Source: http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart10.html
Type III Projects (and 2.5's)
Type III Enrichment: Individual and Small Group Investigations of Real Problems
The Assembly Plant of the Mind
Type III Enrichment consists of investigative activities and the development of creative products in which students assume roles as first-hand investigators, writers, artists, or other types of practicing professionals. Although students pursue these kinds of involvement at a more junior level than adult professionals, the overriding purpose of Type III Enrichment is to create situations in which young people are thinking, feeling, and doing what practicing professionals do in the delivery of products and services. Type III Enrichment experiences should be viewed as vehicles in which students can apply their interests, knowledge, thinking skills, creative ideas, and task commitment to self-selected problems or areas of study. In addition to this general goal, there are four objectives of Type III Enrichment:
Since this type of enrichment is defined in terms of the pursuit of real problems, it is necessary to define this term at the outset of our discussion. The term "real problem," like many other concepts in education, gets tossed around so freely that after a while it becomes little more than a cliché. Research on the meaning of a real problem (Renzulli, 1982) did not produce a neat and trim definition, but an examination of various connotations of the term yielded four characteristics that will serves as the basis for our discussion. First, a real problem must have a personal frame of reference for the individual or group pursuing the problem. In other words, it must involve an emotional or internal commitment in addition to a cognitive or scholarly interest. Thus, for example, stating that global warming or urban crime are "real problems" does not make them real for an individual or group unless they decide to do something to address the problem. These concerns may affect all people, but until a commitment is made to act upon them, they are more properly classified as "societal issues." Similarly, telling a person or group that "you have a problem" does not make it real unless the problem is internalized and acted upon in some way.
A second characteristic of real problems is that they do not have existing or unique solutions for persons addressing the problem. If there is an agreed-upon, correct solution or set of strategies for solving the problem, then it is more appropriately classified as a "training exercise." As indicated earlier, it is not our intent to diminish the value of training exercises. Indeed, many of the activities that make up the Type II dimension of the Triad Model are exercises designed to develop thinking skills and research methods. They fail, however, to qualify as real problems because they are externally assigned, and there is a predetermined skill or problem-solving strategy that we hope learners will acquire. Even simulations that are based on approximations of real world events are considered to be training exercises if their main purpose is to teach content or thinking skills.
The third characteristic of a real problem is best described in terms of why people pursue these kinds of problems. The main reason is that they want to bring about some form of change in actions, attitudes, or beliefs on the parts of a targeted audience, or they want to contribute something new to the sciences, arts, or humanities. The word "new" is used here in a local rather than global way; therefore, we don't necessarily expect young people to make contributions that are new "for all mankind." But even replications of studies that have been done many times before are new in a relative sense if they are based on data that have not been gathered previously. Thus, for example, if a group of young people gathered data about television watching habits across grade levels in their school or community, these data and the resulting analysis would be new in the sense that they never existed before.
The final characteristic of real problems is that they are directed toward a real audience. Real audiences are defined as persons who voluntarily attend to information, events, services, or objects. A good way to understand the difference between a real and contrived audience is to reflect for a moment on what students might do with the results of a local oral history project. Although they might want to practice presenting the material before their classmates, an authentic audience would more properly consist of members of a local historical society or persons who choose to read about the study in a local newspaper, magazine, or shopping guide. The practicing professional, upon whose work Type III Enrichment is modeled, almost always begins his or her work with an audience in mind. Audiences may change as the work evolves, but they serve as targets that give purpose and direction to the work.
Essential Elements of Type III Enrichment
The preceding discussion of characteristics of real problems may appear to be a hairsplitting one, but it is necessary if we are to avoid common misconceptions of the term and resulting activities that are only approximations of real problems. For example, the difference between students operating a school store that is authentic in every way, versus a play store with toy money and empty soup cans is equivalent to the difference between lightning and a lightning bug! There is nothing inherently wrong with using a play store to teach mathematics and other skills to young children, but it should not be confused with the authenticity of a business that must succeed according to real world economic principles and practices. In this section, we will discuss how the characteristics of real problems, coupled with our earlier examination of inductive learning, can be used to guide teachers and students in theType III process. The discussion that follows is organized around five essential elements of Type III Enrichment.
