PEDAGOGIES

TEACHING STRATEGY (teaching, learning, assessment, planning, and reflection strategies)

ACKNOWLEDGING

Educators can acknowledge what children are doing, saying, or interacting which includes children’s interest, skills, interaction, and participation in play (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009). Educators can acknowledge children through observation, interaction, and asking questions (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009).

LISTENING

Active listening is one of the important teaching strategies where educators are being responsive to children’s ideas, and inquiries. Listening is not only hearing about children’s needs, listening strategies encourage educators to include children’s ideas and voices in decision-making and provide feedback and support to extend their learning (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009).

QUESTIONING

Questioning is another important tool for educators to know more information about children’s interests, understanding, and knowledge (Hargraces, 2022). Open-ended questions encourage children to express their ideas and knowledge about the content (Hargraces, 2022).

ENCOURAGEMENT

Encouragement simply refers to providing positive feedback, reassurance, and support for children’s ideas and learning (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009). It will help children to feel confident in their work which extends children’s confidence, and willingness to play and explore (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009).

BEING RESPONSIVE

Being responsive to children refers to actively paying attention to children’s needs and always being available to assist children (Arthur et al., 2018). Which includes providing open-ended learning resources, listening to children’s voices, and ideas, and providing support (Arthur et al., 2018).

CO-CONSTRUCTING

Co-construction simply refers to educators working together with children to gain knowledge and understanding about their surroundings (Hargraves, 2022). Which includes children’s participation in sustained shared thinking, interaction, and discussion to learn about concepts, (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009). Co-construction helps children to problem solve (Hargraves, 2022).

SCAFFOLDING

The scaffolding strategy guides educators to support children’s understanding of concepts by providing guidance and support (Hargraves, 2022). It helps children to become competent learners in their learning. With scaffolding, educators can use the combination of various teaching methods for example listening, encouragement, asking questions, and role modeling to help children to accomplish their goals (Hargraves, 2022).

STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

To begin the project, educators and children can discuss and choose the topic of the project based on children’s interests. Likewise, educators can begin the discussion by encouraging children to share what are their interests, ideas, or knowledge about the selected topic. Similarly, educators can design a planning web with the help of children (Follari, 2019). Together, children and educators will design an interesting project that fosters children’s motivation and engagement to learn and explore (EGDE, 2022). Likewise, children’s suggestion or feedback will be included during the whole project process to make learning visible (Follari, 2019).

PROJECT PHASES

BEGINNING THE PROJECT

Children will begin the project by exploring various theses, and ideas, and understanding the selected topic. The early childhood teacher will support their understanding by asking various questions. For example, what is their knowledge? How do they know? What is it? It is believed that asking questions prior to the project helps children to understand what they will do, what they know already, and what needs to be done (Harris Helm & Katz, 2016) (Follari, 2019). More importantly, asking questions extend children’s higher thinking skills which help children to do a deeper investigation (AGDE, 2020). Later, the planning web can be designed with the help of children which includes children’s learning outcomes, planning experiences, resources, and procedures (Follari, 2019).

DEVELOPING THE PROJECT

In this phase, children will begin to engage in hands-on learning activities, where children will be encouraged to investigate and explore the information about their selected topic reflecting on real experiences (Follari, 2019). Children will encourage to share ideas, understanding, and opinions with their peers and educators. It is believed that when children engage in social interaction with their peers, it leads to a better understanding of the topic. Likewise, children will begin to learn from each other by sharing the information they already know (Arthur et al., 2018). Particularly, in this phase, children will begin to investigate, construct their meaning about the topic, problem-solve, and recall their previous knowledge about the topic (Follari, 2019). They can use their previous knowledge and learn new knowledge through research. For example, by actively participating in activities like drawing, playing, observing, interacting with each other, construction, or dramatic play (Follari, 2019).

In this phase, the teacher will use various teaching strategies like a demonstration, asking open-ended questions, and making an interesting plan experience based on children’s focus learning areas and learning outcomes (Follari, 2019). This help educators to acknowledge children’s strength, capabilities, and problem that children discovered in phase 1 (Follari, 2019).

CONCLUDING THE PROJECT

The final phase of the project is all about reflections on children’s learning journey, which includes the viewpoint of children, learning, obstacle, outcomes of the overall project, and suggestions for future learning (Follari, 2019). In this final stage, educators will ask questions about what have children learned, what are their thoughts after completing the project, and reflect on what children did effectively to complete the task. Together, educators and children will engage in a group discussion about how their project can be presented and visible to their peers, families, and the whole community. This stage is a very important phase for children and educator as the completion of the project carry a satisfying feeling to all. This helps children to become confident in their achievement and make them involved learners (Follari, 2019). The educators can contribute to their role by collecting all the information, data, and results on children’s progress through observation, photos, videos, jotting, and learning stories (Follari, 2019).