In advance of gifted education theorist and innovator Dr.Joseph Renzulli’s community presentation at Quest Academy (co-sponsored by Avery Coonley School and Da Vinci Academy) on Sept. 27 (for details and ticket information, please link here), I
thought it wise to review Dr. Renzulli’s most recent article on approaches to
gifted education within the context of our contemporary 21st Century
world.
Published by the National Association for Gifted Children in
its flagship journal Gifted Child Quarterly (Volume 56, Number 3, Summer
2012), Dr. Renzulli sets out to answer the question “why and how should a
society devote special resources to the development of giftedness in young
people for the 21st century.”
This summary of Dr. Renzulli’s concerns itself with the “how” with the
“why” question simply answered as “increasing society’s reservoir of creative
problem solvers and producers of knowledge.”
Fundamental to Dr. Renzulli’s conception of giftedness is a
fine difference between what he terms “lesson learners” or “schoolhouse
giftedness” (those who consume existing information) versus “creative
producers” (those who go on to make important contributions to knowledge). Given
the technology-enhanced abundance of existing information in this second decade
of the 21st Century, Renzulli argues that “in this day and age of
exponential knowledge expansion, it would seem wise to consider a model that
focuses on how our most able students access and make use of information rather
than merely how they accumulate, store, and retrieve it.”
And maybe most important to Renzulli’s theories is the idea
that the label “gifted” not necessarily be assigned to any one student but
rather to the type of educational experiences
offered, those being the “services necessary to develop high potential.” Another
way to understand this is to ask oneself the question what type of educational
services “cause some people to use their intellectual, motivational, and
creative assets that lead to outstanding manifestations of achievement and
creative productivity.” In his summary, Dr. Renzulli emphatically points out
that “the most salient point to make when discussing and generalizing about
theories for the study of giftedness in the 21st century is that
there is an overlap and an interaction among cognitive, affective, and motivational
characteristics.”
In determining the best possible gifted education
programming in our 21st Century, Dr. Renzulli has over the years
developed a four-part theory that in sum has its goal to help students become
“fully-functioning and self-actualized individuals.”
The four sub-theories include “The Three Ring Conception of
Giftedness,” “The Enrichment Triad Model,” “Operation Houndstooth – Gifted
Education and Social Capital,” and “Executive Functions – Leadership for a
Changing World.” Below, please find a brief description of each theory:
The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness:
The three rings are comprised of a) above average ability;
b) task commitment; and c) creativity. Dr. Renzulli believes that it is the
“interaction among these clusters of traits brought to bear on a particular
problem situation that creates the conditions for the creative productive
process to commence.” Furthermore, Dr. Renzulli’s above average ability is
viewed in broader terms than other ability/giftedness criteria (e.g. the top
5%), because he cites research that “highlights minimal criterion validity
between academic aptitude and professional accomplishments.”
The Enrichment Triad Model:
Within this model, Renzulli outlines three Enrichment types
of instruction that move beyond the traditional “deductive, didactic, and
prescriptive approaches” to the other end of “inductive, investigative, and
constructivist-based approaches.” Type I Enrichment exposes students to
possibilities of learning, “catalyzing curiosity and internal motivation.” Type
II Enrichment is designed to teach students how to move from inspiration found
in Type I enrichment to action. Type III “experiences are the the culmination
of natural learning, representing synthesis and an application of content,
process, , and personal involvement through self-motivated work.”
Operation Houndstooth – Gifted Education and Social
Capital:
This model promoters the idea that “highly able young people
have a responsibility to society at large.” The idea of having been gifted with
an extraordinary education requires one to give back – “using one’s talents to
improve human conditions, whether that improvement is targeted toward one
person or larger audiences or conditions.” Dr. Renzulli identifies the traits
that need to be fostered as “optimism, courage, romance with a topic or
discipline, physical and mental energy, vision, and a sense of power to change
things.”
Executive Functions – Leadership for a Changing World
Dr. Renzulli refers to this model as the “yeast” that helps
the three other models to rise. Put bluntly, Dr. Renzulli also refers to this
model as “getting your act together.” Dr. Renzulli believes that the most
advanced thoughts and creations may not come to fruition unless “leadership
skills such as organization, sequencing, and sound judgment are brought to bear
on problem situations. Dr. Renzulli identifies five general categories of
executive functions: a) Action Orientation; b) Social Interactions; c)
Altruistic Leadership (empathy and dependability); d) Realistic
Self-Assessment; and e) Awareness of Needs of Others.
Dr. Renzulli essentially has challenged the gifted education
community to “extend our traditional investment in the production of intellectual
and creative capital to include an equal investment in social capital and the
development of executive function skills.” Critical to this challenge is the
incorporation of experiential learning as opposed to what he terms the
“teaching-and-preaching” experiences.
For those interested in transforming Dr. Renzulli’s
contributions into actual teaching practices, I would recommend RenzulliLearning’s website.
