The Ocean Game TOP Cheryl Ciesielski, a senior honors student working with Dr. Carver, studied the effects of different strategies for teaching thematic content to preschool and kindergarten children during our summer camp in June, 2000. Developmental psychologists have documented that individuals with rich content knowledge in particular domains demonstrate both quantitative and qualitative advantages on learning, memory, and problem solving tasks in those domains. In addition to experimentally testing the effects of instructional strategies, this project was an exploration of strategies for conducting rigorous research in classrooms. To assess what the children learned, the researcher conducted a structured interview both before and after the four-week Ocean Unit. The results show that there is wide variability in the amount of prior content knowledge and in the amount of content knowledge that children learn.
Many factors contribute to a greater gain.
For instance, children who had perfect camp attendance gained more Ocean knowledge than those who missed even a few days. Not surprisingly, the 3 year olds knew less than the 4 and 5 year olds prior to the unit, but the study did not reveal age differences in the amount of knowledge gained. Surprisingly, there was no effect of content rich vs. non-content rich computer programs that were used during activity time. Since the researcher, not the teachers, facilitated the computer sessions, it is possible that vital links to the information that the children learned in the classroom were not emphasized due to the researcher's lack of information concerning the specific information covered in the classroom. There was also no repetition or reinforcement of the information presented via the computer program in the classroom due to the teachers not being familiar with the programs.