A Personal Frame of Reference
The first essential element is that problems being pursued through this type of learning experience must be based on individual or group interests. Teachers and other adults can certainly provide guidance and some creative steering toward the formulation of a problem, but they must avoid at all costs crossing the line from suggestion to prescription. If a problem is forced upon students, we endanger the personal frame of reference discussed above, and the kind of affective commitments that result in a willingness to engage in creative and demanding work. The Resource Guide at the end of this article lists books that describe specific techniques for spotting action information that might lead to student-selected problems, and for assisting students in problem finding and focusing. These resources also describe how students in a given group can become involved in different ways within the same problem or problem area. In most cases, the division of labor that takes place in group Type III situations causes a broader range of talents to be developed and promotes the kinds of real-world cooperativeness and mutual respect that we are attempting to achieve in the high-end learning. In addition to allowing for various types of involvement, problems that require a diversity of specialties also create opportunities for more personalization on the parts of individuals in the group. When each person feels that she or he "owns" a part of the problem, the first characteristic of a real problem is met.]
A Focus on Advanced-Level Knowledge
The second essential element of Type III Enrichment is that it should draw upon authentic, advanced-level knowledge. If we want young people to approximate the roles of practicing professionals, then it is important to examine the characteristics of persons who have displayed high levels of expertise in their respective domains of knowledge. During the past two decades, cognitive psychologists have devoted much research to the topic of experts and expertise, and the role of knowledge in attaining expert performance. Studies ranging from the characteristics of chess masters to the acquisition of routine tasks in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs (e.g., taxi driving) have uncovered a number of generalizations across the various domains that have been studied. Glaser (1988) has summarized some of the key characteristics of experts' performance, and these characteristics can be used to provide guidance for this dimension of the Enrichment Triad Model.
Experts mainly excel in their own domain, and they spend much more time than novices analyzing information within their respective fields of study. Experts also perceive large, meaningful patterns in their domain and they have an understanding of how knowledge is organized in their domain. They tend to represent problems at deeper levels by creating conceptual categories rather than categories based on surface or superficial features, they are goal-oriented, and they access knowledge mainly for its applicability to present problems. Finally, experts develop self-regulatory skills such as judging problem difficulty, apportioning their time, asking questions, reviewing their knowledge, and predicting outcomes.
High levels of expertise in a topic or domain obviously emerge from extensive experience gained over long periods of time. If we contrast this characteristic of expert performance with the forty-two minute period, traditionally found in schools, and the rapid march through numerous topics at superficial levels, the first hint that can be derived from the research on expertise is that we must radically extend the amount of time that young people are allowed to work on problems that have a personal frame of reference. Time allocations for individual or small group Type III investigations, whether in enrichment clusters, regular classes or other organizational arrangements, should be unbounded and expandable, as long as motivation remains high and progress toward goals is clearly evident. The amount and complexity of knowledge available to students pursuing advanced studies and investigations must also be expanded. Guidelines for identifying both advanced-level content and methodology can be found inSchools for Talent Development (Renzulli, 1994, Chapt. 6)., and the subject area standards carried out by various professional associations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, provides another vehicle for identifying advanced-level content. Finally, there has been a significant movement within teacher education programs to emphasize subject area competency as well as pedagogy. When all is said and done, the amount of advanced level knowledge that teachers possess will be a major determinant of the level of the courses they teach.
A Focus on Methodology
The third essential element of Type III Enrichment is the use of authentic methodology. This characteristic is essential because one of the goals of Type III Enrichment is to help youngsters extend their work beyond the usual kinds of reporting that often results when teachers and students view "research" as merely "looking up" information. Some reporting of previous information is a necessary part of most investigations. Indeed, the pursuit of new knowledge should always begin with a review of what is already known about a given topic. The end result of a Type III investigation, however, should be a creative contribution that goes beyond already existing information that is typically found in encyclopedias and other all-about-books.
