Book: Sparking Curiosity through Project-Based Learning in the Early Childhood Classroom

Elizabeth Hoyle Konecni
ISBN: 978-1-003-33254-1
Routledge, New York, 2023

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I’ve come to learn that if we as teachers want true engagement in our lessons, especially our lessons in early childhood classrooms, then we have to reach back into our childhood memories of play and learn more from our younger selves.

What did we think about? How did we learn? What was important? How did we stay curious about the world around us?

This is exactly what our students crave as young learners, to see the world through the lens of curiosity. In this role, they become fearless learners that wonder about the world around them.

Chapter 2: Shifting Thinking

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NASA’s Findings

In the late 1960s, NASA hired Dr. George Land and Dr. Beth Jarman to create and administer a test that would carefully analyze creative ability and its source. Their findings, to this day, are still astounding and illuminate what even our youngest children need in their early years in the classroom.

Dr. Land and Dr. Jarman began the study by evaluating approximately 1,600 four- and five-year-old children. The test assessed their ability to problem solve as they thought up new and innovative solutions to problems.

A surprising 98% of the tested group scored at the creative genius level.

They evaluated the identical group of children five years later; the results were discouraging. The same children were no longer at the top of the ranking as they were five years prior. The staggering 98% creative genius level now fell to just 30%. What happened to the other 68%? Did they
just stop being geniuses?

Researchers tested the same group once more five years later, and yet again, the percentage had fallen, from 30% to only 12%. Consider this: over a ten-year time span, the tested children’s scores declined from 98% scoring at the creative genius level at age five to 12% scoring at the creative genius level at age 15.

Can 86% of the identified creative geniuses suddenly decline into average ability levels?
Can one grow out of being a genius?
In their final test, researchers tested the population in adulthood and the original 98% figure had now gone down to 2% over a period of 20 years. What happened to these creative thinkers? (Land and Jarman, 1992)

The Findings

So, what exactly did this research lead Drs. Land and Jarman to find? They concluded that “non-creative behavior is learned.” – Land

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Essentially, our youngest learners come to us as creative geniuses, and over time in school and exposure to social stereotypes and convergent thinking, children lose their creative spark. As Sir Ken Robinson noted in a famous TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?,” “all kids have tremendous talents, and
we squander them pretty ruthlessly” (TED, 2006). His brilliant take on how we are slowly removing every ounce of creativity in our classrooms focuses a new lens on our early childhood classrooms. Our classrooms begin to define learning and set lifelong expectations of how classrooms function. He goes on
to share this study from NASA conducted by Drs. Land and Jarman.

Do our traditional classroom models limit children by taking away their ability to deeply ponder the world around them?

As a teacher, I am always reflecting and questioning my beliefs and experiences. Reflective questions that guide my practice include:

• How do we create life-long learners?
• Do I stifle learning in my classroom? How might I be stifling creativity?
• What are the outcomes that I want for my students?
• What am I doing for children that they can do independently?
• Am I allowing for open-ended thinking or am I looking for a specific answer?
• What is true problem solving and what does it look like?

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Part of our important role as teachers is to unite our students’ interests about a topic as we move forward together as an entire community of learners.

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We must let go of the fact that our students need us to tell them how to do every little thing and step into the new image of ourselves cultivating learners that thrive on independent problem solving.

It’s hard for us to step back because we feel like we’ll lose control of our well-managed classroom.

SHIFT FOUR – You’re Not the Only Expert in the Room

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… a student-centered vocabulary experience that happened in a pre-K classroom, an experience that shows the power of the teacher stepping out of the sole information giver role, and into a facilitator role.
The students are learning about flowers in their project study. They have taken nature walks, observed flowers, investigated different parts of a flower, planted varieties and now they’re deepening their understanding of a flower and a flower’s role in the environment. As the students begin reading and researching independently and as a whole group, unfamiliar words pop up throughout their learning experiences. Instead of the teacher placing prewritten definitions on a vocabulary wall or simply providing the students with her definition, she takes an entirely different approach.

