A large part of engagement for students (and for us as well!) is curiosity. How can someone be really into learning if they don't wonder about things? This year, many of our teachers have taken on the study of curiosity to learn more about how to pique it.
During one of our study groups, some of our teachers decided to do an experiment. They went into a 4th Grade classroom, and showed the students two pictures. One was an ordinary, conventional picture of an apple that has a bite taken out of it. The other was unusual...a house on top of a rock on top of a lake.
During one of our study groups, some of our teachers decided to do an experiment. They went into a 4th Grade classroom, and showed the students two pictures. One was an ordinary, conventional picture of an apple that has a bite taken out of it. The other was unusual...a house on top of a rock on top of a lake.
| house_on_water.docx |
We projected the picture of the apple, and asked students to write down what they were thinking. The answers tended to be one of four types: observational (Someone took a bite out of an apple.), personal connection (There is an apple. I love apples.), curious (I wonder who bit that apple.), or creative (There was an old lady who took a bite out of an apple...)
Next, we did the same with the unconventional picture of the house on the lake, and the answers neatly landed in the same four categories.
These four categories seemed to be on a continuum from most concrete to abstract, so we wanted to see if kids' answers were the same in both instances. We plotted these answers.
Next, we did the same with the unconventional picture of the house on the lake, and the answers neatly landed in the same four categories.
These four categories seemed to be on a continuum from most concrete to abstract, so we wanted to see if kids' answers were the same in both instances. We plotted these answers.
| apple_and_house_on_lake.pptx |
The students in the gray boxes going up the diagonal had the same type of answer both times (observational/observational, curious/curious, etc.), showing that kids might be apt to have one mode of thinking that's comfortable for the same assignment, and that their minds may have been sort of set on one mode.
The students whose answers were above the diagonal and more creative answers with the unconventional picture. This was a very small sample size, so we'd have to do more and more trials of this to see if it holds true consistently, but it seems to show that since there were more there than on the opposite side, the more unconventional setting yielded more curious, creative, abstract thinking.
So what's the moral of the story? One is that some kids feel more ready to think abstractly, while others are more concrete. This might be developmental or because of experiences. However, (we suppose) it's teachable. The other is that the more out-of-the-box, creative our teaching is, the more likely we might be to make our kids do the same.
Are you curious about curiosity? There are great books out right now about this topic. Try out the same experiment with students you know. We're going to try it with younger students, and we're also trying figure out if there was a pattern to kids' answers and what we know about them. Stay tuned, and comment if you have more ideas about this curious topic!
The students whose answers were above the diagonal and more creative answers with the unconventional picture. This was a very small sample size, so we'd have to do more and more trials of this to see if it holds true consistently, but it seems to show that since there were more there than on the opposite side, the more unconventional setting yielded more curious, creative, abstract thinking.
So what's the moral of the story? One is that some kids feel more ready to think abstractly, while others are more concrete. This might be developmental or because of experiences. However, (we suppose) it's teachable. The other is that the more out-of-the-box, creative our teaching is, the more likely we might be to make our kids do the same.
Are you curious about curiosity? There are great books out right now about this topic. Try out the same experiment with students you know. We're going to try it with younger students, and we're also trying figure out if there was a pattern to kids' answers and what we know about them. Stay tuned, and comment if you have more ideas about this curious topic!
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