CPP2

The learning cycle

September 22

Minodora Grigorescu

Mothercraft College

Agenda

• The Learning Cycle

• LO report

• Curriculum approaches

• Assignment

The learning cycle • Observations

• Planning

• Implementation

• Evaluation

• Feedback

Repeating the cycle, children learn through

repetition

Curriculum development

• Learner

• Process

• Content

Curriculum is:

• Planned

• Based on philosophy and values

• Has goals and objectives

• Has content and process

• Is sequential…spiraling

• Has provision for evaluation

LO report • Based on observations

• Focus on 2-3 domains

• Has objectives, skills and vocabulary to

work on

• Will focus on curriculum( what I teach) and

pedagogy( how I teach)

• Introduce children to AB

• Focus on 21st century skills in education

PRIMARY

CAREGIVER

MODEL

Curriculum: Primary Caregiver

Model Primary caregiver:

• Vygotskian base (the ‘Great We’ concept, reference to importance of primary caregiver in child’s life)

• Builds warm, secure relationship (attachment) with the child and a partnership with the family

• Ensures the child's needs and routines are met

• Takes key role in daily routines for the child (e.g. feeding, sleeping, changing) → builds attachment → secure base → exploration and learning

• Focus: building attachment (Mothercraft foundational theory)

Curriculum: Primary Caregiver Model cont’d

Primary caregiver cont’d: • Makes observations of the child (for

activities, knowledge of child)

• Plays and interacts with ‘her/his group” of children during small group time

• Main communication link with families of the children in her/his group

Curriculum: Primary Caregiver Model cont’d

Ideal: Children and families develop a sense of trust and reciprocity with the primary caregiver, other staff and the environment.

• If a child experiences interactions with trusted people that are relatively consistent, comforting and predictable over time, he/she learns that “I am understood. I am secure and safe.”

• Children who, as infants, have secure attachments with their primary caregiver(s), demonstrate greater social and exploratory competence than do insecurely attached children.

Curriculum: Primary Caregiver Model cont’d

• Children feel safe, secure and valued → encourages and supports further interaction, exploration and relationship-building with other staff, children and the wider Centre community.

• The primary caregiving model considers children holistically and as developing within ever widening systems.

• For the family: sense of comfort and trust (especially consider: infant room); stability/consistency; clear line of communication (good times and bad)

HIGH SCOPE

Curriculum Model: High Scope

• Goal: for children to become independent thinkers and problem solvers.

• Focus: on child’s cognitive development - based on Jean Piaget’s theories

• Premise: Through active learning, children learn to make sense of their world. Children ask and search for answers to questions about anything and everything that they are interested in

Where is High Scope practiced?

• Originally developed in 1960 to serve "at risk"

school children in Detroit, Michigan, USA

• Now: typically used for preschool + but also in

infant, toddler rooms, childcare centres, nursery

schools, home-based child care programs, and

programs for children with special needs

Curriculum Model: High Scope cont’d

Key features:

• Room organization

• Equipment organization

• Daily routine: small and large group activities, includes Plan-Do-Review sequence

• Adult’s role: adult sets up the framework of activities based on the children’s interests

High Scope: key features

Room organization: • Room is divided into distinct work areas including

book area, home area, construction area, art area

• Equipment is assigned to one area and the area must be clearly labeled with both pictures and words

• The children involved in setting up areas

• Areas are not static, can be changed as needed

High Scope: key features cont’d

Equipment organization:

• All equipment and materials accessible to

children at all times without adult assistance

• Equipment must be labeled (e.g. with pictures,

photos, silhouettes, or words)

• Children help make decisions about how

equipment is organized

High Scope: PLAN-DO-REVIEW cont’d

The daily routine:

• Aside from typical components of childcare schedule (e.g. outdoor, snack, etc.), specific to a high scope daily routine: Plan-Do-Review

• Goal of Plan-Do-Review: promote language and cognitive development

PT: The daily routine of "plan-do-review" sequence gives children the opportunity to set their own agendas, carry them out, and reflect on their experiences with adults and peers.

High Scope: PLAN-DO-

REVIEW cont’d

Plan-do-review sequence:

• PLAN: In a group or individually, children plan what they

want to do (pick an activity to do)

• DO: Children act on their choices (ie. ‘work time’). Children

get their chosen activity and put it away when finished

• “Clear up Time” – children take responsibility, put toys away

• REVIEW: there is a recall time, usually as a small group to

review what the children did.