The students have taken on the role of information seekers. As they come across words that they don’t know the meaning of, they investigate to search for a deeper understanding of it sometimes in whole-group learning and sometimes in independent inquiry. The students bring the words to the teacher, along
with their student-friendly understanding of its meaning. The teacher then writes the word at the top of a sheet of paper, if the child is unable to legibly write the word. It’s the learner’s role to draw their student-friendly definition under the word. The new word is placed on the vocabulary wall and the student shares
her findings with the rest of the class. As the unit progresses, the vocabulary wall grows with words that the students find in their discoveries.

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SHIFT FIVE – Silence is Toxic

Productive conversations among students of all ability levels supports them as they try on, manipulate and master content. It’s through their deep conversations and questions to their peers that they begin making those connections.

Chapter 3: A Plannable Framework

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Embracing PBL means empowering students. Releasing responsibility and control to students can be scary. This chapter offers a framework for your planning to ensure that students are engaged in purposeful learning. And before you know it, releasing responsibility and control will become the most joyful part of your teaching day.

Mastering PBL means trying it out and seeing what works with your students. It’s about jumping in feet first and allowing your students to jump in right next to you. PBL takes away the idea that we, the teacher, must be the sole information giver and every child’s work should look exactly alike

Framing the Work

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…the project framework acts as the gumbo pot, supporting the planning of each project topic. It allows many creative ideas to take shape within the project, while giving structure through a step-by-step progression.

Working in a Three-Phase Framework

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The PBL framework includes three phases into the planning and creation of each project unit. Within each phase, the roles of the teacher and learner shift as the project progresses, inviting learners to take on the role of lead learner in their area of expertise. Each phase builds upon the prior phase and the work that happened within the phase. The learner and learning could not progress to the next phase without first spending time in the previous phase.

Beginning with an Idea

In the first step of the framework, turn to your state standards, students’ interests, or a list of engaging topics to choose and name a topic of learning for the upcoming project.

PBL is about each child becoming an expert in some area of the project. The students develop their own expertise as the project progresses and the learners are drawn to an area of interest within the unit topic.

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Entering the Three Phases of Project-Based Learning (PBL)

Phase One

Phase One is an immersion into the learning and topic. In this phase, learners are be introduced to the topic with a focus wall. The focus wall will be created and worked on collaboratively by the students and their teacher. Focus wall work continues throughout the duration of the unit. It includes pictures, information, charts, graphs, student work, student thinking, questions, and anything else that enhances knowledge about the topic that the students uncover or participate in finding.

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Each person in the classroom has a shared role in learning, where the students and their teacher are learning alongside each other. Once the topic is presented, deep inquiry, investigation and exploration can begin.

Phase One sets students up to learn through lively conversations with classmates, sharing previous knowledge and, most importantly, building curiosity around the project topic.

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Phase Two

In the second phase of PBL, students begin to explore through inquiry and research. As they build their content knowledge and begin developing an area of interest within the topic, students work toward creating a culminating project that displays and explains their expert knowledge. Phase Two is the longest phase of the three phases. There are many things happening in Phase Two, including field trips, whole-group investigations, inquiry stations, and independent research. Students will have a finished project at the end of Phase Two.

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Phase Two also includes inquiry stations that are set up to invite learners to actively seek answers to the questions they posed. As students visit the stations, they are given many opportunities to interact with a lens on a certain area of a topic. Stations invite students to explore things related to the topic, on more in-depth level.

When considering the set-up of an inquiry station, a teacher should include a few materials for discovery. For example, each station should be stocked with books pertaining to that topic focus, pictures for a close-up view, an inquiring question to get them thinking and working and materials to create and discover. Since each station is different and offers the learners with new opportunities, each station must contain different materials.

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Projects in Phase Two

In the early stages of Phase Two students are expanding their understanding of a topic through books, pictures, conversations, expert talks, field trips and inquiry stations while the teacher is continually observing each student. The teacher looks to see where students show progress and where they may need more support. As a result of these daily observations, the teacher also uncovers what specific area of the project is of most interest to each child. Sometimes this area of interest is obvious, but sometimes the teacher asks specific questions to learn more about a child’s interest.

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Concluding with Phase Three

After days and weeks of exciting learning centered around one specific topic, students are ready to share their learned knowledge with others. The culminating projects have already been completed in Phase Two, and it’s time to move into presenting the final projects. The final step of concluding this large project is to give students the opportunity to present their gained expert knowledge with others.

