, Renzulli (1977) notes three types of enrichment activities-- "Type 1: General Activities, Type 2: Group Training Activities, and Type 3: Individual and Small Group Investigations of Real Problems." The goals is for students to first experience and explore with content in Type 1, develop the thinking and feeling process in Type 2 and the take on the role of an actual problem solver in the field they are studying in Type 3.

With its three different types of enrichment or modifications of the content, Renzulli's Enrichment Triad looks very similar to what the Kansas State Department of Education is currently advocating through Multi-Tier Systems of Support (MTSS). Multi-Tier Systems of Support is Kansas' version of Response to Intervention (RtI) and is a system in which school personnel make decisions about differentiating a student's curriculum. MTSS attempts to address the needs to all students, instead of just interventions for some students. This is done through three tiers of support: Tier 1 (All), Tier 2 (Some), and Tier 3 (Few). Most students receive instruction at the first tier which is designed to maximize success for as many students as possible. However, teachers use data from assessment to determine when to incorporate Tier 2 instruction, which focuses on small group reteaching or acceleration or Tier 3 instruction, which is done usually for one student and is highly customizable (KSDE, 2009). Studies by Renzulli and Gable (1976) show this enrichment to be "highly effective." Renzulli also noted that this type of program offered an overall framework of supports for gifted education. Differentiation also is highly supported through research. The Kansas State Department of Education's Core MTSS Team (2009) identified research supporting MTSS including the positives of a multi-tiered model, fluid grouping, using pre-assessment and formative assessment and creating a culture that promote learning.

Renzulli did note, that for the enrichment model to be effective, it must be tied to the general curriculum. This then calls into question a program like the one I described at the beginning of this article. How could enrichment or differentiated instruction work as a gifted program. One way that is being advocated, is for gifted teachers to work on a consultant base with teachers and enrich or differentiate different general education classes for a student or students that are gifted. The amount of students and number of gifted teachers in a district would determine if this could be effective or not. Another approach would be to have a gifted class and base it on Renzulli's Enrichment triad. In this type of class, the gifted teacher would teach content and then differentiate the type of instruction based on studen readiness. Differentiated is needed and should be a regular part of any classroom, especially in the case of gifted students.