Every field of organized knowledge can be defined, in part, by its methodology, and the methodology of most fields can be found in certain kinds of guidebooks or manuals. These "How-To" books are the key to escalating studies beyond the traditional report writing approach that often passes for research. I have described some of these books at length in the Resource Guide at the end of this article.
Every field of knowledge can also be partly defined by the kinds of data that represent the "raw material" of the field. New contributions are made in a field when investigators apply well-defined methods to the process of making sense out of random bits and pieces of information. Although some investigations require levels of sophistication and equipment that are far beyond the reach of younger investigators, almost every field of knowledge has entry level and junior level data gathering opportunities.
We have seen scientifically respectable questionnaire studies on food and television preferences carried out by primary grade students. A group of middle grade students gathered and analyzed water samples as part of a large regional study on the extent and effects of acid rain. This work was so thoroughly and carefully done that the students' findings were requested for use by a state environmental agency. Another group of elementary students used very professional techniques in every aspect of producing a weekly television show broadcast by a local cable television company. A fifth-grade student wrote a guidebook that was adopted by his city's government as the official historical walking tour of the city; a group of high school students engaged in a very sophisticated community research and citizens' action project that resulted in the appropriation of $200,000 for a citywide system of bike paths. The success and high level of product development reflected in these examples can be traced to the proper use of authentic methods and techniques, even if these techniques were carried out at a somewhat junior level than those used by adult inquirers.
The teacher's role in providing methodological assistance is to help students identify, locate, and obtain resource materials and/or persons to provide assistance in the appropriate use of investigative techniques. In some cases, it may be necessary to consult with librarians or professionals within various fields for advice about where and how to find methodological resources. Professional assistance may also be needed in translating complex concepts into material students can understand. Although methodological assistance is a major part of the teacher's responsibility in Type III Enrichment, it is neither necessary nor realistic to expect teachers to have mastered a large number of investigative techniques. A good general background and orientation toward the overall nature of research is necessary, but the most important skill is the ability to know where and how to help students obtain the right kind of material and the willingness to reach out beyond the usual school resources for specialized kinds of materials and resource persons.
Sense of Audience
The fourth essential element of Type III Enrichment is that products and services resulting from this kind of involvement are targeted on real audiences. The magic key that has unlocked the success of so many Type III projects is the "sense of audience" that students have developed in connection with their work. It is this sense of audience which helps give students a reason for wanting to improve the quality of their products and develop effective ways of communicating their results with interested others. A sense of audience is also a primary contributor to the creation of task commitment and the concern for excellence and quality that has characterized so many Type III investigations.
If the Type III dimension of our model is to have maximum value in the overall development of young people, major attention must be given to helping them find appropriate outlets and audiences for their most creative efforts. This concern is modeled after the modus operandi of creative and productive individuals. If we could sum up in a few words the raison d'être of creative and productive people, it would certainly be impact upon audience. Type III Enrichment provides natural opportunities for the kinds of personal satisfaction and self-expression that result from bringing an important piece of work to fruition. Writers hope to influence thoughts and emotions, scientists do research to find better ways to contribute new knowledge to their fields, and artists create products to enrich the lives of those who view their works. Teachers can help young people to acquire this orientation by encouraging them to develop a sense of audience from the earliest stages of a Type III investigation.
The teacher's role regarding outlets and audiences requires helping students take one small but often neglected first step in the overall process of product development. This important step is to consider what people in a particular field produce, and how they typically communicate their results with other interested persons. Once again, we can look to the activities of practicing professionals and the How-To books for guidance. In most cases, young artists and scholars will be restricted to local outlets and audiences, but there will be occasions when products of unusual excellence can be shared with larger audiences. Examples of vehicles that have been used regularly in programs organized around the Triad Model can be found in books listed in the Resource Guide at the end of this article.
