The Power of a Question
10/27/2018
THIS... this is why teaching is my passion, why I pursued it as a career, and this is why you trust Pacific Northern Academy to partner with you in the education and upbringing of your little ones. At PNA, our mission is to educate students to be exceptional learners and independent thinkers of vision, courage, and integrity. So much of that mission is achieved through the culture we create in our school, and much of that is created through project based learning and teaching through the workshop model. Students spend time doing, creating, exploring, questioning. Warren Berger, "innovation expert and questionologist," in his blog post, "Why do kids ask so many questions - and why do they stop?" discussed questioning with Richard Saul Wurman, the original creator of the TED conference. "He [Wurman] immediately focused on the education system. 'In school, we're rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question,' Wurman pointed out. Which may explain why kids--who start off asking endless "why" and "what if" questions--gradually ask fewer and fewer of them as they progress through grade school." In my opinion, one of the biggest disservices we can do to children as educators is to teach them to learn for the end result: a grade or test, a project, an answer that already exists. Rather, we should be showing students the joy and wonder of learning for learning's sake, learning because there is an entire world out there to be explored, understood, and marveled at. Moreover, we should not simply show them this, but share in the joy and wonder of it, of discovering and learning more even now as adults, as teachers. Project based learning is a framework that allows us to do just that. It allows us to honor the way we naturally learn and to teach students not only how to learn, but to think like stop motion animators, meteorologists and zoologists, like mathematicians, readers, and writers... like a million different things. Through projects and workshop teaching, we teach students to learn and think in new ways. We encourage them to inquire and find new curiosities, to find answers, dig deeper, and ask even more questions as questions are answered. My role as an educator is not only to keep my students' curiosity and wonder alive, but to broaden their world and realm of wonder, to introduce them to new things about which to be curious. I am not simply giving them information. I am presenting a curiosity that we can all study together, a problem that we can all solve together, or a question that we can all answer together. The curriculums we use and the projects we design encourage students to do, to explore, to try, to ask more questions, to look at things in multiple ways, in different ways, in new ways. The more I delve into PBL with my students and the more time I spend with our older students, the more I see firsthand the difference it makes in their lives, in the very way in which they see the world. In my opinion, it helps them see that they can make a difference, even now as a child, that they can do more than they - or often others - think they can. (I cannot tell you how often I hear, "You do that with 5 year-olds?!") It honors and teaches students the natural way of learning and problem solving. It teaches them the structure of lifelong learning. It makes both of these things their norm. It sparks excitement, natural reflection, and a growth mindset. Finally, not only does it not diminish their curiosity and creativity (like schooling can sometimes do), but it helps their curiosity and creativity flourish. Sure, many of the experiments we do have already been done so the results are expected (although not to our little scientists). It is the method that makes all the difference. In following an inquiry method, in learning and then doing, exploring, and trying, in presenting a problem or question first and learning through the exploration of that problem or question, we encourage students to keep asking questions, to keep exploring the world, to look for problems and seek solutions, to enjoy the wonder of life, to grow in curiosity and creativity... to see that there are always more questions to be asked, more concepts to explore and understand, more ways to make a difference. Project based learning helps us accomplish our mission to create lifelong learners who embrace challenges and are equipped to create solutions for the problems they find, who continue to explore and wonder and dig deeper. Furthermore, it gives our students the language to do this. We teach students how to learn and think in new ways, how to understand the world in new ways. We expect them to read, write, and think like scientists, zoologists, mathematicians, writers, readers, meteorologists, inventors, and many more things. They get to step into all of these different roles and this broadens their worldview, their experience, their understanding of how many more things are left to explore and discover, to ask questions about. It makes them more open-minded. It makes them more curious. It makes them more creative. As a whole, workshop, inquiry, and project based learning help form the culture of our school. Individually, they mold the way our students approach and interact with the world and others in it. If you spend any time in our school, you know that our students are unique, creative, and full of questions. http://amorebeautifulquestion.com/why-do-kids-ask-so-many-questions-but-more-importantly-why-do-they-stop/
Worth Celebrating
10/13/2018
Since the beginning of school, our sweet little ones have been busy learning and doing the important work of scientists, explorers, mathematicians, readers, and writers. Already, they have made so much growth... and they have so much more growing to do before the year is out. At each step of the way towards our end of year goals, we take the time to celebrate. We pause and celebrate so that our kindergartners see the value of their hard work, so that they are encouraged to try harder as they continue working and learning, and so that they know that their accomplishments are worth celebrating. Celebrate what you've accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed. -Mia HammAfter we tackled retelling emergent stories and bringing them to life like storytellers, we celebrated with a book parade and reading to the EK classes. This gave our super readers even more motivation as we started to read the actual words in books. At this point in the year, our writing routines are intact (for the most part!) and students have spent weeks pouring over nonfiction books. Teaching all about the various things they know called for our first publishing party. The first party is always my favorite because our writers sit in the author's chair for the first time and read their stories aloud to an audience of their peers. It ends with our authors adding their books to the featured bookcase in our classroom. I love watching them proudly read their books aloud and seeing the books they have worked so hard on next to those of the authors we have studied since the beginning of school. We will have many more publishing parties to celebrate their written works as the year progresses. Finally, we celebrated our word scientists increased knowledge of letters and sounds by teaching stuffies in ABC School. Their stuffies will also be welcomed back as a celebration of their hard work in growing their "superpowers" in reading, and they will be welcomed back for other celebrations throughout the year as well. Life is too short not to celebrate nice moments. -Jurgen KloppNext week, we will celebrate the completion of our first project. Throughout the year, we will continue to celebrate both little and big accomplishments... because it motivates our students to achieve more, to value the work they have done, and because the accomplishments of our sweet little ones are worth celebrating.
