Cream with your coffee, popcorn with your movie, sprinkles for your donut.
In its simplest form, this is enrichment. It is taking anything in its most basic form and layering it with embellishments to make it more interesting, more enjoyable, or more beneficial. When we enrich, we add value, and in most cases deepen an experience.
In the world of Christian education, we talk a lot about getting back to basics. We want to be sure kids are learning fundamentals so they can build their education from a strong foundation. We must be sure they learn to view every single topic we teach from a biblical perspective. These basics are critical. They help to prepare kids for a successful future.
While we understand the significance of the basics, we must take Christian education one step further. We must make it relevant and engaging if we are to keep students in our schools and prepare them for a world where critical thinking, problem solving, and digital proficiency are essential to success.
That's where electives and alternative resources come in. The courses and activities on the fringes are what make school relevant. From learning a new language to creating your own website and composing music to participating in sports, those extras are in many cases why kids love to learn.
Within courses themselves, projects and interactivity can also be enriching. When students engage with content, they are more likely to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.
When we enrich the educational experience, we create students who love to learn because learning is then relevant to their lives.
As if these weren't good enough reasons to provide enrichment, research indicates that electives promote better thinking and learning with benefits that include the development of
- Collaborative skills
- Technological competencies
- Flexible thinking
- Appreciation for diversity
Through offering a variety of electives and embedding interactive multimedia elements and external sources into curriculum, learning becomes exciting, relevant, and beneficial to students. They are no longer just repeating right answers, they are learning to think, solve, produce, and communicate. Best of all, they are helping to create a greater society.
"The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.... It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.... It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods."
- Lyndon Baines Johnson
After all, a hamburger without the works is just another sandwich.
Browse our course listings to learn more about Ignitia and the enriching electives offered within our LMS.
How do you incorporate electives into your learning program? Share with us!