Although school and local audiences are obvious starting points in the search for outlet vehicles, teachers should always help students gain a perspective for more comprehensive outlet vehicles and audiences beyond local opportunities. Many organizations, for example, prepare newsletters and journals at the state and national levels, and virtually every interest group has a broad array of web sites and other means for electronic communication. These potential outlets are usually receptive to high-quality contributions by young people. Similarly, state and national magazines oftentimes carry outstanding work by young people. The search for more widespread audiences should only be encouraged when student work is high in quality and when it has achieved recognition locally. Exploring external audiences will help young people develop standards of quality, and it will also provide them with "real world" experiences about the rigors and challenges of reaching out to wider audiences. Exploring external audiences involves an element of "risk-taking" and the chances of not having work accepted in the wider arenas of publications and dissemination. But by beginning a search for audiences at the local level, an element of success is likely to be achieved.
Authentic Evaluation
The fifth essential element of Type III Enrichment is that work carried out using this approach to learning is evaluated in an authentic rather than artificial manner. The ultimate test of quality in the world outside the school is whether or not products or services achieve a desired impact on clients or selected audiences. For this reason, Type III products should never be graded or scored. This traditional school practice is antithetical to the ways in which work is evaluated in the real world. Students can be provided with categorical feedback using a guide such as the Student Product Assessment Form (Renzulli & Reis, 1997, pp. 262-271), but even this instrument should only be used to help students refine and improve their work. Teachers and other adults should view their role in the feedback process as that of a "resident escalator." Sensitive and specific recommendations about how particular aspects of the work can be improved will help students move slowly but surely toward higher and higher levels of product excellence. Every effort should be made to pinpoint specific areas where suggested changes should be implemented. This approach will help avoid student discouragement and reconfirm a belief in the overall value of their endeavors.
The Assembly Plant of the Mind
Type III Enrichment consists of investigative activities and the development of creative products in which students assume roles as first-hand investigators, writers, artists, or other types of practicing professionals. Although students pursue these kinds of involvement at a more junior level than adult professionals, the overriding purpose of Type III Enrichment is to create situations in which young people are thinking, feeling, and doing what practicing professionals do in the delivery of products and services. Type III Enrichment experiences should be viewed as vehicles in which students can apply their interests, knowledge, thinking skills, creative ideas, and task commitment to self-selected problems or areas of study. In addition to this general goal, there are four objectives of Type III Enrichment:
- To acquire advanced-level understanding of the knowledge and methodology used within particular disciplines, artistic areas of expression, and interdisciplinary studies.
- To develop authentic products or services that are primarily directed toward bringing about a desired impact on one or more specified audiences.
- To develop self-directed learning skills in the areas of planning, problem finding and focusing, organizational skills, resource utilization, time management, cooperativeness, decision making, and self-evaluation.
- To develop task commitment, self-confidence, feelings of creative accomplishment, and the ability to interact effectively with other students and adults who share common goals and interests.
Since this type of enrichment is defined in terms of the pursuit of real problems, it is necessary to define this term at the outset of our discussion. The term "real problem," like many other concepts in education, gets tossed around so freely that after a while it becomes little more than a cliché. Research on the meaning of a real problem (Renzulli, 1982) did not produce a neat and trim definition, but an examination of various connotations of the term yielded four characteristics that will serves as the basis for our discussion. First, a real problem must have a personal frame of reference for the individual or group pursuing the problem. In other words, it must involve an emotional or internal commitment in addition to a cognitive or scholarly interest. Thus, for example, stating that global warming or urban crime are "real problems" does not make them real for an individual or group unless they decide to do something to address the problem. These concerns may affect all people, but until a commitment is made to act upon them, they are more properly classified as "societal issues." Similarly, telling a person or group that "you have a problem" does not make it real unless the problem is internalized and acted upon in some way.