High Scope: key features cont’d The role of the adult:

• Encourage, demonstrate, assist, not dominate

• The adults plan a consistent daily routine that supports active learning → children to anticipate what will happen next → gives them sense of control over what they do during the day

• There is a range of key experiences (aka. key developmental indicators) that the high scope curriculum is designed to develop

• Key experiences grouped into ten categories: creative representation, language and literacy, initiative and social relations, movement, music, classification, seriation, number, space, and time

• Key experiences are the focus of adult-child interactions (whether in small group time or work time)

High Scope: key features cont’d

THUS:

• Adult/ECE is responsible for guiding play and conversations to focus on key experiences

Note: this is a child-initiated approach NOT child-centred approach

Child initiated: child carries out activities they wish within the framework provided by the adult; both child and adult led

vs. Child centred: child leads, adult responds

Key

experiences

on prominent

display in

Infant Room

Areas are

labeled

High Scope Infant Room

Montessori Curriculum: quick

look

Montessori Curriculum: a brief

look • Recall: based on the idea - children teach themselves through

their own experiences

• Carefully prepared and ordered environment

• Didactic (materials intended to teach or instruct) and sequenced materials provided to promote children's learning in 4 areas: development of the senses, conceptual or academic development, competence in practical life activities, and character development

• Materials proceed from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract

• Multi-age groupings (2½ -6 years, 6-9 yrs, 9-12 yrs, 12-15 yrs)

• Large portion of time is spent in independent activity

Montessori: some context

• Montessori founded the first Casa dei Bambini, or "Children's House" in 1906 for children of the industrial revolution's working-class in one of the city's worst slum districts.

• Montessori began their education by instructing the older children on how to help out with everyday chores.

• One of Montessori's first major hurdles to improve the lives of these children was accomplished by encouraging parents to recognize that their children were special and of great value. From this the Montessori Method became established.

EMERGENT CURRICULUM

Emergent Curriculum Model

• Emergent curriculum is a child-centred approach, a way of program planning, teaching, and learning based on the child’s interests

• Term in use since the 1970's; first coined - Elizabeth Jones.

• Builds on the ideas of Vygotsky (zone of proximal development) and Piaget (children are active learners)

• Focus - developing social skills, problem solving skills, fostering independence, building a foundation for lifelong learning

• There is NO pre-established program plan which you to get the children interested

ECE's Role in Emergent

Curriculum • ECE, children, and families all have an active role

The ECE must:

• Get to know and bond with the children: discover and learn their interests to develop the program plan

• Create an environment where children feel trust and acceptance so they know they can ask questions and make mistakes without being judged

• Brainstorm creatively, be flexible, be patient, be truly responsive to children

ECE's Role in Emergent Curriculum cont’d

• Have a strong knowledge of child development (developmentally appropriate practice)

• Combine child’s interests + child development to create a rich learning environment, filled with materials necessary to be explored through play

• ECE consistently makes observations, writes down what children are saying, doing, taking photos to document their progress and to gain better understanding of the children

Emergent Curriculum: 2 tools

There are 2 tools/methods often used in

emergent curriculum:

1. Webbing

2. Project approach

Emergent Curriculum:

Webbing • A tool to visualize and brainstorm activities for learning

that are based on children’s interests

• On the web, ECE writes down the children’s ideas and brainstorming about where a particular idea might go and listing the potential related connections that could be made

• Includes more ideas than can be followed

• Rule out ideas due to lack of interest or appropriateness

• Webs are developed and added to constantly, based on the interests of the children.

• When interests change, the web will reflect that change • http://agexted.cas.psu.edu/fcs/mk/webbing.htm (see demo)

Emergent Curriculum: Project Approach

• Projects themselves are grounded in play

• Project Approach: older children negotiate, plan, and participate in an in-depth study of their choice with the ECE

• Infants and toddlers, in a sensory-motor stage of development, are building their skills needed for later project work

• “Project Practice”: the process in which research, analysis and problem solving skills are enhanced

Emergent Curriculum: Project Approach cont’d

• In a project, ECE provides the children with opportunities to explore, observe and investigate their world using all of their senses

• Topics: anything!; project topic must be relevant to children’s understanding of the world and be developmentally appropriate

• Children learn to formulate questions and conduct investigations with ECE to facilitate

• Throughout the process, ECE pays close attention to each child’s achievements, supporting self-esteem, confidence and a strong social-emotional base for growth

• *More to follow in later sessions in preschool/schoolage curriculum*

Emergent Curriculum and Reggio Emilia

Interconnected

Both based on Vygotsky

Reggio Emilia Curriculum Model

Reggio Emilia Curriculum Model:context

• Reggio Emilia, Italy: after World War II, a volunteer group of educators, parents, and children had a shared vision to reconstruct society through a new kind of education for young children

• They wanted to offer hope to society and improve life for children and families

• Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994): from a parent cooperative movement, it evolved into a city-run system of preschool and then also infant-toddler centres.

