Exit Interview

1. What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is: What is the most important skill a preschool teacher can teach her students to best prepare them for kindergarten. My three answers are social skills, motor skills, and letter and alphanumeric skills. In my opinion, the best answer is social skills. I consider this the best answer because of the large emphasis there has been on cooperation and collaboration for young kids in school. This is also my best answer because social skills aren't as easy to pick up on. Children need to be around a group of people to help develop this skills. Unlike motor and alphanumeric skills, it cannot be learned at home as easily. The best way to teach and learn it is a school environment when they are surrounded by others like themselves. 

2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

I first came to this answer by research. When gathering research for assignments, I noticed that social skills were highly stressed in the sources that I read. It was later confirmed to me during my Interview 3 with Bonnie Avalos. After asking her my EQ, she responded with social skills without a second thought. In her transitional kindergarten class, a grade meant to prepare students for kindergarten, she tries to teach them as many skills as possible, the biggest among those being social skills. 

3. What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

When researching about social skills, I noticed that the information seemed to get repetitive. Though there were some minor differences that did help, a big problem for me was knowing that I was not getting anywhere further with my answer. I was able to resolve this by simply talking with other teachers about why they think social skills are so vitally important to a preschooler. They gave me lots of personal examples that explained to me why they were so important and how it applies to students.

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

One of my most significant sources I used to answer my essential question was Bonnie Avalos. She was able to explain to me why social skills were imperative to the life of a preschooler entering kindergarten and also helped my find my third answer. Whenever I had a question she was always there to answer. I probably wouldn't have gotten here without her. My other most significant source was Renee Ambrovitz. A source I found online, Ambrovitz proved to be an excellent source through her many years as a childhood educator and the detailed articles she would write online for her viewers. Ambrovitz goes in depth with each topic she writes about which I found to be incredibly helpful to my project.