Every learner has strengths or potential strengths that can be used as a foundation for effective learning and creative productivity. The Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) (Reis & Renzulli, 1985) capitalizes on these strengths by offering students options to realize their own potential. Through service delivery components like Curriculum Compacting and Enrichment Clusters, students are insured of being exposed to high level and challenging learning experiences. A third component, the Total Talent Portfolio (TTP) serves as the framework by which all the other elements of the model can be organized.
A model for total talent development requires that we give equal attention to interests and learning styles as well as to the cognitive abilities that have been used traditionally for educational decision making. The Total Talent Portfolio is a vehicle for gathering and recording information systematically about students' abilities, interests, and learning styles. The major dimensions of the portfolio and the specific items that guide data gathering within each dimension are presented in Figure 1. Students should achieve autonomy and ownership of the TTP by assuming major responsibility in the selection of items to be included, maintaining and regularly updating the portfolio, and setting personal goals by making decisions about items that they would like to include in the portfolio. Although the teacher should serve as a guide in the portfolio review process, the ultimate goal is to create autonomy in students by turning control for the management of the portfolio over to them.