In the film, Most Likely to Succeed, we are presented with an idealized high school class where everyone appears to be engaged and thriving. Well, I teach Kindergarten. My students are on the ground floor in preparing for this possible future. Since we all know the expression, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” I need to roll up my sleeves and get going.
On the first day of Kindergarten, they are all eager to show me how smart they are. Some think they already know everything. They’re going to be mighty disappointed when they find out there’s more and that there’s always more. So let’s teach them Growth Mindset. Hey kids, do you have a growth mindset? I do, I do! Do they really? Many do, others, nope. They did learn what Growth Mindset is. They can tell you which of two scenarios demonstrates a growth mindset, but some still cry if the shark they drew doesn’t really look like a shark. Many have a growth mindset for themselves, but are unforgiving of classmates that struggle. My shark is awesome; yours looks like an Easter egg. They are competitive. They need to practise having a growth mindset and supporting their classmates, but at least I can get them started.
In their article, Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching, Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark make a case against minimally guided instruction. In Kindergarten, problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and project-based learning basically boil down to Play-based learning. We have unguided play happening for a big chunk of the day. During this time, could one say students demonstrate “practising a discipline”? Some are expert builders, creating more and more complex buildings, fortresses, towers each day. Some are expert interior decorators, deciding what new elements to create or rearrange in dolly’s house. Some are actors, perfecting their dog impressions. In high school, are students that have an aptitude for film who decide to express their learning in a movie practising their discipline?
It’s not until the actors see what the builders are doing that they stray from their role-play. It’s not until the fashion experts, see what the artists are drawing that they venture forth to improve upon their stick figure drawings. Likewise, it is for the teacher to set out other inspiring activities, provocations, we call them, to entice the experts on to something new. If I set out some marbles in a box of sand, maybe they will make a colourful picture in the sand, as I modelled (fine arts, science of matter), and maybe they will borrow the marbles and whip them along the chalk ledge to see how they bounce off the walls (science of matter, physics). The provocation is minimal guidance. I will need to give a little more guidance if I really want to hit the intended learning standards, but I’ll likely choose to appreciate what they showed me and try to catch the learning standards next time.
Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark commented that “In the medical domain, Patel, Groen, and Norman (1993)…showed that students trained in a PBL curriculum failed to separate basic science knowledge from the specific clinical knowledge associated with particular patients.” This makes sense. I’ll need to intervene if I want my marble whippers to name what scientific principles they just discovered. That said, I’m pretty sure they can figure out that there are similarities between marbles and toys cars zipping across that ledge. Maybe I should suggest they add bean bags to their inquiry. You don’t want to see my walls.
So I need to support them in their learning, make their learning more meaningful, guide the practice of skills and growth mindset, and save my walls. Teaching for Meaningful Learning by Barron and Darling-Hammond has something more balanced to offer. “Education today must focus on helping students learn how to learn…” I feel like I’ve been saying this since I started teaching in 1995. Why do we have to learn about Japan? You don’t. You need to know how to learn about something. I picked Japan because I’ve got Japanese stuff in a box to show you. I had the right idea but, oh how the world has changed. Now I’ve really got some stuff to show you!
Barron and Darling-Hammond cited Thomas (2000) in identifying five key components of effective project-based learning. “It is: central to the curriculum, organized around driving questions that lead students to encounter central concepts or principles, focused on a constructive investigation that involves inquiry and knowledge building, student-driven (students are responsible for designing and managing their work), and authentic, focusing on problems that occur in the real world and that people care about.” In Kindergarten, I doubt that I could assign a comprehensive project that will engross my students for an entire term but I can give them little projects that are suitable building blocks. These little projects would need to build their social skills more than anything. Small group projects would strengthen their collaborative and communicative skills such as their ability to share materials, voice their thoughts, take on a role, stay on task, encourage each other, and peacefully settle disagreements. Those projects could certainly be authentic and student-driven in most cases. I could come up with a relatively simple guiding question that engages a particular group within something they are already playing at such as, How can we turn our house area into a veterinarian/pet store? How can we race our marbles/cars without damaging the walls or having dangerous rebounds? In Kindergarten, we’ll want to incorporate those pesky alphabet letters and numbers so I hope they decide to make signs, or do measurements. Otherwise, I’ll have to stick my nose into their fun to “provide proper scaffolding, assessment, and redirection as projects unfold” (Barron & Darling-Hammond, p. 8).
In the end, I hope I got the point of all the reading this week, but this is where my brain went.
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