• Malaguzzi was influenced by Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Montessori, and by contemporary psychologists Bronfenbrenner, Bruner, and Gardner

• Consider context: Reggio Emilia developed as specific need in a specific region - culturally, economically, historically, and politically

Reggio Emilia…One Hundred Languages

• Malaguzzi wrote a poem about the many languages of children:

The child is made of one hundred.

The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts.

A hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking...

• 100 Languages: referring to drawing, building, modeling, sculpturing, discussing, inventing, discovering, and more.

PT: Teachers are encouraged to create environments where children can use all hundred languages to learn.

Reggio Emilia Curriculum Model cont’d

A strong child-directed curriculum model, believing children:

• Are competent, resourceful, curious, imaginative, inventive

• Possess a desire to interact and communicate with others

• Learn through interaction with others, including parents, staff and peers in a friendly learning environment

Reggio Emilia Curriculum Model

The Reggio Emilia approach is based upon the following principles:

• Emergent Curriculum

• Project Work

• Representational Development

• Collaboration

• Teachers as Researchers

• Documentation

• Environment

Reggio Emilia: Representational Development • The arts - used as a symbolic language, the

tools for cognitive, linguistic, and social development

• supports Howard Gardner's notion of schooling for multiple intelligences

• Children also use art to express their understandings in their project work

• Concepts are represented in different forms

– E.g. through print, art, construction, drama, music, puppetry, and shadow play

– Essential to children's understanding of the concept

Reggio Emilia: Collaboration

• Collaborative group work, both large and small, is valuable and necessary to advance cognitive development

• Children are encouraged to dialogue, critique, compare, negotiate, hypothesize, and problem solve through group work

• Programs in Reggio are family centered, which focuses on each child in relation to others and seeks to activate and support children's reciprocal relationships with other children, family, teachers, society, and the environment

Reggio Emilia: Teachers as

Researchers • Teachers follow the children's interests and do not provide

focused instruction in reading and writing

• In a team unit with other teachers

• As a ‘researcher’, ECE is a resource and guide to children, carefully listening, observing, and documenting children's work and the growth of community in the room. The ECE must stimulate thinking, also foster children's collaboration with peers

• The ECE learns with the children in exploring nature and discovering new knowledge

• ECE must also be committed to self-reflect about own teaching and learning

Reggio Emilia: Documentation • Document children's work in progress - an important tool

in the learning process for children, teachers, and parents

• E.g.: Photos of children engaged in experiences, their words as they discuss what they are doing, feeling and thinking, children's graphic representations of their experience

• Documentation is used for assessment and advocacy

Reggio Emilia: Environment • Environment is considered

the "third teacher"

• Designed to be purposeful and motivational

• Essential component of the learning process

• Space for small and large group projects and small intimate spaces for 1 - 3 children

Reggio Emilia: Environment cont’d

• Documentation of children's work, plants, and previous collections are displayed at children's and adult eye level

• Natural light, enhanced through use of mirrors, illuminated light tables, large windows that can be opened to allow sounds of outside environment

• Common space available in the centre, serving as central hub for children from different rooms to come together, with plenty of natural light resembling the central square of a typical town/city in Italy!

More About Reggio Emilia

• Time is not set by a clock or calendar

• Children’s own sense of time and their personal rhythms are considered in planning and carrying out activities and projects

• Teachers get to know each child in depth partly because children stay with the same teachers and the same peer group for three-year cycles (infancy to 3 yrs and 3 - 6 yrs)

Mixed Age Grouping

Multi-Age Grouping

• Aka. “mixed age” or “family grouping”

• Resembles a typical family structure by including children of different ages

• Goal: to provide a positive and supportive experience for all children

• See handouts

• Fits naturally with traditional Indigenous child-rearing patterns

• Trend: Increase in multi-age groupings

• Read: Patricia Corson, “Multiage groupings: A viable child care option” at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3614/is_200004/ai_n8900623/

Multi-Age Grouping: Key points

• Older children develop leadership, empathy, and responsibility

• Younger children observe and emulate more competent, older members

• Support a wider array of individual development

• More flexible and accommodating environment for social and emotional development

• Interacting with others across a range of emotional levels encourages the development of empathy and provides opportunities to experience another’s point of view

