Enrichment Clusters: A Practical Plan for Real-World, Student-Driven Learning

In today's high-pressured atmosphere to "get the scores up," teachers and students find themselves faced with more and more highly-structured, prescripted lessons that allow for little creativity and exploration. However, both students and teachers deserve a balanced education that includes exciting opportunities to delve into areas of strong interest. An Enrichment Cluster Program presents a framework for offering these opportunities during the regular school week.

Authors Joseph Renzulli, Marcia Gentry, and Sally Reis present teachers and administrators with all the information and materials they need to develop a successful Enrichment Cluster Program. Seven simple steps show program leaders how to schedule and implement a program, and eight easy-to-follow guidelines help cluster facilitators create engaging and challenging enrichment clusters. This guidebook also includes over 50 pages of reproducible planning forms, surveys, assessment instruments, and staff development handouts; 11 ready-to-use staff development activities; a week-by-week timeline for implementation; a resource guide of how-to books appropriate for a program, and dozens of example cluster descriptions on topics ranging from flight to children's rights to web site design.