Topics Map > Staff Handbook > Educational Program Philosophy and Curriculum
An Inquiry-Based Curriculum
2. AN INQUIRY-BASED CURRICULUM
- Primary Objective
The primary objective of the Curriculum at the Child Development Lab is to use the process of “inquiry” to create a classroom culture that builds children’s confidence in their own abilities to notice, wonder, explore, and discover.
- What Is “Inquiry”?
“Inquiry is an approach to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, and that leads to asking questions, making discoveries, and rigorously testing those discoveries in the search for new understanding.” --National Science Foundation.
- The Four Elements of Inquiry Curriculum
When teachers are actively and consciously promoting the four elements of inquiry within the environment, daily routines, and planned activities, then they will be meeting the program goal.
- NOTICE: helping children to be good observers of the materials, events and people that surround them in their daily lives.
- WONDER: encouraging children to be curious about things and helping them identify the things they might want to find out more about. Older children might even be able to articulate their questions to others and plan ways to find answers to some of their questions.
- EXPLORE: developing the skills and confidence needed for children to actively explore and investigate to find out the things they want to know. Older children can help to plan how to carry out the investigations and explorations.
- DISCOVER: developing a new understanding of the world that is deeper and more meaningful than before. Part of the discovery process is encouraging children to reflect on what they learned and share that information with others. “Ways of sharing” will depend on the age of the child but may include such things as talking about it, making a drawing or telling a story about the discoveries. These are called representations.
- Why Use Inquiry as the Focus for the Educational Program?
Using “inquiry” to promote learning is an effective approach to use with children because it’s natural to their ways:
- Children are naturally curious about the world around them
- Children are eager to explore to find out what things are, what they are used for, why things happen, and how things work.
- Children in the developmental stage of early childhood (B-5 years) are concrete learners. They are exceptionally sensory, which means that they learn best by touching, tasting, hearing, smelling, and moving their bodies.
- Children in this age range are active learners. They like to find things out on their own, through hands-on experiences with materials.
- Children are interested in trial-and-error experiments, finding answers to their questions, and representing what they are learning through construction and play.
In environments where children are encouraged to try out these at their own appropriate level, they enthusiastically embrace learning. Therefore, we have chosen Inquiry as the focus for our educational program.
- Curriculum Requirements at the Child Development Lab10
The Child Development Lab does not prescribe a set of activities for teachers to implement, nor do we dictate what “content” to cover. Planning depends on the goals and development levels of the children in the group. We do require, however, that the curriculum is developed to meet the broad objectives of the program, which is to use the process of “inquiry” to create a classroom culture that builds children’s confidence in their own abilities to notice, wonder, explore, and discover.
The total “curriculum” includes classroom environments, daily routines, and planned activities. Each is covered separately in sections that follow. Technology is an important part of our ever-changing world and may be used to enhance lessons through the use of tablets/iPads, computers, projectors, etc. However, teachers should make the content meaningful, relevant to topics being learned, and interactive which could be inclusive of interactive apps or discussion.11