Multi-Age Grouping: Key points cont’d

• Younger children may experience more

social participation and less parallel and

solitary play, maximizing opportunities for

language and interaction

• Children become less dependent on adults

and more reliant on themselves and their

peers

Tools of the Mind

Tools of the Mind Curriculum

Model • Premise: to successfully function in school and beyond,

children need to learn more than a set of facts and skills. They need to master a set of mental tools – “tools of the mind” (Vygotsky)

• Goal: to develop cognitive skills such as self-regulation, deliberate memory, and focused attention while developing academic skills such as symbolic thought, literacy, and mathematical understanding and positive self-esteem through their social interactions with others

Tools of the Mind Curriculum

Model cont’d

• According to Vygotsky, until children learn to use mental tools, their learning is largely controlled by the environment: they pay attention to what is the brightest or loudest and can remember something only if has been repeated many times

• AFTER children master mental tools, they are in charge of their own learning by attending and remembering in an intentional and purposeful way

• From being “slaves to the environment” children become “masters of their own behavior” → leading to the emergence of higher mental functions

• Recall: children learn through active play and is socially mediated by teachers and classmates (ZPD, scaffolding)

• All done through play with teacher/ECE in supportive role

Tools of the Mind Curriculum Model cont’d

• Children plan out their activities before going to chosen stations drawing pictures of what they will be doing (ie. representations)

• i.e. Children are learning to think ahead, act out those thoughts and use symbolic representations (from drawings → writing)

• Children carry out their own plan, self-motivated and directed

• Daily activities provide developmentally appropriate learning in all areas including cognitive, language, social, emotional, problem-solving and motor skills

• Comprehensive, highly individualized curriculum

Tools of the Mind Curriculum Model cont’d

• Specific instructional strategies:

– child-initiated activities

– cooperative paired learning

– teacher scaffolding and explicit instruction

– individualization through multiple levels of scaffolding

– on-going use of assessment data to tailor interactions to meet individual needs

• Through experimental trials, significant impact on self-regulation of preschool children which are related to scores in child achievement in early literacy and mathematics.

Continuum of self-regulation

regulated

by others

"shared"

regulation

masters of

own

behavior

Teacher

scaffolding

and peers

Teacher

scaffolding

and peers

PT: With teacher scaffolding, children learn to regulate their own behaviors and the behaviors of their friends as they enact increasingly more complex scenarios in their imaginary play in preschool and in learning activities in kindergarten

What is E.L.E.C.T.? (p. 1)

• Document: Early Learning for Every Child Today: A

Framework for Ontario’s Early Childhood Settings

• Explains how young children learn and develop

• A guide for curriculum in various Ontario early childhood

settings

• Complement, not replace, existing Ontario guidelines

(i.e. the DNA, OEYC mandate, Kindergarten Program)

• Designed to be used by early childhood practitioners

What is E.L.E.C.T.? (p. 1) cont’d

• E.L.E.C.T. is a Best Start initiative from the Best Start Expert Panel

on Early Learning

• Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning:

– A panel of professionals from the ECE and formal education

sectors in Ontario

– Best Start is a long-term strategy to design a coherent system for

young children

– Established in 2005 develop a single integrated early learning

framework for children ages 2 ½ - 6 yrs between formal

preschool settings and the Junior/Senior Kindergarten program

E.L.E.C.T. 6 Basic Principles

(p.5) E.L.E.C.T. is based on 6 basic principles (based on beliefs, values,

experience and current research findings):

1. Early child development sets the foundation for lifelong learning, behaviour and health.

2. Partnerships with families and communities strengthen the ability of early childhood settings to meet the needs of young children.

3. Respect for diversity, equity and inclusion are prerequisites for honouring children’s rights, optimal development and learning.

4. A planned curriculum supports early learning. 5. Play is a means to early learning that capitalizes on children’s

natural curiosity and exuberance. 6. Knowledgeable, responsive early childhood professionals are

essential.

How Does Learning Happen?

• Published in April 2014

• 4 Foundations

• Pedagogy Play

• Pedagogical Documentation

Curriculum Model…how do you

know? • No matter what you choose, how can you tell

whether your curriculum is working?

• A: the children - When you observe your

children, you will know when they are thriving,

they are curious, active, social and playful

• Remember: individual temperaments of children

THE BOTTOM LINE

• No matter which curriculum model is used, ECEs must objectively observe the children to: – Learn about the children

– Gauge effectiveness of the activity/program plan/curriculum

– Share insight of the child’s day with families

– Plan future activities/program plan **********

PT: THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL DO FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR

Inspiration for ideas: Videos

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOwvZwiYwk&feature=related (sociodramatic play)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNSJkSpjEWw&feature=related (free play)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBYI9Gk96PQ&feature=related (play older kids)