A second characteristic of real problems is that they do not have existing or unique solutions for persons addressing the problem. If there is an agreed-upon, correct solution or set of strategies for solving the problem, then it is more appropriately classified as a "training exercise." As indicated earlier, it is not our intent to diminish the value of training exercises. Indeed, many of the activities that make up the Type II dimension of the Triad Model are exercises designed to develop thinking skills and research methods. They fail, however, to qualify as real problems because they are externally assigned, and there is a predetermined skill or problem-solving strategy that we hope learners will acquire. Even simulations that are based on approximations of real world events are considered to be training exercises if their main purpose is to teach content or thinking skills.
The third characteristic of a real problem is best described in terms of why people pursue these kinds of problems. The main reason is that they want to bring about some form of change in actions, attitudes, or beliefs on the parts of a targeted audience, or they want to contribute something new to the sciences, arts, or humanities. The word "new" is used here in a local rather than global way; therefore, we don't necessarily expect young people to make contributions that are new "for all mankind." But even replications of studies that have been done many times before are new in a relative sense if they are based on data that have not been gathered previously. Thus, for example, if a group of young people gathered data about television watching habits across grade levels in their school or community, these data and the resulting analysis would be new in the sense that they never existed before.
The final characteristic of real problems is that they are directed toward a real audience. Real audiences are defined as persons who voluntarily attend to information, events, services, or objects. A good way to understand the difference between a real and contrived audience is to reflect for a moment on what students might do with the results of a local oral history project. Although they might want to practice presenting the material before their classmates, an authentic audience would more properly consist of members of a local historical society or persons who choose to read about the study in a local newspaper, magazine, or shopping guide. The practicing professional, upon whose work Type III Enrichment is modeled, almost always begins his or her work with an audience in mind. Audiences may change as the work evolves, but they serve as targets that give purpose and direction to the work.
Essential Elements of Type III Enrichment
The preceding discussion of characteristics of real problems may appear to be a hairsplitting one, but it is necessary if we are to avoid common misconceptions of the term and resulting activities that are only approximations of real problems. For example, the difference between students operating a school store that is authentic in every way, versus a play store with toy money and empty soup cans is equivalent to the difference between lightning and a lightning bug! There is nothing inherently wrong with using a play store to teach mathematics and other skills to young children, but it should not be confused with the authenticity of a business that must succeed according to real world economic principles and practices. In this section, we will discuss how the characteristics of real problems, coupled with our earlier examination of inductive learning, can be used to guide teachers and students in theType III process. The discussion that follows is organized around five essential elements of Type III Enrichment.
A Personal Frame of Reference
The first essential element is that problems being pursued through this type of learning experience must be based on individual or group interests. Teachers and other adults can certainly provide guidance and some creative steering toward the formulation of a problem, but they must avoid at all costs crossing the line from suggestion to prescription. If a problem is forced upon students, we endanger the personal frame of reference discussed above, and the kind of affective commitments that result in a willingness to engage in creative and demanding work. The Resource Guide at the end of this article lists books that describe specific techniques for spotting action information that might lead to student-selected problems, and for assisting students in problem finding and focusing. These resources also describe how students in a given group can become involved in different ways within the same problem or problem area. In most cases, the division of labor that takes place in group Type III situations causes a broader range of talents to be developed and promotes the kinds of real-world cooperativeness and mutual respect that we are attempting to achieve in the high-end learning. In addition to allowing for various types of involvement, problems that require a diversity of specialties also create opportunities for more personalization on the parts of individuals in the group. When each person feels that she or he "owns" a part of the problem, the first characteristic of a real problem is met.]
A Focus on Advanced-Level Knowledge
The second essential element of Type III Enrichment is that it should draw upon authentic, advanced-level knowledge. If we want young people to approximate the roles of practicing professionals, then it is important to examine the characteristics of persons who have displayed high levels of expertise in their respective domains of knowledge. During the past two decades, cognitive psychologists have devoted much research to the topic of experts and expertise, and the role of knowledge in attaining expert performance. Studies ranging from the characteristics of chess masters to the acquisition of routine tasks in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs (e.g., taxi driving) have uncovered a number of generalizations across the various domains that have been studied. Glaser (1988) has summarized some of the key characteristics of experts' performance, and these characteristics can be used to provide guidance for this dimension of the Enrichment Triad Model.
