Annotated Bibliography

Adams, W. K., & Willis, C. (2015). Sparking Curiosity: How Do You Know What Your Students Are Thinking?. Physics Teacher, 53(8)’ 469-472

I really enjoyed this article and just by reading the title (How do you know what your students are thinking), it immediately spiked interest in me. This article touches on memory benefits when students are learning subject matter that they are interested in as well as the importance of connecting the material to real-world examples. I really enjoyed the approach to quizzes after reading, being more focused on the learner’s curiosity opposed to content. The three questions the teacher studied in the article are:

• What did you learn from this reading?
• What are you confused about in this reading?
• What did this reading make you wonder about? What questions did it bring up to you?

I love how this quiz promotes curiosity in children, accessing their understanding of the material in a way that also sets the student up for inquiry and being familiar with the inquiry process. The article also includes real students responses to a reading assigned and their confusion on certain aspects of the article. This allows the teacher to really zone in on one or two things, spiking the students curiosity but also diminishing frustration due to confusion of the subject matter. The article’s conclusions are simply the benefits of inquiry based learning, where students are encouraged to inquire about ideas.
Chen, C., & Chiu, C. c. (2016). Employing intergroup competition in multitouch design-based learning to foster student engagement, learning achievement, and creativity. Computers & Education, 10399-113.

This article is about design based learning. I just learnt about design based learning only recently from a teacher that had planned to make inventions with his class. This was their first time doing this kind of project and all of the students were really excited about it. After hearing about this I researched a little more about it and found out this way of learning. This article talks about the benefits of this approach of learning for science, technology, engineering and math. It finds a way to make the subject content more hands on which I thought was really fascinating. One weakness in the article (or at least from my personal opinion) is setting this up as a competition. I can see it as a great motivator but I think I have to do some more research before I fully agree with that approach. I don’t want students creativity to be ranked from best to worst. A huge strength in this article is the information is proven by a study that the author and other members Taipei, Taiwan with two sixth grade classes. It feels more authentic knowing that their information is from their own findings from the study.
Cress, S.s., & Holm, D (2016). Creative Endeavours: Inspiring Creativity in a First Grade Classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(3), 235-243.

This article focused on the need for collaborative creative work. In my mind I was trying to find a way to create individual creative minds but it was interesting to read about a different approach. The article talks about a way to incorporate this idea into your classroom for 1 hour a day. Of course the new BC curriculum involves inquiry for all the subjects but it was interesting to read the process of collaborating work to individual work. This is achieved by grouping students by interest and eventually moving into individual work. The article also touches on the need to use media as a resource and how this spike’s curiosity in students. We are constantly on our phones and computers looking at media and it really is a great and exciting resource that we can use in the classroom to light up our students curiosity in subjects.

Kim, H.J., Park, J. H., Yoo, S., & Kim, H. (2016). Fostering Creativity in Tablet- Based Interactive Classrooms. Educational Technology & Society, 19(3), 207-220.

This article focused on supporting the creativity of students through a tablet. Something that really stuck out to me was: “learners focus on interpreting the materials presented in a textbook or lesson rather than on creating their own visual representations”. This questioned my understanding of taking notes and made me wonder if maybe a more visual way of representing content might help children learn more successfully. Of course, this is more helpful for visual learners but this made me wonder if students that are struggling with content would benefit by showing their understanding in a more visual way opposed to the standard written test format. The article also puts great importance on group activities or how they state it “social creativity”. I was thinking that my inquiry question was more based on individual creativity but maybe this idea of “social creativity” is what will increase students interest and curiosity in subjects.

Lumsden, L. S. (1994). Student Motivation To Learn. ERIC Digest, Number 92.

I really enjoyed this article’s perspective in students motivation to learn. Most of the articles have information regarding how you can set up your lessons but this article took a step back. Students motivation starts at home; if parents are not open to children’s curious questions then they aren’t going to feel like they can inquire about topics in class. The article also breaks down the two types of students: intrinsically motivated and extrinsically motivated which was interesting. I thought about this principle and found myself noticing it in the class I was working with. Some students were more interested in “what they get out of” certain subjects and others just simply want to learn for their enjoyment. A huge strength in this article was the emphasis on creating a classroom where students feel supported. I liked how this article looked at possible sources for students lack of motivation to learn and the importance of the value of each student in the classroom.

