Schoolwide Enrichment Model

Theoretical Underpinnings

The SEM is based on Renzulli's three-ring conception of giftedness that defines gifted behaviors rather than gifted individuals and the enrichment triad model. The SEM is currently used as the basis for many gifted programs, enrichment programs, magnet schools, charter, and theme schools. The original enrichment triad model is the core of the SEM. Type I enrichment is designed to expose students to a wide variety of disciplines, topics, occupations, hobbies, persons, places, and events that would not ordinarily be covered in the regular curriculum. Type II enrichment includes materials [Page 765]and methods designed to promote the development of thinking and feeling processes. Some Type II enrichment is general, consisting of training in areas such as creative thinking and problem solving, learning how to learn skills such as classifying and analyzing data, and advanced reference and communication skills. Type III enrichment involves students who become interested in pursuing a self-selected area and are willing to commit the time necessary for advanced content acquisition and process training in which they assume the role of a firsthand inquirer.

The SEM focuses on the development of both academic and creative-productive giftedness. Creative-productive giftedness describes those aspects of human activity and involvement where a premium is placed on the development of original material and products that are purposefully designed to affect one or more target audiences. Learning situations designed to promote creative-productive giftedness emphasize the use and application of information (content) and thinking skills in an integrated, inductive, and real-problem-oriented manner. In the SEM, academic gifts are developed because the role of the student is transformed from that of a learner of lessons to one in which she or he uses the modus operandi of a firsthand inquirer to experience the joys and frustrations of creative productivity. This approach is quite different from the development of giftedness that tends to emphasize deductive learning, advanced content and problem solving, and the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of information. In other words, creative-productive giftedness enables children to work on issues and areas of study that have personal relevance to them and can be escalated to appropriately challenging levels of investigative activity.

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