How Do Teacher Educators Enact a Pedagogy of Play within a Higher Education Context?

Karen Vincent

Froebel Conference 2014

Context

• Large ITE Faculty of Education• Culture of change in ITE• Status of university based ITE• Role of the teacher educator• Students opt for 3-7 or 5-11 courses• Specialist Early Years options in year 2 and 3• Small scale self-study of EY module with year

2 students Autumn 2013

Teacher Education

•Multi layered practice,

‘Teacher educators are always teaching about teaching on at least two levels: what they are teaching teacher candidates (content) and how they are teaching teacher candidates (pedagogy). (Loughran, 2006)

Small-scale action research self-study

• Emerges from a previous self study (Roden and Vincent, 2014)‘As a primary school teacher, I knew my children so well that I was able to respond to

them in personalised ways. Initially, I know that, as a teacher educator I was particularly content driven, leaving less time for meaningful discussion with students’.

• Wanted to embody and model good solid early years practice within my sessions• No. of Year 2 Undergraduate students. • Primary Education Degree with QTS• 8 week Early Years module• Autumn 2013• Taught 3 times previously• Data-diary and questionnaires• Analysis according to emerging themes. Constant comparative means (Corbin

and Strauss, 2008)

Towards a pedagogy of play

‘A key challenge for self-study researchers is to represent what happened in ways that are useful and informative for other teacher educators.’ (Harris, 2007)‘It is a matter of the degree to which play permeates the ideals, experiences and interactions in my pedagogy; the balance between scaffold and scope that play activities provide; and the need for time and contemplation for students to get themselves into the zone’ (Harris 2007 P152)

Play-as I see it

• Fostering Curiosity• Empowering learners to take risks•Owning the process •Deep engagement• Transformation and flexibility of thought•Making connections‘How have I managed to foster all that I talk about

engendering in young children-curiosity, empowerment, constructivism, ownership and engagement?’ (Diary 1.1.14)

To what extent have I…

• Modelled good practice?• Asked open ended questions to stimulate your thinking?• Catered for different learning styles?• Established a good emotional climate where you can take

risks with your learning?• Valued your contributions?• Constructed, explored and evaluated ideas with you during

the sessions?• succeeded in establishing a socio-constructivist classroom?• connected and drawn upon your experiences of teaching

young children during the sessions?• enabled you to engage actively with your learning?

• ‘emphasis was placed on own experiences allowing us to construct our own beliefs and understandings, through the support of questioning. Gained a highly reflective insight into eys’.

• ‘The sessions have encouraged me to think a lot more, sometimes in different ways than I first thought about the topics’.

• ‘I felt like it was a safe environment where all questions were welcome. The questions raised were very thought provoking’.

• ‘This course has helped me to develop my ideas surrounding some of the issues and ideas and also has helped me to become more critical’.

• ‘The interview session was both stimulating and relevant. I really valued the experience and have taken a lot away from it’.

• ‘Sessions could have been more active. I felt like I was constantly being talked at. Too much emphasis on play. I understand the importance but I feel it was overdone’.

Conclusions

• I convey implicit messages relating to play that I need to be more consciously aware of in order to examine these in relation to views held by student teachers.

• Understanding the principles of play are more important than play itself for student teachers however, the way to understanding these may be through playful pedagogies.

• Students would benefit from engaging in more discussions regarding decisions about playful pedagogies.

This self study has led me to question…

Whether the preparation of student teachers for the early years is different from that of preparing student teachers to teach the rest of primary?

References

• Corbin and Strauss, (2008)• Harris 2007 • Loughran (2006) Developing a pedagogy of

teacher education: Understanding about teaching and learning about teaching. London: Routledge

• Pramling Samulelsson and Asplund Carlsson (2008) The playing learning child p626

• Samaras (2010) • Roden and Vincent (2014)