Encouraging Curiosity

Often times as teachers and even parents we get caught up in the world of day to day learning and activity. A culture of standards, evaluations, and assessments often leads no room for creat... See More

Often times as teachers and even parents we get caught up in the world of day to day learning and activity. A culture of standards, evaluations, and assessments often leads no room for creativity or to take advantage of informal opportunities to help influence a child to learn both inside and outside of the classroom. Although as an educator we have a duty to help students gain proficiency in required content areas; however as a teacher our job extends much more beyond the teaching standards and curriculum. I know for myself, teaching is a true passion. I strive to take every opportunity to think of new and innovates ways to not only engage my students, but to create memorable moments in which parents, communities, and even businesses partners to take advantage of chance to help spark learning. What I loved about this article is that it showed creative and simple way to implement science learning into our everyday lives. It discusses how beneficial incremental learning is and believes that children should always connect upon new knowledge and previous experiences to promote learning and understanding. Science education is somewhat limited in research and often times school systems do not invest as much as efforts into content areas such as science. However the author of this article states every interaction we have with a child- whether positive or negative can impact how that child feels about learning and plays a role into what and how they will learn. (Ashbrook, 2016). This article stresses that being present, connecting with children, and being intentional in interactions so that you are tuned into to possible learning opportunities that are taking place all around us (Ashbrook, 2016). We all agree that informal learning opportunities are just as effective as formal classroom instruction. That means teaching our parents, peers, and students how to be more open to having conservations that promote learning can help to extend thinking in the area of science education. This articles stresses the important of getting the students learning in all types of environments. It also lists strategies and ideas for integrating learning at home by involving ways to connect learning at home to learning in the classroom. It shows parents how they can ask open ended questions to help the student in their critical thinking skills, decision making, and making them more at ease with expressing themselves. The author says that paying attention to our children at home and in the classroom and asking questions such as “ are you wondering what this is?” ,“ what do you notice about that?”, or “ I wonder how we could find out” can help give insights to what children think and help stimulate conversations that lead to learning ( Ashbrook, 2016). When engaging in questioning you have to give the students time to process the information and answer. Learning to develop their curiosity can help them use scientific processes such as investigation, observation, and research when formulating their opinions and answers. I found this article very beneficial and encouraging because many times parental involvement in not as high as we would like to see it. I strongly believe that all students can learn and when they have the background and support systems for doing so they will be more successful in their academic achievements. Learning how simple changes in our conversations, methods interacting with our scholars, and teaching these strategies to parents to be used at home will help them in their ability to transfer and apply knowledge. As said so many times before, much of science education requires prerequisite knowledge and skills so more time into learning can make these prerequisites second nature so that they are able to progress to more complex functioning of understanding. After reviewing this article I will take into consideration recommendations for doing more activities that teach parents to reinforce lessons and learning and that can be applied in various environments.