Kohl Children's Museum's 20-year project trains more effective educators
As any parent knows, young children are full of questions. “How do worms eat if they don't have mouths? Where do garbage trucks take the trash? What happened to the hole in the doughnut?”
That constant patter of queries may lead to eye-rolling and exasperation from parents, but Kohl Children's Museum knows that innate curiosity is one of the signs of a child's growing mind.
For more than 20 years, the Museum has provided its Early Childhood Connections (ECC) program, a professional development opportunity for educators in under-resourced schools and child-care centers that teach high percentages of children at risk of academic failure.
A key tenet of the program? Questions are good. Let kids follow their interests and seek out answers. This interest in seeking out answers is what makes learning “stick,” according to Museum President & CEO Mike Delfini.
“ECC serves as the flagship access and inclusion program we offer,” he adds. “It's a long-term program that has resulted in significant changes in how teachers direct and facilitate learning for very young children. We're demonstrating measurable impact in the learning environments, and making systemic change in the effectiveness of teachers for the rest of their careers.”
It's a success story that many other have chosen to throw support behind over the years. Most recently, Chicago's CME Group Foundation announced the awarding of a $100,000 grant to the Glenview-based Museum to support ECC. The grant was part of $3 million earmarked by the Foundation to fund kindergarten readiness and K-12 programming across Chicago and Illinois.
“CME Group Foundation is proud to support these innovative programs and the critical work they are doing for our students and our community,” said Kassie Davis, Executive Director of the Foundation. “Our mission is founded on equipping our children with the resources to achieve academic and career success, while also creating a future workforce that benefits the economy more broadly. We look forward to working alongside our grantees to empower future generations through education.”
The underlying principles of the ECC program are grounded in the Museum's belief that children learn best when they are engaged, motivated, intrinsically curious and most of all, having fun. The program utilizes the Project Approach, which encourages children to formulate questions, seek out and discover answers, consider their findings and form conclusions.
“In this environment, teachers become the facilitators of learning rather than distributors of knowledge,” explains Stephanie Bynum, the Museum's Vice President of Programs. “It also encourages all children to explore and learn in their own way, while fostering the development of critical thinking, cooperation and communication skills.”
When teachers implement the Project Approach successfully, students feel highly motivated and actively involved in their own learning, leading them to produce high-quality work and to grow both as individuals and collaborators.
“Take for instance, the question about where doughnut holes go,” adds Bynum. “One of our child-care teachers heard this question from her students, and rather than simply answering it, she got the whole class involved in what became a Bakery Project.
“The students did a field trip to a nearby bakery, wrote stories about how doughnuts were made, experimented with recipes in the classroom, and held a small bake sale for their parents. Along the way, they picked up relevant vocabulary terms, used early math for measuring ingredients, and practiced negotiation and cooperation to work the store.”
Kohl has trained more than 1,400 early childhood teachers and child-care professionals since 2000, with effects of the training reaching more than 130,000 children throughout Lake and Cook counties. External studies have shown that teachers who use the Project Approach can narrow achievement gaps between children in different socioeconomic strata.
In addition to the training, the Museum provides participating teachers with funds to purchase classroom supplies, gives free field trips to the students, and underwrites annual Museum memberships to encourage parents and caregivers to continue engagement and investment in their children's futures.
“It's incredibly fulfilling to see these children and their caregivers working together to spark learning,” concludes Bynum. “I love this opportunity to take the Museum's work outside our four walls. We can make a real difference right where children live by showing them the simple truth: learning is fun!”