Engel, S., & Susan Engel. (12). Children’s need to know: Curiosity in schools. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 625-623.

This article was very fascinating. It was based on observations of both students and teachers in the classroom. It was very interesting to see how a change of wording in an activity could increase or decrease creativity and curiosity about a topic. A key phrase that I have heard in the classroom and now in this article is when a teacher says “I wonder”. It showed how teacher inquiry can highly influence students to be inquirers as well and that it’s ok to be curious about other things that aren’t directly related to the activity. The article also touched briefly on the environment that is needed for encouraging students to be curious, although I wish the article went in more depth. I thought it was really interesting how the article talked about why teachers feel they can’t let students become curious because then they get “off task”, and they used an example of a teacher saying: “No, that’s not part of the activity” and I realized that I have said that before. So now my question is; how teachers can promote curiosity and creativity in the classroom while still keeping students on task? Teachers have to help guide students in their inquiries but I think I’m a little confused how we do that.

Klefstad, J. M. (2015). Focus on family: Environments that foster inquiry and critical thinking in young children: Supporting children’s natural curiosity: Susan catapano, editor. Childhood Education, 91(2), 147-149. 

This article had a strong connection to inquiry-based learning. This article focuses on the environment that needs to be present for students to reach their potential. Kelfstad says (2015): “In order for children to reach their potential, an environment allowing them to question, discover, and apply the knowledge they actively acquire is essential”. I knew that inquiry-based learning would spike curiosity among students but I don’t think I really understood how to achieve this. This article promotes the idea of teachers being more of a guide rather than an educator and just someone that encourages students to ask “why”, which I think is an easier way of thinking about it. Klefstad also puts emphasis on the importance of students communicating and collaborating with others. I thought my inquiry was more based on individual curiosity and creativity but I am realizing very quickly that this is best achieved in groups rather than alone. One weakness of this article is it introduces a lot of ideas such as inquiry-based learning but doesn’t go in depth with these topics. Although, this has helped me direct where I would lto furtherther my research on my inquiry question.

Robinson, Ken. (Feb 2006) “Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

I had the opportunity of watching this TED talk in class and it was good to revisit the video after several months. Only part of the video really relates to my inquiry question because he does get a little off track at times. It is always interesting to hear personal stories about how we are essentially educating students out of curiosity or in his example; labelling the student as having a learning disability. I never thought about the fact that the education system is focusing on subjects that you are more likely to get a job in, subjects outside of the arts. I haven’t had a chance to watch his other videos yet but I’m sure some of them can build on this idea. I think that this switch to inquiry based learning will definitely assist in promoting more curiosity and creativity in the classroom and I look forward to seeing that in the future.

Grauer, Kit. (2011). Visual journals in the elementary classroom. In K. Grauer, R. Irwin & M. Emme (Eds.), Starting with… third edition (pp. 142-147)

I really enjoyed reading about the idea of visual journaling. I truly believe this could have helped me as a child as I struggled coming up with ideas when writing. I haven’t seen this idea in the classroom yet but I have seen a student that did it themselves and I actually discouraged it as they were instructed to be writing. If the teacher allows a time for just visual journaling, maybe this student would have had his ideas drawn and ready for a written composition. I believe this would be a very beneficial way of ELL students to get their ideas down and reference when having to write. This chapter essentially just introduced the idea of visual journaling and how it creates richer written material. An idea that I did enjoy and thought was a strength in the article was the note of the benefits of sharing their art work. I was thinking about the benefits in having students do a visual journal but then sharing their ideas with a friend, helping individuals verbalize their ideas so they have an easier time writing when the time comes. I look forward to doing further research with this and see if this can be beneficial for other subjects. I do wonder though, is visual journaling beneficial for all students or should there be a section of time in which students get the option to either visual journal or written journal?