Curriculum Enrichment Corners in the Classroom

These corners serve as an education resource when accelerated students finish their classwork. However, they can be used by any student in class, who can spend time weekly in these curriculum enrichment corners.

Characteristics of curriculum enrichment corners

Curriculum enrichment corners contain materials and resources that allow students to work autonomously and creatively. Teachers and professors are responsible for preparing one or more of these areas in their classroom. They can modify the content of these corners from time to time, as they see fit.

Educators should evaluate the different corners based on analysis of the advantages and disadvantages they observe in their use. The idea of these centers is to better respond to the needs of students… Especially those students with high intellectual capacity. It’s important for teachers and professors to be open to making necessary modifications in order to better meet those needs.

The objectives of implementing curriculum enrichment corners in the classroom are the following:

• Curriculum enrichment corners increase levels of motivation.
• They maximize tasks involving research and investigation.
• Increased creativity.
• The possibility of a great variety of activities within the classroom.
• These centers provide a maximum response to the intellectual needs of students.
• They broaden the knowledge of different concepts, procedures and attitudes.

Types of curriculum enrichment

Curriculum enrichment consists of two categories:

• Vertical curriculum enrichment. Consists of increasing the amount of content that children can learn.
• Horizontal curriculum enrichment. In this case, the increase in the quantity of content takes backstage. Rather, the focus is on creating connections within the content students are learning.

Within these two types, there are multiple varieties of curriculum enrichment corners that educators can implement. Below are just a few examples.

Examples of vertical curriculum enhancement corners

Envelopes for learning more

This is our first example of vertical curriculum enhancement. The envelopes offer additional content that children can learn on a given subject that the class is studying.

This corner consists of creating special independent learning spaces in the classroom. These spaces contain a series of envelopes that contain activities that broaden students’ knowledge about a specific subject. The purpose of these exercises is to complement the didactic lessons that teachers provide, or content in classes’s textbooks.

Creativity folders

This is another example of vertical curriculum enrichment. In this case, educators provide their students with folders that offer a variety of activities. Again, these activities have to do with some subjects that the class is currently learning about.

The folders allow students to develop different aspects of creativity. Therefore, this is an excellent method for working with students with high intellectual abilities. As students carry out the activities in the folder, they develop the following areas:

• Autonomy.
• Imagination.
• Creativity.
• The ability to learn how to learn.
• The ability to research and investigate.

Examples of horizontal curriculum enrichment

Interdisciplinary activities

This measure involves creating a corner in the classroom where students can carry out interdisciplinary activities. Here, they must look for relationships among concepts and procedures from different subjects or areas of study.

The aim of this activity isn’t for students to learn additional content about a particular subject. Rather, the focus is on making connections between different subjects of the same level. This way, they broaden their understanding not only of one subject, but in regards to other subjects as well.

It’s important for children to learn to make these interdisciplinary connections. Doing so allows them to obtain a more global vision of learning.

Activities for digging deeper

These curriculum enrichment corners offer activities that allow children to deepen their understanding. The activities maximize their ability to think on a higher level through Bloom and Anderson’s taxonomy.

In other words, children learn based on a hierarchy divided into different cognitive levels, from simple to complex.

In these spaces, children encounter a series of activities related to a theme or area of study. These activities are distributed according to the achievement of determined objectives. They start with memorization and end with creation.

This way, activities that allow children to deepen their knowledge are a great motivational tool. Furthermore, they help students understand that learning is a progressive process.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can say that the use of curriculum enrichment corners in the classroom is beneficial for all students. However, they’re especially beneficial for students with high intellectual abilities. These corners offer students a deeper, more extensive and global understanding of learning.