Empowering Pedagogy for Early Childhood Education-Ch. 1 Notes PDF

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Empowering Pedagogy for Early Childhood Education Chapter 1 Notes 

Early learning professional-educators who work with children from infancy to school age and practise in a professional context along with families and other professionals.

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See this as a journey.

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Critical reflection will be a key part of your journey process.

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Critical reflection involves deep thinking and is a key disposition for professional practice.

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The four aspects of thinking that make reflection possible are: o Abstract thinking-a cognitive process for understanding concepts that cannot be experienced directly through our senses such as friendship and trust. o Complex thinking-an ability to see the multiplicity of problems or situations at the same time. o Metacognition-an awareness of our thinking about our thinking as it relates to a problem or a situation; thinking about thinking. o Pragmatism-an ability to think logically and apply this thinking to real-life to manage the ambiguity that often accompanies these situations.

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Applying these four aspects of thinking to practice will help to build skill, ability, and knowledge-the important ingredients to critical reflection.

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One of the key attributes to becoming an effective early learning professional is being able to wonder, think, explore, and reflect.

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You also need to develop a theoretical language (the terms used within a profession) to describe and discuss your beliefs about programming with families or other professional you will come into contact with in your practice.

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Profession (Boyle)-an occupation that meets professional criteria.

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That criteria includes: o An ongoing commitment to continuous learning. o Recognized and upheld standards of practice. o An accepted code of ethics to which professionals are accountable. o A requirement for prolonged training to enter the profession. o Rigorous requirements for entry to training and eligibility to practise. o Commensurate salary (the wage of the profession matches the training required). o Autonomy or self-governance of the profession. o Recognition of the profession (being the only group able to legally practise). o A commitment to serving a social vale. o A specialized body of knowledge not normally held by others in society.

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Professionalization-the process of becoming a profession.

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Professional-a person who has obtained specialized training and competently carries out the work of the profession.

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Too be effective as an early learning professional you need to be continuously focused on learning, improvement, and growth-the practice is cyclical in nature.

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Professional practice is what you will do every day when you work with children, families, and colleagues.

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Ethics are moral principles that professional apply to their work.

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As an early learning professional, you will need to reflect on ethical codes of conduct as part of your commitment to ongoing learning.

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The Canadian Child Care Federation provides an ethics code that focuses on seven aspects of practice, including: o Promoting the health and well-being of children; o Enabling children to engage; o Demonstrating caring; o Working in partnership; o Enhancing relationships; o Pursuing ongoing learning; and o Demonstrating integrity.

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Effective early learning professionals must not only know what to do every day when working with children, but also be politically astute and have ideas, interests, good communication skills, and a broad sense of curiosity that is supportive of children and family needs.

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Early learning professionals should be lifelong learners.

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Brining a critical friend along on your journey will help you achieve your professional goals.

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Critical friend-someone you trust who will ask you proactive questions, provide perspective so that you can examine your practice through another lens, offer critiques of your work, and take the time to try to fully understand the context of your practice.

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The theoretical language of the profession:

o Constructivism is an educational paradigm that explains the nature of knowledge and how we learn. o Professional images-within the paradigm of constructivism, the image of the learner, whether it is the child printing his name for the first time or the adult student learning a new theory or idea, is one in which the learner is actively involved in making meaning of his/her world. Images are powerful. o Professional habits of mind-Kats (1993) defined disposition as consistent and frequent patterns of behaviour wherein an individual acts intentionally or mindfully. Intentional habits are the opposite of being mindless or not thinking about what you are doing. In professional practice, you are expected to act mindfully. Be flexible in your thinking and be open to new ideas. o Critical thinking-to think critically is to examine realty beyond the surface-to see and think more deeply. When you think critically, you ponder questions of who, what, where, when, how, and most importantly, why. o Professional knowledge-you will build your professional knowledge as you engage in the habits of mind, key to professional practice. o Professional self-developing your professional self and raising your professional consciousness should be a goal of your practice. o Professional responsibilities-it is your professional responsibility to develop the dispositions required for your profession and to adhere to its ethical code. Must consider others well-being as your first priority. 