Experts mainly excel in their own domain, and they spend much more time than novices analyzing information within their respective fields of study. Experts also perceive large, meaningful patterns in their domain and they have an understanding of how knowledge is organized in their domain. They tend to represent problems at deeper levels by creating conceptual categories rather than categories based on surface or superficial features, they are goal-oriented, and they access knowledge mainly for its applicability to present problems. Finally, experts develop self-regulatory skills such as judging problem difficulty, apportioning their time, asking questions, reviewing their knowledge, and predicting outcomes.
High levels of expertise in a topic or domain obviously emerge from extensive experience gained over long periods of time. If we contrast this characteristic of expert performance with the forty-two minute period, traditionally found in schools, and the rapid march through numerous topics at superficial levels, the first hint that can be derived from the research on expertise is that we must radically extend the amount of time that young people are allowed to work on problems that have a personal frame of reference. Time allocations for individual or small group Type III investigations, whether in enrichment clusters, regular classes or other organizational arrangements, should be unbounded and expandable, as long as motivation remains high and progress toward goals is clearly evident. The amount and complexity of knowledge available to students pursuing advanced studies and investigations must also be expanded. Guidelines for identifying both advanced-level content and methodology can be found inSchools for Talent Development (Renzulli, 1994, Chapt. 6)., and the subject area standards carried out by various professional associations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, provides another vehicle for identifying advanced-level content. Finally, there has been a significant movement within teacher education programs to emphasize subject area competency as well as pedagogy. When all is said and done, the amount of advanced level knowledge that teachers possess will be a major determinant of the level of the courses they teach.
A Focus on Methodology
The third essential element of Type III Enrichment is the use of authentic methodology. This characteristic is essential because one of the goals of Type III Enrichment is to help youngsters extend their work beyond the usual kinds of reporting that often results when teachers and students view "research" as merely "looking up" information. Some reporting of previous information is a necessary part of most investigations. Indeed, the pursuit of new knowledge should always begin with a review of what is already known about a given topic. The end result of a Type III investigation, however, should be a creative contribution that goes beyond already existing information that is typically found in encyclopedias and other all-about-books.
Every field of organized knowledge can be defined, in part, by its methodology, and the methodology of most fields can be found in certain kinds of guidebooks or manuals. These "How-To" books are the key to escalating studies beyond the traditional report writing approach that often passes for research. I have described some of these books at length in the Resource Guide at the end of this article.
Every field of knowledge can also be partly defined by the kinds of data that represent the "raw material" of the field. New contributions are made in a field when investigators apply well-defined methods to the process of making sense out of random bits and pieces of information. Although some investigations require levels of sophistication and equipment that are far beyond the reach of younger investigators, almost every field of knowledge has entry level and junior level data gathering opportunities.
We have seen scientifically respectable questionnaire studies on food and television preferences carried out by primary grade students. A group of middle grade students gathered and analyzed water samples as part of a large regional study on the extent and effects of acid rain. This work was so thoroughly and carefully done that the students' findings were requested for use by a state environmental agency. Another group of elementary students used very professional techniques in every aspect of producing a weekly television show broadcast by a local cable television company. A fifth-grade student wrote a guidebook that was adopted by his city's government as the official historical walking tour of the city; a group of high school students engaged in a very sophisticated community research and citizens' action project that resulted in the appropriation of $200,000 for a citywide system of bike paths. The success and high level of product development reflected in these examples can be traced to the proper use of authentic methods and techniques, even if these techniques were carried out at a somewhat junior level than those used by adult inquirers.
