Enrichment and Acceleration at CTD

Approaches to Instruction and Course Content

Advanced Enrichment

Enrichment is instruction that exposes students to topics or concepts not typically included in a school’s core curriculum or extends the topics beyond grade level content to allow for depth and breadth of study. Enrichment often builds on areas of interest while challenging students to use concepts they may already know in new ways or to translate those concepts to new learning.

Enrichment content at CTD challenges students to apply and connect concepts across multiple content areas/disciplines, promoting critical thinking, problem-solving, and engagement with peers. CTD enrichment class content is rigorous, designed to develop thinking skills, build psychosocial skills, and introduce academic content designed to be up to two years beyond a student’s school grade level. While students are encouraged to choose courses that are matched to their areas of strength, enrichment courses provide access to a wide variety of topics across a variety of disciplines. Students can therefore choose courses that might be outside of their comfort zone and grapple with those novel concepts in a low-risk (ungraded), supportive environment. Because students are being presented with new concepts and skills - sometimes at a faster pace than typical in school - practice, focus, and persistence are important for students’ success. For some of CTD’s programs, such as the academic summer camps for grades 6-12, students may be expected to invest up to 90 minutes on homework and/or projects between class sessions. These course-related activities are intentionally designed to help students practice critical skills and apply their new knowledge.

Enrichment courses are available in these CTD programs:

• Online Family Program
• Online Enrichment
• CTD Encounters
• Weekend Enrichment Program
• Academic Summer Day Camps at Chicago Area Sites
• Academic Summer Day and Residential Camps at Northwestern University
• Leadership and Service-Learning

Acceleration

Experiencing appropriate challenge and encountering new ideas is essential for learning. Many gifted and advanced learners have already mastered many of the concepts and skills that make up grade-level curriculum expectations in traditional schools. When the level and pace of curriculum is not appropriately challenging, advanced students can miss opportunities to continue their academic growth and develop academic and executive functioning skills that are key to future success. They may also develop unhealthy attitudes about education.

When advanced students have opportunities to accelerate academically by accessing curriculum more commonly used with older students and have opportunities to advance at a pace more in sync with how quickly they learn, students learn more, feel more engaged in class, maintain motivation, and are more likely to develop academic skills and healthy learning habits.

Complementing courses providing opportunities for enrichment, CTD offers a wide variety of courses and programs that allow students to accelerate academically, providing early access to advanced content, opportunities for faster pacing, and/or a compacted time frame.

Acceleration courses are available in these CTD programs:

• Online Honors
• Online AP®
• Online Core Essentials
• Accelerated Summer Online
• Academic Summer Day and Residential Camps at Northwestern University

Glossary of Terms

We have created a glossary to help families and educators better understand our approach and common terms used in gifted education.

View the Glossary