Problem Based Learning

As a kindergarten teacher, watching the everyday life of the kindergartners at Auburn was school was definitely very inspiring. I love the way they make learning so authentic and most importantly so fun and engaging for the young learners. The project based learning units displayed in the video all seemed very effective and especially motivating for the students. Allowing a thematic curriculum to evolve from the natural curiosity of five and six year olds already makes for specific themes to spark a child’s attention, but then for the teachers to go above and beyond in providing a number of great, hands-on learning experiences for the students made their project based units so much more meaningful.

The teachers on the video described the main elements of each project based unit as first developing a plan, carrying through with the plan, writing about it, and making sure to incorporate problem solving and critical thinking. The teachers of Auburn followed through with those steps in successfully creating such wonderful learning experiences for kindergartners. The children were so motivated through all of the different activities because they were all hands-on, and also presented in a way that children knew what they were doing was for a reason and a purpose. In many situations the children were left to use what they had already known and use they were currently learning to problem solve.

The technology used in their thematic curriculum definitely added to the effectiveness of the project based units. Exposing young children to pictures, videos clips, movies, etc., allows children to see first hand what they are learning and associate what they see to the their own lives. The technology present in the video, especially the Smart Board, definitely opens a door to an endless amount of meaningful opportunity in teaching and learning. It was very evident that the learning that took place through the use of the technology in these projects was effective in creating life-long learners. I hope to take what I viewed in this video to create similar, authentic and meaningful learning experiences for my own class of kindergartners!