2.1.1 Project Period Table: A Creative, Successful Use of Type III Enrichment for the Gifted

Independent project-based enrichment is a recommended strategy for Gifted Education as it motivates students to work creatively in a scientific field of their interest and develop autonomous learning skills. This strategy is based on the Enrichment type III from the School Wide Enrichment SEM model. One field where fostering creativity has posed a challenge is teaching of Chemistry where topics are advanced but mainly theoretically based, requiring more independent practice-based classes. This qualitative research project explored the use of small group project instruction for fostering creativity at High school Chemistry to 10-12-year-old students at an advancement placement program. For one year this enrichment model was applied with groups of five students each that developed their projects to design alternative creative chemistry products based on the curriculum topics. All teams had to creatively respond to the challenge through planning, researching chemistry theory, testing scientific accuracy, manually crafting each project, and assembling it. As the first experience of applying the SEM in Mexico within Gifted Education full-time-schooling, students had to be proactive among their teams within an independent project that resulted in the development of a “didactic periodic table” with pedagogic uses for remembering complex biochemical concepts and usable for public presentations. Therefore, the project was conducted weekly to develop their ideas. All students were responsible for the planning, researching the property of each element and the table design, scientific accuracy, manually crafting each “element” corresponding block out of wood (including painting it), uniting and assembling the table. Finally, they required basic engineering skills to wire and program all sections, so their periodic table would respond to commands for showing in different colors the corresponding chemical families. This culminated with the public presentation of their projects at a national Science Custer Fair by June 2018. This was the first experience of applying this creativity-based model of projects with the SEM in Mexico within Gifted Education full-time schooling. All students developed further work team abilities within an independent project. The effects on creativity, teamwork, learning strategies and problem solving were analyzed, which underlined the positive effects of independent project-based enrichment. As a result, it described further the potential of creativity-based instruction for Gifted Education at Latin America. This project encompassed the successful application of the Project Based Type III Enrichment of Dr. Renzulli SEM model for gifted and allowed to describe the implementation of these creativity-based instruction models.

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