Abstract
Early childhood science and engineering education offer a prime context to foster approaches-to-learning (ATL) and executive functioning (EF) by eliciting children’s natural curiosity about the world, providing a unique opportunity to engage children in hands-on learning experiences that promote critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, persistence, and other adaptive domain-general learning skills. Indeed, in any science experiment or engineering problem, children make observations, engage in collaborative conversations with teachers and peers, and think flexibly to come up with predictions or potential solutions to their problem. Inherent to science and engineering is the idea that one learns from initial failures within an iterative trial-and-error process where children practice risk-taking, persistence, tolerance for frustration, and sustaining focus. Unfortunately, science and engineering instruction is typically absent from early childhood classrooms, and particularly so in programs that serve children from low-income families. However, our early science and engineering intervention research shows teachers how to build science and engineering instruction into activities that are already happening in their classrooms, which boosts their confidence and removes some of the stigma around science and engineering. In this paper, we discuss the promise of research that uses early childhood science and engineering experiences as engaging, hands-on, interactive platforms to instill ATL and EF in young children living below the poverty line. We propose that early childhood science and engineering offer a central theme that captures children’s attention and allows for integrated instruction across domain-general (ATL, EF, and social–emotional) and domain-specific (e.g., language, literacy, mathematics, and science) content, allowing for contextualized experiences that make learning more meaningful and captivating for children.
Highlights
In an effort to build the full complement of school readiness competencies among young children, domain-general skills such as approaches-to-learning and executive functioning are powerful levers for change [1,2]
This article offers a theoretical argument for early childhood science and engineering as ideal contexts to foster domain-general learning skills that can help children to achieve school and life success
We reviewed recent research that suggests a unique relationship between early science and domain-general skills, and provided a series of examples that demonstrate how teachers can capitalize on children’s goal-directed interests to elicit science and engineering learning, and provide opportunities for children to exercise their approaches to learning and executive functioning skills
Summary
In an effort to build the full complement of school readiness competencies among young children, domain-general skills such as approaches-to-learning and executive functioning are powerful levers for change [1,2]. To help a child to exercise persistence or to sustain focus, or to practice being cognitively flexible, teachers need an engaging context that can capture children’s attention and capitalize on their inherent drive to understand their world [6]. Childhood science and engineering education offers a prime context to foster approaches-to-learning and executive functioning by eliciting children’s natural curiosity, providing a unique opportunity to engage children in hands-on learning experiences that promote critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, persistence, and other adaptive domain-general learning skills [7,8]. Childhood science and engineering capture children’s attention and stimulate organic opportunities for educators to scaffold children in exercising these critical domain-general learning skills. We aim to accomplish three goals: (1) describe the state of early childhood science and engineering (mainly in the context of the United States); (2) offer theory and evidence suggesting that early science and engineering are ideal platforms to develop domain general learning skills; and (3) present a pathway towards supporting the early childhood education workforce in capitalizing on the many benefits of early science and engineering education
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