Center Cass District 66 Project Enrich/Challenge has been developed for academically talented students in grades kindergarten-eighth who meet the established district criteria on the OLSAT Test, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, teacher observation, past school performance. District 66 goals for the kindergarten through eighth grade students in the Project Enrich/Challenge Program are as follows: • To promote critical thinking and reasoning abilities including those of inference, deductive and inductive reasoning, analogies and the evaluation of arguments, and to use these skills to explore complex content. • To promote an environment that encourages divergent thinking, originality, fluency, flexibility and elaboration in thought processes. • To foster inquiry and challenging attitudes toward learning. • To provide an environment that allows able learners to interact regularly with intellectual peers for the purpose of intellectual stimulation an emotional support. • To provide for self-directed and independent study skills, and the opportunity to apply these skills to areas of concern and interest to the student. • To experience increased complexity of subject matter to include broad based issues, presented in real life situations and to explore problems and themes in a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving. • To develop oral and written skills using any of several; methods of communication, including, but not limited to conversations, discussions, debates, oral and written communications. • To utilize technology appropriately in the pursuit of program goals and objectives, including research skills and methods. |