The teacher's role in providing methodological assistance is to help students identify, locate, and obtain resource materials and/or persons to provide assistance in the appropriate use of investigative techniques. In some cases, it may be necessary to consult with librarians or professionals within various fields for advice about where and how to find methodological resources. Professional assistance may also be needed in translating complex concepts into material students can understand. Although methodological assistance is a major part of the teacher's responsibility in Type III Enrichment, it is neither necessary nor realistic to expect teachers to have mastered a large number of investigative techniques. A good general background and orientation toward the overall nature of research is necessary, but the most important skill is the ability to know where and how to help students obtain the right kind of material and the willingness to reach out beyond the usual school resources for specialized kinds of materials and resource persons.
Sense of Audience
The fourth essential element of Type III Enrichment is that products and services resulting from this kind of involvement are targeted on real audiences. The magic key that has unlocked the success of so many Type III projects is the "sense of audience" that students have developed in connection with their work. It is this sense of audience which helps give students a reason for wanting to improve the quality of their products and develop effective ways of communicating their results with interested others. A sense of audience is also a primary contributor to the creation of task commitment and the concern for excellence and quality that has characterized so many Type III investigations.
If the Type III dimension of our model is to have maximum value in the overall development of young people, major attention must be given to helping them find appropriate outlets and audiences for their most creative efforts. This concern is modeled after the modus operandi of creative and productive individuals. If we could sum up in a few words the raison d'être of creative and productive people, it would certainly be impact upon audience. Type III Enrichment provides natural opportunities for the kinds of personal satisfaction and self-expression that result from bringing an important piece of work to fruition. Writers hope to influence thoughts and emotions, scientists do research to find better ways to contribute new knowledge to their fields, and artists create products to enrich the lives of those who view their works. Teachers can help young people to acquire this orientation by encouraging them to develop a sense of audience from the earliest stages of a Type III investigation.
The teacher's role regarding outlets and audiences requires helping students take one small but often neglected first step in the overall process of product development. This important step is to consider what people in a particular field produce, and how they typically communicate their results with other interested persons. Once again, we can look to the activities of practicing professionals and the How-To books for guidance. In most cases, young artists and scholars will be restricted to local outlets and audiences, but there will be occasions when products of unusual excellence can be shared with larger audiences. Examples of vehicles that have been used regularly in programs organized around the Triad Model can be found in books listed in the Resource Guide at the end of this article.
Although school and local audiences are obvious starting points in the search for outlet vehicles, teachers should always help students gain a perspective for more comprehensive outlet vehicles and audiences beyond local opportunities. Many organizations, for example, prepare newsletters and journals at the state and national levels, and virtually every interest group has a broad array of web sites and other means for electronic communication. These potential outlets are usually receptive to high-quality contributions by young people. Similarly, state and national magazines oftentimes carry outstanding work by young people. The search for more widespread audiences should only be encouraged when student work is high in quality and when it has achieved recognition locally. Exploring external audiences will help young people develop standards of quality, and it will also provide them with "real world" experiences about the rigors and challenges of reaching out to wider audiences. Exploring external audiences involves an element of "risk-taking" and the chances of not having work accepted in the wider arenas of publications and dissemination. But by beginning a search for audiences at the local level, an element of success is likely to be achieved.
Authentic Evaluation
The fifth essential element of Type III Enrichment is that work carried out using this approach to learning is evaluated in an authentic rather than artificial manner. The ultimate test of quality in the world outside the school is whether or not products or services achieve a desired impact on clients or selected audiences. For this reason, Type III products should never be graded or scored. This traditional school practice is antithetical to the ways in which work is evaluated in the real world. Students can be provided with categorical feedback using a guide such as the Student Product Assessment Form (Renzulli & Reis, 1997, pp. 262-271), but even this instrument should only be used to help students refine and improve their work. Teachers and other adults should view their role in the feedback process as that of a "resident escalator." Sensitive and specific recommendations about how particular aspects of the work can be improved will help students move slowly but surely toward higher and higher levels of product excellence. Every effort should be made to pinpoint specific areas where suggested changes should be implemented. This approach will help avoid student discouragement and reconfirm a belief in the overall value of their endeavors.