Date: 15 September
Module: Introduction to Research
Individual Assignment - Research Proposal :
Maximizing the Value of Project Approach as a Teaching Strategy for K1 and K2 Children : 3 Key Areas for Teachers to Focus On
Introduction
Project Approach as a teaching strategy has many proponents and admirers globally. The benefits that it can bring to any learning centre that has adopted it are plenty and significant. Children who are taught using the Project Approach are known to have an increased level of self-confidence, show a high level of enthusiasm for their work and display positive socio-emotional traits, amongst some of these benefits (Project Approach Website, 2008).
In the field of early childhood education (ECE) in Singapore, Project Approach is beginning to receive the attention of many educators, and is now beginning to be adopted by more and more forward-looking ECE centres. A case in point is the Carpe Diem Childcare Group. Known locally as the first childcare group in the country to bring in the renown Multiple Intelligences curriculum by Dr Howard Gardner, the Group has begun the adoption of Project Approach as well. This has further augmented its teaching strategies to their children of both the K1 and K2 classes.
As a professional involved in this new adoption of the Project Approach teaching strategy in my childcare centre, I am keen and wish to further research on the top 3 areas within a typical Project Approach process that teachers should focus on, to fully maximize the value of our teaching to the K-class students. This, I believe, will heighten the awareness of teachers to these top 3 areas, and in so doing, provide a stronger basis for them to incorporate these top 3 areas into their teaching methods, when commencing with the start of any new project.
This research will have 2 components to it. Firstly, it will begin with an interview with a K1-class teacher who has recently completed a project, under the Project Approach, to understand from her perspective, the specific areas in the whole process of her project completion which excited her students the most. For example, were there certain aspects of the project that captures the attention of her students the most? Were her students changing their behaviours as the project progressed? Do they work better as a group for certain types of activities? These will be some of the questions that will be answered through this interview with the class teacher.
Secondly, the next component of the research will involve interviewing some of the students who had completed the said project. The voice-of-the-children will therefore be represented in the outcomes of these interviews. Some of the feedback from parents whose children have completed a recent project will also be solicited and presented here. This 3-way view of Project Approach will give a more rounded view of the results of this research proposal.
When these interview results are combined, it is the hope of this researcher that the top 3 areas or key activities in a project can be well identified. In so doing, they can then become the focus for all teachers whenever they begin their own new projects. As a result of this, the values of teaching any project or topic of interest to the children can be maximized to the fullest.
Literature Review
Theoretical Views of Project Approach
John Dewey
The Project Approach is based on the work of an American educator and philosopher called John Dewey, who maintained that education is the reconstruction of experience (Wikipedia, 2008). Dewey was the most famous proponent of hands-on learning or experiential learning.Dewey developed the approach over a period of seven years at his laboratory school at the University of Chicago. Dewey challenged the view that was current at the time that knowledge was a fixed notion of truth waiting to be discovered. Learning had been viewed as a possession that was a necessary and practical result of social standing.
For Dewey, knowledge is not absolute, immutable, and eternal, but rather relative to the developmental interaction of man with his world as problems arise to present themselves for solution. Views of Dewey on learning grew out of the basic assumptions of the newly evolved pragmatic theory of knowledge.
Lilian Katz
More recently, Lilian Katz propose the Project Approach, based on Dewey's ideas, as a way of working with children so that they might arrive at deeper understandings of the world they inhabit. Research by Lillian Katz has shown that children learn best through meaningful activities. It has also shown that children’s skills are much more likely to be mastered if they have the opportunity to apply them in meaningful activities (Katz & Chard, 1989).
The Project Approach to teaching therefore is another way for students to experience how an inviting, dynamic environment can encourage learning.
Projects are defined as “an in-depth study of a topic or theme” (Chard, 1998). A project involves three phases. During the first phase, children and their teacher select and discuss a topic to be explored. In the second phase, the children conduct firsthand investigations and then create representations of their findings. The third phase typically includes culminating and debriefing events, which are likely to involve parents.
In the views of Katz and Chard (1989), projects can help children meet learning goals in the four major areas of knowledge, skills, dispositions, and feelings. Projects not only help children gain academic skills, social skills, and communication skills, they can help children form good self-concepts about themselves as successful learners. They can also help children gain positive dispositions toward learning.
These favorable dispositions toward learning are critical to their future success. Similar dispositions and feelings may be formed by teacher-preparation students who have the opportunity to experience active, engaging work, such as projects and centers in their own coursework. As students are learning about how to use the Project Approach with young children, they can be engaged in their own project, learning and seeing the benefits of using this approach.
