Key Understandings for Learning and Teaching in the Early Years

1
Key Understandings for Learning and Teaching in
the Early Years

• Karen Noble

2
View of Children and Childhood

• Perspectives on children, learning and teaching
  then and now
• Little adults
• Innocents/ blank slates
• Capable, competent and able

3
Children have agency

• Children are strong, rich and capable. All
  children have preparedness, potential, curiosity,
  and interest in constructing their learning,
  negotiating with everything
• their environment brings to them.
• Gandini (1993)

4
Children are viewed as capable young people who
have been learning since birth. They are

• able to take part purposefully in, and contribute
  to, their learning. Their ideas and diverse
  experiences enrich learning programs.

5
Transition and connectedness

• the importance of building continuities between
  childrens prior experiences and their future
  learning in school contexts.

6
Participation in high quality early childhood
education

• Effect on future educational success
• Citizenship

7
Learning dispositions

• Enduring habits of mind and action and
  tendencies to respond to situations in
  characteristic ways (QSA, 2006, p. 11)

8
Key assumptions inherent in key curriculum
documents

• Initiation and engagement in learning across a
  range of contexts
• Importance of partnerships
• Lifelong learning
• Equity and diversity social and cultural
  responsiveness
• Importance of taking account of stages of
  development

9
View of teacher in early phase of learning

• Teacher as a transmitter of knowledge versus
  teacher as educator

10
Roles of Educator

• Builder of relationships
• Scaffolder of childrens learning
• Planner for learning
• Teacher as learner

11
Builder of relationships

• Partner
• Communicator
• Collaborator
• Mediator
• Mentor
• Supporter
• Networker

12
Scaffolder of childrens learning

• Researcher
• Strategist
• Listener
• Interactionist
• Problem solver
• Modeller
• Facilitator
• Questioner
• Prompter
• Provoker

13
Planner for learning

• Co-constructor
• Negotiator
• Practitioner
• Creator
• Action
• researcher
• Observer
• Recorder
• Documenter
• Interpreter
• Reflector
• Evaluator
• Collaborator

14
Teacher as learner

• Theorist
• Investigator
• Researcher
• Critic
• Life long learner
• Professional
• partner
• Reflector

15
Principles of practice

• provide a foundation for thinking about children
  and learning, teachers and teaching, and the
  social and cultural construction of knowledge.

16
Competent learners

• Children are capable and competent and have been
  learning since birth.

17
Sensory development

• Children build deep understandings when they
  learn through all senses and are offered choice
  in their learning experiences

18
Modes of learning

• Children learn best through interactions,
  active exploration, experimentation and by
  representing their learning through a variety of
  modes

19
Dispositions

• Childrens positive dispositions to learning,
  and to themselves as learners, are essential for
  success in school and beyond

20
Relationships

• Children learn best in environments where there
  are supportive relationships among all partners
  in the learning community

21
Experiences

• teaching and learning is most effective when
  there is a recognition, valuing and building
  upon the cultural and social experiences of
  children

22
Continuity

• Building continuity of learning as children
  move to and through school provides foundations
  for their future success

23
Assessment

• Assessment of young children is an integral
  part of the learning-teaching process and is not
  a separate activity

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Key organisers for teaching and learning in the
early years (QSA, 2006)

• Early learning areas
• Contexts for learning
• Interactive processes for curriculum decision
  making
• Key components
• Phases that describe childrens learning and
  development

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Five early learning areas

• Social personal learning
• Health physical learning
• Language learning communication
• Early mathematical understandings
• Active learning processes

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Contexts for learning

• Play
• Real-life situations
• Investigations
• Routines and transitions
• Focused learning and teaching

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Four interactive processes for curriculum
decision making

• Planning
• Interacting
• Monitoring assessing
• Reflecting

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Five key components

• Understanding children
• Building partnerships
• Flexible learning environments
• Contexts for learning
• What children learn

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Four phases that describe childrens learning
and development

• Becoming aware
• Exploring
• Making connections
• Applying

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Play is the work of the child

• In their play children project themselves into
  the adult activities of their culture and
  rehearse their future roles and values. This play
  is in advance of development
• In play a child is always above his actual
  age, above his daily behaviour in play it is as
  though he were a head taller than himself
  (Vygotsky)

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Fingerprints

• Challenge to develop capacity within the
  profession
• Passion and commitment for working with children
  and their families

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Understanding and managing self

• The notion of knowing what to do when you dont
  know what to do