“It is through others that we develop into ourselves” (Vygotsky, 1981)

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Professional discourse can be your vehicle to create the culture of inquiry for professionals to discuss big ideas.

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Discourse is the ideas, feelings, words, images, practices, actions, and looks that define our social world.

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Discourse is more than just talking.

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As an early learning professional, you are a teacher, a facilitator of play and learning experiences, a learning partner with children in their quest for learning, and a partner with families.

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In early learning, big ideas refer to the concepts that underpin the work we do. Exlistening to the voices of children, professional collaboration, etc.

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Big ideas can help to extend learning for both children and adults.

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The modern era has given was to the postmodern era. In the modern era of the early learning profession, theories that focused on children’s ages and stages were dominant. They contributed to the way we defined children and learning.

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Early learning programs planned experiences for children based on this very linear and developmentally based perspective.

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Postmodernist (a way of seeing the world from multiple perspectives) thought, on the other hand, promotes the idea that there are many different perspectives. It asks you as a student to challenge those modern views of development and learning.

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A postmodern perspective embraces a focus on the immediate and dynamic aspects of facilitating play and learning experiences for children, which in turn reinforces the complexity of working with children and their families.

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It requires the motivation to engage in visioning and seeking an understanding of discourse, practice, reflection, community, and networking.

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The success of adapting to a postmodern practice is highly influenced by how well adults preparing to work with children come to understand and internalize the theories that will guide their practice.

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Research from various fields has assisted the Canadian perspective, in creating curriculum frameworks that fit best with the profession and the children.

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Framework is a document early learning professional can use to guide decisions about practice. It is an organized plan that can serve as a pedagogical tool. It is meant to be applied with flexibility.

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Programming models, approaches, and frameworks emerge in many ways and are influenced by culture, people, places, and policies.

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A model (a specific design of experiences or environments that is copied from other sources) can be described as an idealized description of a program that can be copied or reproduced across practice and settings (Spodek, 1973).

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Approaches (programming beliefs and strategies used to facilitate play experiences and support children and families in early learning programs) are programs that prefer a title that reflects an emerging and flexible curriculum.

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Frameworks are usually influenced by and constructed from theories related to a philosophy or worldview of education.

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A theory is a set of principles that help to explain something.

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Actual practice is often guided by one’s own set of underlying principles, perhaps without a theoretical basis.

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Early learning professional should develop their practice based on a theoretical construct.

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Early learning has been influenced by major theorists, but your own ability to formulate theories can be just as influential to your practice.

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Curriculum is the approach to learning that is used in the classroom and has to signify a course of study (Ellis, 2004).

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Curriculum is a course of study.

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Emergent curriculum (co-constructing curriculum based on the interests and thinking of the learners) refers to an approach that emerges from the interests of the learner and is coconstructed with the teacher (Jones & Nimmo, 1994).

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However, emergent curriculum is more effective when it goes beyond interests to focus on children’s thinking.

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Programming in the Canadian early learning sector is a term that has become interchangeable with curriculum (Crowther, 2003). To make a distinction between the traditional, action-focused view of curriculum and the transformational practices of emergent curriculum, we have adopted the term programming (in early environments, involves developing curriculum based on play and has an emergent quality).

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This term offers an alternative that we feel is associated with learning in a play-based environment. By offering play options instead of a prescribed curriculum, a programming process approach evolves, which, by its very nature, becomes emergent.

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No everything is always planned, but rather evolves from the process of engaging with others in the early learning environment.

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Pedagogy (an approach to teaching and learning) is the way you promote children’s development and learning (Epstein, 2007). It is an interactive process that involves adults and children in every aspect of the learning environment (Lindon, 2012)....