Reggio Emilia
One of the earliest proponents of Project Approach and probably the most well-known is embodied in the Reggio Emilia approach to teaching (Giudici & Rinaldi, 2001). The Reggio Emilia approach to teaching young children puts the natural development of children as well as the close relationships that they share with their environment at the center of its philosophy.
Early childhood programs that have successfully adapted to this educational philosophy share that they are attracted to Reggio Emilia approach because of the way it views and respects the child. They believe that the central reason that a child must have control over his or her day-to-day activity is that learning must make sense from the child's point of view. To make it meaningful, it also must be of interest to the child. That is one way they have control over their learning.
Research Design
Ethical Clearance
Ethical clearance was obtained from the Centre Director of the childcare centre, Carpe Diem Young Heart Pte Ltd for this research work to proceed (see Appendix A).
Selection of Participants
The selection of the participants is determined by the goals of this research. The first participant will be the class teacher who had recently completed a Project Approach exercise with her students. Her inputs will provide the basis for comparison on what procedures and activities in her project constitute the most significant portions of the entire project.
These data from the teacher will then be compared with the feedback from the children of her class that had undergone a recent project. The inputs from the children will be crucial to our understanding of the three most important activities of the entire project, from the children’s viewpoints.
The third participants in this research will be the parents of the children. They will provide inputs on how they view their children’s experience had been in a project that was recently concluded.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data will be collected through direct interviews with the class teacher and the children in her K1 class, and their responses captured in their respective questionaires. The data will then be collated and reviewed in terms of their significance to the determination of the three most important Project Approach activities.
A survey form will be sent to all the parents of the K1 class children for their inputs. These will then be rated according to the responses of these parents.
Conclusion
This research will provide the basis for how the resources of time, money and effort of an early childhood teacher will be deployed in completing a project under the Project Approach method of teaching to children of 5 and 6 years of age. Resources for preschools are becoming increasingly scarce, and with that, the need for a more effective deployment of these resources. But with the increasing adoption of Project Approach in the curricula of preschools in Singapore, the results of this research will bring about two immediate outcomes.
The first outcome will be that teachers practicing Project Approach will be more motivated to embrace and continue to utilize this innovative teaching method in their classrooms. The second outcome, and perhaps the more important of the two, is that the children taught under the Project Approach will be become much more engaged in their understanding of subject matters, more confident in their disposition and as a result, better all-round learners, both in their early childhood and their adult lives.
References
1. Chard, S. C. (1998a). The project approach: Making curriculum come alive. New
York: Scholastic.
2. Giudici, C., & Rinaldi, C. (2001). Making Learning Visible. Infant-Toddler Centers
and Preschools as Places of Culture, p.38, Reggio Children, Piazza della Vittorio,
Reggio Emilia, Italy.
3. Katz, L. G., & Chard, S. C. (1989) Engaging children’s minds: The project approach.
Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
4. Project Approach Website [Online Database]. Retrieved September 24, 2008 from
World Wide Web:
http://www.projectapproach.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
5. Wikipedia Website [Online Database]. Retrieved September 19, 2008 from the World
Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
Appendix
A. Ethical Clearance from Childcare Centre
B. Timeline for Research
(A) Approval for Ethical Clearance
1. Investigator : George
2. Name of the Training School : Nanyang Institute of Management
3. Description of Work : To interviewing the class teacher, the students and the parents
of the K1 class in the childcare centre.
4. Title of Project : Maximizing the Value of Project Approach as a Teaching Strategy
for K1 and K2 Children : 3 Key Areas for Teachers to Focus On
5. Objectives : To ensure that teaching resources are better deployed, and to build better
students through a more effective deployment of the Project Approach.
6. Design of Study : Questionaire and interviews with the teacher and children of her K1
class. Survey forms to be used to obtain feedback from the parents.
7. Consent and signature of Principal/Centre Director:
…………………………………………………………………………..
8. Signature of the Investigator :
……………………………………………………………………………
Student Teacher Contact: George
Project Supervisor Contact: Dr Sepalika
(B) Timeline for Research
1. Research Proposal design … 15 September
2. Obtain ethical clearance from Centre Director … 19 September
3. Submit Research Proposal … 26 September
4. Interview and questionaire from K1 Teacher … 29 September
5. Interview and questionnaire from K1 students … 02 October
6. Survey Form sent to Parents … 29 September
7. Survey Forms returned from Parents … 10 October
8. Compile and analyse data … 13 October
9. Preliminary Research Dissertation … 20 October
10. Final Research Dissertation … 30 October
11. Submission of Dissertation … 03 November
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