Representing, Constructing and Assessing Knowledge.

Image courtesy of assessment.uconn.edu
          

My understanding of the term “Curriculum” is everything that is experienced in the classroom situation.  It is the sum total of the experiences, activities and events whether direct or indirect which occurs within an environment designed to foster children’s learning and development through the incorporation of their interest and needs (CQUniversity. 2011).  Our understanding of what curriculum is impacts upon how and what we teach.

When a Learning Manager (LM) plans for play-based learning, we begin to glimpse how complex this teaching method can be.  For me, I have found Frangenheim’s, “What, Why and How of Teaching and Learning,” thinking strategy to be a simple yet effective way to ensure that I am planning successfully (2010. p.21).  Frangenheim’s strategy uses ‘What’ as the what is being taught to the students, ‘Why’ as the construction of importance of the learning for the students through motivation and ‘How’ to conduct the learning experience to ensure of understanding what is being taught through the incorporation of cognitive strategies.

The ‘What’ component of teaching comes from our curriculum and should be the basis for the learning.  LM’s must decide what learning outcome will be the basis for the education experience and incorporate all information relevant to extend children’s knowledge via inclusive conceptual exposure (Connor. 2010. p.3).  LMs must also incorporate children’s experiences into the learning to give it purpose, while still allowing the play to develop independently by the students; this is the ‘Why’ for learning. Finally, through Connor’s statement, “that in each stage of early childhood, children have different ‘learning agendas’ which motivate them to explore their environments and engage with other and discover new things and ideas,” we can understand why learning managers must know their students to allow for the incorporation of cognitive learning strategies that will promote both the engagement and challenge of each learner in the learning; the ‘How’ (2010. p.1). 

I see this strategy as a continuous circle, although we must know ‘What’ we are teaching, student data collected from pre-testing needs to be incorporated into the ‘Why’ and ‘How’ to ensure we are teaching to all student types in such a way that it provides them an understanding of the relevant specific knowledge and skills incorporated within the learning.

Along with knowing your curriculum and individual students, assessment is also critical for insuring successful teaching practice.  McNeil and McNeil’s statement that, “continual improvement only happens when we know where we are starting from,” shows the importance of educators beginning each teaching year with the pre-assessment of each student (2009. p.76).  Pre-assessment permits LMs to measurement were each student is at with their learning, observation how they learn and gauge at what rate their students acquire information, allowing LMs to set obtainable expectations for each individual learner.  The Early Years Learning Framework states, “knowledge of individual children, their strengths and capabilities will guide educators’ professional judgement to ensure all children are engaging in a range of experiences across all the Learning Outcomes in ways that optimise their learning,” highlights how play-based learning  values and encourages learning by all students at their individual rate so we can encourage all students to progress at their own level, with all learning progress being encouraged, no matter how small it may be (2009. p.19).  Students need also be set a level of expectation of learning by the teacher which will help alleviate the distress of some children who feel they are behind the other students (feeling dumb) and the students who feel disadvantaged as they have to aim higher than other students.

Assessment also promotes LMs reflection on how they are teaching and what is being taught while ongoing assessment allows for evaluation of students learning progress.  These assessments are then the proof or basis of the information LMs can employ in consultation with students, parents, fellow LMs and other professionals such as speech therapists.  LMs need to have proof of how a student’s learns and at what level they are at and what they should achieve, all of which is gathered from assessment be it an observation, this allows for the scaffolding of learning for students.

To ensure success when teaching with an early childhood play-based curriculum I feel that it is imperative that we begin by focusing on ensuring we are being integrative in our approach.  That is, ensuring that all learning allows children to incorporate prior knowledge of each child into the learning experience, encouraging them to not only explore and experiment during learning but also make connections to real life.  Talay-Ongan and Ap (2005) provide steps that I found I could relate to planning to ensure I was successful representing, constructing and assessing the student’s knowledge.  Their four steps to provide an integrated approach for planning were:

1.     Provide the environment-create a provocation or spark an interest by providing materials for children to explore.

2.    Sustain the play-once the children are absorbed in a topic, you can do several things to sustain the play.

3.    Enrich the play-If you notice interest is waning or the children need more complexity to sustain their involvement, enrich the project with props that might add new ideas.

4.   Represent the experience-The remaining step in the process is to develop documentation of children’s thinking and evolution of the project (2005.p.303).

References

Ap, E.A & Talay-Ongan, A. (2005). Child Development and Teaching Young Children. Cengage Learning. South Melbourne. Vic

Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace

Relations. (2009). Belonging, Being, Becoming The Early Years Learning

Framework for Australia. Retrieved from http://www.deewr.gov.au/Earlychildhood/Policy_Agenda/Quality/Documents/Final%20EYLF%20Framework%20Report%20-%20WEB.pdf

Connor, J. the early years learning framework professional learning program newsletter no 1 2010. http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/eylfplp/newsletters/EYLFPLP_E-Newsletter_No1.pdf

Connor, J. the early years learning framework professional learning program newsletter no 3 2010. http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/eylfplp/newsletters/EYLFPLP_E-Newsletter_No3.pdf

CQUniversity Australia. (2011). What is it to be a teacher, a professional and what in teaching is socially constructed? EDEC12027 Challenges of Early Childhood Education. Retrieved from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=245373

 Frangenheim. E. (2010). Reflections on Classroom Thinking Strategies (9^th ed.). Loganholme, QLD: Rodin Educational Publishing.