The Thrill of Learning 

I have had the most invigorating experience watching my students the last two weeks. From the excitement around our outdoor exploration and how the students used photography to capture images, to watching a mapping inquiry emerge as students question what types of maps we can use and why pirates needed maps to find treasure. All of which have deepened my learning and left me with new wonderings.

During our outdoor exploration the students worked with a partner to capture photographic images of items that they found interesting. I had the pleasure of listening and observing during their exploration as I walked around in small groups. I was inspired by the children’s innate ability to ask questions. Some that I heard were, “why is the leaf brown?” “How did the butterfly die?” “Why is that fence here?” I have always believed that questioning was natural for students when not forced upon them through content knowledge first. This was evident during the outdoor exploration time.

What took me to my own new level of learning as an educator was not the children’s ability to question.   It was their ability to be happy in the state of wonder. They would sometimes add reasoning to someone’s question, but they did not seek a definitive answer. They didn't need me, the teacher, to give them a final answer; they were happy with their reasoning and understanding.

Empowering learning for me was that questions don’t need to have immediate answers. I think immediate answers would have taken away from their learning. So now I am wondering, when is the” right” answer required and is it required? Or what makes it the right answer?  I feel like my head is spinning.....

Another inquiry that is starting to emerge in our class is around maps and why we use maps. I mention this as a learning experience for me because for the last three weeks I had been wondering;

“How do you know when an inquiry is naturally taking place in the class?”

I guess I was still unsure whether the students in kindergarten would open an inquiry up or would it be driven by the teacher. This particular inquiry started with one student bringing in his compass and talking about how to use a compass to find directions. The next thing my colleague and I noticed was that some of the children were creating maps. One map was a fire exit from our classroom to the front of the school, another was a map on how to get to his house and one was a map of how to find items out in the yard. Others started to discuss treasure maps and how pirates use them to find treasure. It seemed the right time for us, the educators, to look at enhancing this inquiry by bringing items that would provoke further questions and wonderings about maps.

I am now in this space where the students are driving the inquiry while the educators add provocations. We spend time capturing the knowledge students bring to the inquiry and continue to gather his/her wonderings along the journey. An intriguing process to see evolve.

What we know and wonder about maps

I see..... "pirate ships"

I see.... "castles"

Deep observation has not only honed my listening skills, it has opened my mind to the possibilities that there is so much more to learn about how children learn. I can’t wait to dig into some literature that will help me to continue to question, to allow me to be still for a while in the beauty of wonder and to seek further questions to deepen my understanding around how learning happens.

Open-Ended Inquiry Learning Vs. Explicit Instructional Practice

I have thought long about what my blog post would be about today. The reason it has been difficult to decide is because I want the blog to be an honest representation of my learning journey. Along with that, I also want to be reflective enough to be aware of my own beliefs about education and how it affects my teaching. Reflection is not easy.

I have decided to reflect upon the ongoing cognitive battle I have had in the last couple of weeks around open-ended inquiry learning and explicit instructional practices.

I came into teaching kindergarten knowing that I wanted to build understanding around the Reggio philosophies and to immerse myself fully into play-based learning. I believe in the idea that educators need to give themselves permission to take the time to observe and reflect on student play.  Over the last two weeks I have given myself permission to trust that this observational time is essential to knowing my students. Sounds like I have it all figured out, right? Well, the other half of me keeps thinking, “what about the explicit language teaching? Doesn't there need to be whole group instruction? Where does that fit? Does it fit? How will I know?”

To answer my own questions I took time to think about what I was learning from my students in the last two weeks. I started to see a trend that pointed to the fact that language development was happening all the time in every place at every time. It became clear to me that the art in the classroom was actually a representation of stories and a representation of language development. Stories taken from students own experiences or interests. Not my stories, driven by my instructional practices, but true authentic stories that students were expressing in pictures, orally and some through written text. The educators had been capturing the picture stories by listening to the students explain the thinking behind the visual text. At this point very oral based.

Mapping

"Children build new understandings from existing ideas and concepts. Starting from what children know and want to know motivates engagement and excitement about overcoming challenges and solving problems. First hand, concrete experiences shape ideas that can be expressed symbolically in drawings, paintings, dramatic play, and in verbal and written forms (Greenspan & Shanker, 2004). Learning proceeds from the concrete to the abstract. "

http://www.cfcollaborative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ELECT.pdf

Pictures were not the only artistic forms that helped represent the student thinking and language development. Structures in block play, the light table, the drama centre, the reading centre, geometric shapes. Everywhere stories were evolving and language was evolving. What was even more fascinating was how the language changed and grew as new people joined into the play and the stories.

See the video link to the story of the animal ages.

The Animal Ages

Light table story. 

Creating a scene about a gorilla and a tiger and the middle part was a path. The small glass pieces were babies.

We also started to recognize that without explicit instructions, some students wanted to start writing their stories and would pick up pencils and paper to do so. We encouraged these students to write their thoughts about their work for others to hear their story. Journals were provided to those who were interested. Some journal writers used only pictures and some a few words. All developing their experiences and the educators were naturally recognizing the next steps each student needed to help their language evolve.

Have I answered all my questions about when does explicit instruction happen? Not in the least. This is a year long journey for me and possibly longer. What I have learned is that taking the time to observe and reflect has shown me that the students will show you where they need to go next. I just need to be sure to be listening, reflecting and responding. Small group instruction is becoming a more evident need as I discover the various language levels. I will now continue to "listen in" to hear each child's individual needs so that we can provide the best opportunities for the child to develop and grow in language and personal interest. Will whole group instruction need to happen? Possibly to highlight more complex topics as inquiries evolve. But for now I think I will spend my time digging deeper to understand each child's abilities to verbalize thinking and to communicate his or her messages and/or stories.

The journey continues and how exciting each day is as I discover each child’s abilities, interests, discoveries, wonderings and how their stories tell me who they are as social and emotional people contributing to our world.

"Rather than looking for what is known through assessment, pedagogical documentation invites the creativity, surprise and delight of educators who discover the worlds of children." 

(Carol Anne Wien)http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/Wien.pdf

Day 1

There were many moments of discovery today as the children played, wondered and collaborated.