Intro: Barbara Kiser, “Learning Through Doing,”

Nature “We ascended as a species through incandescent curiosity—that hallmark of scientists

in every century—at play in the world

Curiosity is nearly universal in babies, and, in our culture at least continues to propel children,
intellectually, through early childhood. Beyond early childhood, however, its fate rests in great
part on the people and experiences that surround and shape a child’s daily life While there are
some situations where it would not be good to ask too many questions, or to investigate too
persistently, there is a clear empirical link between the hungry mind and the educated mind -
Susan Engel, The Hungry Mind

● Curiosity originates in children, what happened to this child like curiosity?

What is Curiosity?
● Hard to define, but has major importance.
● Loewensteim says that Curiosity has been consistently recognized as a critical motive
that influences human behavior…. Most important spur of education
● What is it? Are distinct types of it at play at various times.
● Curiosity is a kind of exploration linked to creativity.
● Behavioristic approach views curiosity as being a series of behavioral responses to
stimuli.
Daniel Berlyne says, curiosity was a biological drive stemming from an arousal brought on by
novelty.
● Both of these couldn’t be tested.
● Loewenstine says curiosity is an information gap, as distance between “what one knows
and what one wants to know.”
● Emily Grossnicle believes “At its core, curiosity is the desire for new knowledge,
information, experiences, or stimulation to resolve gaps or experience the unknown.
● Neuroscience believes that humans appear to have an biological need for novelty (linked
to curiosity)
● High ratings of curiosity we’re also link to activity and areas of the brain responding for
memory, caudates, and reward anticipation, or reward award learning
● Neuroscience has found high levels of dopamine when curiosity was high.
● Epistemic curiosity-study of education because it is so closely tied to cognition and the
acquisition of knowledge. (Lowwensteim focused)

A Curious Species
● Other species are curious
● Genes the cognitive to difference between us and apes
● Sapiens connotes wisdom and knowing.
● Big noggins, or unusual large brain attributes are innate curiosity- Dean Falk
● Brain size dealt with curiosity and how we learn
● EQ (encephalization quotient). is the ratio of actual brain size to expected brain size.
(Our brains are six times bigger than what we expected to be.)
 ● expanding brain can be found in endocasts of Australopithecus rudolfensis. (Our brains
have gotten way bigger since back in the day.)
● The most important step toward understanding the role of curiosity is the recombinatory
and hierarchical nature of human mental constructions, as well as the human ability to
incorporate large amounts of information into varied construct appears to account for
human creative abilities
● Curiosity is fundamental to human being, and the enlargement of our brains would have
enhanced our curious disposition.
● Curiosity seems sad involved to help us seek out answers sometimes and beautifully
creative ways to build more accurate knowledge by processing and correcting faulty,
assumptions or hypothesis
● Neoteny is a large scale retention by species of its juvenile form and function along with
the delayed development processes. Retaining juvenile features in adulthood. (Fetal
conditions that become permanent.)
● Kornrad Lorenz says that human curiosity wasn’t evolutionary consequence of Neoteny.

Children, curiosity, and inquiry

● In studying children conversations, they found themselves surprised and impressed as
they studied their conversations and were forced to admire the curiosity in which they
struggle to make sense of the world
● Children, social, intellectual and emotional worlds are driven by curiosity they have to
learn about the world because they’re survived depends on it
● Babies begin their process of exploration, by displaying their curiosity and physical ways
like sucking, then with grasping in touch
● Fundamental curiosity is for human learning(if a child knows how a toy functions they
won’t play with it as long as compared to a toy they have never played with their curiosity
will cause them to play with the longer to figure out the toy function)
● Jean piaget saw curiosity as a bridge between the simulation and accommodation
● , believes that curiosity is engaged when the child realizes the novel idea does not work
like others and must be accommodated.
● Children ask questions from many levels either to seek facts or it’s expand explanations
to what something is
● Question asking according to Chouinard is the most important tool for building
knowledge
● Question asking produces connections between child and adult learners
Setting up educational environments that run counter to these processes is an exercise in futility
because we are actively working against the very cognitive structures that have evolved to help
us learn more efficiently.
● Children grow up and lose their questioning tactics. They stop questioning and realize
that two succeeded in school. They have to figure out what they need and to become
more strategic learner. They have to avoid any challenges that will harm their academic
performance.

Don’t be Scary
 ● Novelty is the quality of being new can take many forms in college classrooms (No ideas
no perspectives or old ideas new kinds of assignments, etc.)
● As novel increases, so do both curiosity or sensation seeking in this model and anxiety.
● Anxiety prevents curiosity
● Students cannot learn if they are fearful or anxious
● First impressions are important for teachers and students (getting started)

Inquiry as a design principle

● Inquiry should be the foundation of pedagogical approached that wishes to foster
curiosity
● “ essential questions” Help lead to a deeper understanding in a course. They defined as
the push to the heart of things the essence of the course these questions lead to more
questions.
● Context also derives curiosity, as well as what Wiggins refers to as a metaquestion
which are larger questions that all the work of the corse seeks to answer
Discussion based Pedagogies
● Discussion based classes are found to teach more than context only classes
● One truism that emerged is discussions are more successful when instructions
employee more open ended questions the close ended ones
● Instead of asking who what where or when questions ask why questions?
● These questions open the floor for discussion
Developing Questions
It’s important for students to ask the right questions
● The question formulation technique focuses on the stages of refining, revising, reflecting
on and prioritizing the questions
● Until students understand the importance of questions and know how to engage in
meaningful inquiry they’re learning will be inhabited because their biggest tool will be left
unused

Exploring Constructivism
● Constructivism is a theroy learning that has often been seen as the conceptual
underpinning for inquiry based teaching.
● People cannot fully learn or understand, unless they have been active participants and
building concepts and knowledge for themselves
● Curiosity happens when we want to learn more about something
● Empowering students to take control of their own learning
● Some researchers view constructivism as a failure bc he requires teacher guidance.

Constructivism in the Classroom, Part 1: Donald Saari, University of California, Irvine.

● Donald sarri a mathematician implements this theory into his classes by a form of which
storytelling is a byproduct.
● is teacher one of his students to construct their own understanding so that they can tell a
story about how to solve the problem
 ● this teaching allows students to open their mind to creativeness and really indulge in
what they are trying to learn

Constructivism in the Classroom, Part 2: John Hutchinson and Lesa Tran Lu, Rice
University
● John Hutchinson introduced Socratic questioning into the corses he taught which reaped
it’s benefits.
● students response to the use of the Socratic technique encouraged him to ask more
questions about pedagogy. What did he really want his students to learn and how could
he get them to achieve these goals?
● He wanted students to achieve a deep understanding of chemical concepts by
discovering so to speak the ideas for themselves
● Hutchinsons awareness of the prospect of constructing chemical concepts made him
devise two strategies to approach for students. One of the strategies was to draw history
while the second was interactive demonstration from the students.

What about the Humanities

● The last two examples use stem courses, but the humanities can also use constructivism
Courses as well
● Way to do this was to have students answer the kind of questions that scholars of
ancient medieval and modern literature ask on regular basis
● The author in his classes would set up assignments and which his students have to
discover why something is without the help from the professor and other scholars
Curiosity makes Us human
● Creating inquiry-based, constructivist courses designed to cultivate curiosity takes time
● Intellectual curiosity as a trait is a predictor of academic success according to the 2011
study
● The author believes used that our heightened curiosity has shaped us a species, our
intelligence on our ability to learn, and our understanding of the world