Northern Arizona University - College of Education

College of Education
Summer Enrichment Program
PO Box 5774
Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5774
(928) 523-8144

The Academics

The strategy for the Summer Enrichment Program is to create a structured environment that supports the development of academic skills while inspiring a love for learning. The summer program consists of five components aimed at encouraging student achievement while building a sense of responsibility for seeking and obtaining individual educational opportunities. Students take part in academic enrichment, skill building exercises, leadership activities, service (experiential) learning, and social and cultural interaction.

At S.E.P. we apply a Problem Based Learning strategy that emphasizes active learning and putting knowledge to use in independent and creative ways. Through our partnerships which include Grand Canyon National Park and three local National Monuments, the city of Flagstaff, Meteor Crater, and N.A.U.'s Centennial Forest, we offer students the opportunity to use their knowledge to find solutions to real-world problems facing the Arizona community. Students explore background information on a particular topic in class during the beginning of the week. Mid-week they visit the site meet with experts, including Park Service Rangers, and spend the remainder of the day in small groups gathering data and exploring possible solutions to the topic under consideration.

Rather than assign grades, representatives from the various sites serve as judges of PowerPoint presentations produced by small groups of students. The student presentations illustrate the solutions they have developed to the problem they have studied all week. Groups receive immediate feedback from judges and learn to present and defend their analyses in public speaking forums.

Our experiences with S.E.P. students have taught us that the most productive classrooms are characterized by:

• high expectations for student performance
• low student/instructor ratios
• faculty open to exploring new teaching strategies
• motivated students
• active student participation

At S.E.P., students are immersed in a classroom environment in which their ideas are valued. They are helped to develop the close reading, clear writing, careful collection and analysis of data and critical thinking skills that will be necessary to carry them through high school and into college.