Students spend a day planning presentations and considering who they might like to invite to learn more about their topic of focus. There are a variety of ways to consider sharing the knowledge with others in the school and the surrounding community.

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The three phases in PBL take the learner from the lowest level of Bloom’s, to the highest level, creation, where learners are investigating, designing and developing a model to share their learning.

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Planning a Timeline

I have often been asked how long each of the three phases should last. Sometimes as teachers it’s easy to plan things in periods of weeks. For example, Phase One lasts for one week, Phase Two lasts for one week and Phase Three lasts for a week, leaving this as a three-week project. Remember earlier in this chapter we talked about dropping the stringent rules on planning a PBL unit? A teacher should consider that same idea when planning a timeline for the unit. We don’t need to get stuck in week timespans. Each PBL unit contains different opportunities for learning, different project ideas and a different approach to discovering more about the topic, which leads us to conclude that each project will have a different timeline. While some projects may last for three to four weeks, others may be short one-week projects, depending on the topic and student interest throughout the project. As we move through the three phases, let’s consider the ideas we want to develop or discover and the time it will take to do that, instead of thinking in terms of weeks. Each PBL unit will have a different timeline.

Chapter 4: The Planning Process

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A few essential questions to consider as we embark on project based unit teaching are:

1. What is it that we want our learners to walk away knowing after each unit?
2. How will we measure success and mastery of standards?
3. What will continue to drive the learning and unit forward?

Topic Webbing – Choosing and Thinking on Paper

In its simplest form, topic webbing supports the teacher in thinking about almost every aspect of the topic. It’s simply a tool to get you started with the planning process. Once you’ve selected your topic, the webbing helps you consider your options around the content.

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Naming the Driving Question

The third question, “What will continue to drive the learning and unit forward?,” is essential to the overall unit plan. At the beginning of Phase One, the driving question helps students and remains visible
in conversation and research throughout the entire unit. While learners are working toward answering their questions about the topic, they are working toward the ability to answer that one driving question. By the end of the unit, students should have gained enough knowledge to participate in an active conversation around the driving question, providing many examples and supporting the answer to the driving question with facts from their research.

Naming the driving question helps the learner use their knowledge to answer the question in various ways. In other words, the question should remain open, leaving behind a simple one-word answer.

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Planning Phase One
While planning for Phase One, it’s important to keep in mind the
goals of the first phase.
Phase One Goals:
◆ Introduce the learners to the topic
◆ Immerse learners in topic content organically

Begin the development of the focus wall
◆ Provide opportunities for the learners to ask questions
about the topic
◆ Discover what students already know about the topic
◆ Uncover any misconceptions students may have about
the topic

Lens Over Phase One – A Toolbox of Strategies and Ideas

A Book Display – A collection of books full of inquisitive potential just waiting for eager readers to unlock is a staple in the project’s early days

The Focus Wall – The focus wall is a compilation of learning, information, and documentation of the unit. On the opening day of the project unit, the focus wall is usually the first place to begin.

Photographs – Photographs are a vital resource in each phase. Photographs give the learner a real glimpse of the topic up close. They invite learners to observe patterns, details, and information about the topic

Exploration Instruments – Exploration instruments are a great way to immerse learners in the content and topic. Invite students to sit in a circle with the tools/instruments in the center. Give students time to explore the objects and talk with classmates about what they notice. You should create a list of your observations from what is shared during the exploration. As the students share ideas while exploring,
the teacher can document their ideas on chart paper. Then, the documented observation chart can be added to the focus wall.

Read-alouds – Beginning each day with a read-aloud is the perfect way to introduce new content knowledge and support students as they make connections with prior knowledge or new ideas.

Charts and Thinking Maps – Charts and thinking maps are a fantastic way to categorize information learned and record new ideas.

Types of Charts and Thinking Maps

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Planning Phase Two

While planning for Phase Two, it’s important to continuously keep in mind the goals of the second phase.