We Can Be Anything
10/3/2018
I have no doubt in my mind that these sweet little ones of ours can be anything... maybe not a cowboy or a unicorn rider... but more than they imagine right now. I think this movie, the product of our study about the people who are part of and help our community, perfectly showcases their hard work and learning. Not only did they learn about people in our community (many more than those featured in the video) and how they contribute to it, but they also learned how to use a real-world tool, stop motion, to create a movie to share their knowledge with others. An Experiment...
10/3/2018
Last week, I wrote about the magic of referring to students as mathematicians, scientists, writers, readers, and more. However, I do not merely call our sweet little ones all of these things. I treat them as these things too. In my mind, they are scientists, mathematicians, readers, and writers. When we study something in science, we sometimes do experiments. When we do experiments, we follow the scientific method, just like older students and scientists do. Our kindergartners ask questions and make predictions. They conduct the experiment. They record the results. They share the findings. I expect them to do the work - the work of real scientists - and they are happy to do it. An important piece of project based learning is authenticity, which includes using real-world contexts, tasks, and tools. One of the things I love about teaching kindergarten is making the concepts and skills approachable for our littlest learners by keeping the learning developmentally appropriate and providing scaffolding (just the right amount of help). Young children find such joy and wonder in discovering more about our world and in using real-world tools and techniques to do so. To make it just right for them, we sing songs, play games, engage with the content through active activities, and break things down step-by-step. When I first started teaching, I taught preschool. My co-workers remarked skeptically about how I used actual vocabulary and strategies and methods we expect older children to use. But I knew my students could meet the challenge with the appropriate scaffolding and adjustments to make it more approachable and developmentally appropriate for them. Trusting them with authentic, real-world contexts and tasks now, like following the scientific method, builds the foundation for them to later work independently within these contexts. They will know how to study the world like a real scientist because they will have been doing it since the start. Treating them like scientists, mathematicians, writers, and readers empowers them. Even now, people sometimes incredulously ask me, "You do that with kindergartners?" Our littlest learners are capable of more than we sometimes give them credit for. I believe in letting them be little, but I also believe in giving them the opportunity to explore our world, to use technical vocabulary and real-world tools to do so, to engage with the world the way scientists do, the way mathematicians do, the way readers and writers do. Their products may look different than those of their older peers or adults (and rightly so), but our littlest learners can follow the process, learn from it, and enjoy it. So last week it was stop motion. This week it was an experiment and the scientific method. Throughout the year, I will trust and guide them to use real-world tools to complete other authentic tasks as well, things that other people might think are crazy to attempt with 5 year-olds... filming a weather forecast, making robots, conducting dissections, creating a campaign to help endangered animals, designing and building a life-size castle. They will continue to tackle real-world problems, engage in real-world tasks, and use real-world tools as they are immersed in projects throughout elementary and middle school. Through each experience, our little ones will learn that they can. They can be a scientist. Even though it looks a little different, they can follow the same procedures as real scientists, use similar tools, explore the world just like scientists do. They can be an engineer. They can be an inventor. They can be a reader, a writer, a mathematician, a world-changer. They can try all of these things and learn to see and explain the world in a new way each time. Some of our students are more timid to step into these roles, but each time they do, they see that they can do more than they think they can when they work hard and try.
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Saania AliMs. Ali graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelors of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies. She specializes in Early Childhood Education, ESL, and Special Education. Her hobbies include traveling, reading, and painting! Archives
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