Phase Two Goals:

• ◆ Provide students with opportunities to deepen their content knowledge through investigations and conversations
• ◆ Design opportunities for real-world experiences through field trips or virtual field trips
• ◆ Create multiple opportunities for discovery
• ◆ Observe students in their work and thinking
• ◆ Record daily observations of students and their findings, interests and discoveries
• ◆ Set up a variety of inquiry stations where students have opportunities to expand their knowledge on the topic
• ◆ Facilitate learning through questioning
• ◆ Create and construct final projects based on the students’ interests
• ◆ Record answers to the questions they pose and converse openly about them

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Lens Over Phase Three – A Toolbox of Strategies and Ideas

While planning for Phase Three, keep in mind the goals of the last phase of the project.

Phase Three Goals:

• ◆ Provide students with opportunities to share their expert knowledge through presentations
• ◆ Finalize any documentation of either student work to be displayed or teacher observation notes
• ◆ Open your learning space by inviting outside guests (administration, faculty, parents, other classes) to hear presentations from students

Phase Three is usually the shortest of the three phases. It can be thought of as a celebration of learning phase. In the beginning of Phase Three, students decide who they would like to invite to their presentation day. After establishing their audience, students get to work creating invitations, a stage or any other needed items for the presentation day.

Chapter 5: Illuminating Learning

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What Questions Can We Ask to Help Our Learners Stay Curious?

Staying curious about the world around us is a massive pillar in the entire project approach. It invites students to wonder, ponder and remain curious as they learn more about the world each day. As facilitators of learning, we play a role in continually asking our students questions about their learning. Our mission is to help our young learners consider ideas about the topic of study and guide them through questioning, to develop answers and responses to their wonders.

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When a child wonders, “Why is the sky blue?” We can turn to the framework of project-based learning to help them find the answer to this question.

Through these deep conversations, observations, discoveries and research, children learn how to be profound thinkers.

In thinking more about that question, “Why is the sky blue?,” It’s important to consider how we might support the learner to discover more about this inquiry instead of focusing on them immediately knowing the answer. Through questioning, discovery, and research, our role is to give them the tools and show them how to be independent thinkers. You might follow up on their question: Why do you think the sky is blue? This question will help you see their misconceptions and support your efforts in clearing them up through discovery. Then, move into assisting them in finding out exactly why the sky is blue.

Chapter 6

Achievable Documentation

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Documentation provides a view from many angles about a certain idea, piece of history, or, for us, a moment of learning.

These moments of learning happen every single day in our classrooms, and we have the joyful job of documenting the incred­ible flashes of learning that happen so frequently.

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What Does It Look Like?

project-based learning (PBL).

Our students are constantly thinking, conversing, reading and creating; and it is important to document the students’ learning journeys. Think of documentation as a museum exhibit where all the learning is on display and celebrated. Documenting student progress allows learners, teachers, and caregivers to gain a con­textual understanding of student work that took place during the project, as well as the progressions the students made from start to finish.

Written and Note-Taking Documentation

Capturing the learning through note taking is especially impor­tant throughout each of the three phases of a project. We take notes as students struggle, succeed, discuss and discover. We, the observers, are continuously writing down what we see.

I like to use a binder pre-loaded which includes a few observation sheets for every child in the class (See the online resources for printable documentation forms www.routledge. com/9781032355078). As a new project begins, you can begin a new note sheet for each child. This charts growth over time within each project topic and also allows the teacher to see growth over multiple projects and an extended period of time.

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Verbal Documentation

Student talk begins in the first moments in the introduction of a new project and continues through the last phase of sharing expert knowledge. Students think aloud, ask questions, and dis­cuss new learning throughout the entire unit.

Listening to student talk allows us to hear students’ thinking process while they are independently and collaboratively inquir­ing, investigating, and creating. They build knowledge every day.

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Documentation through Photographs

A simple snapshot of learning in progress is one of the best ways to document the learning. Real-time photographs provide a clear glimpse into the work our students are immersed in throughout the project

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Putting All the Documentation Together

At the very end of a project, many teachers place creations, projects, drawings, focus wall, etc. on display somewhere in the school or their own classroom. This invites others to view all the documentation from the entire unit and celebrate the learning that happened over the last few weeks.

After the project display has been shared with others in the school community, teachers often create project memory boxes and folders, and some even make scrapbooks.

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We want to make our learners feel joyful about constantly learn­ing about the beautiful world around them.

Chapter 7: Project-Based Learning Unit Samplers