The role of the adult and pedagogical approaches to the curriculum Session 7 The role of the adult and pedagogical approaches to the curriculum

Learning outcomes By the end of the session you will have; Reflected upon your own pedagogical strategies as a professional and your own professional goals Feedback on out of class activity based on a theorist or pioneer and how they have influenced your chosen curricula framework

So what is curriculum? “The sum total of the experiences, activities, and events whether direct or indirect, which occur in an environment designed to foster children’s learning and development.” (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996, p.10) “all the opportunities for learning at school; all the behaviour that is encouraged or discouraged; the school organization and routines, the way adults, including parents, interact with the children.” (Curtis, 2002, p.15) What are your views?

Essential characteristics of a practitioner Warmth and empathy Spontaneity Skills of reflection and analysis Clear principles underpinning practice Ability to communicate with a wide range of people An ability to take the lead An ability to be playful and make learning fun

Imagination and creativity In depth understanding of child development and effective learning Conscientious record keeping An optimistic disposition and ‘can do’ approach (Edgington, 2007, p.8) What are your views on this? Any examples?

Pedagogy What does it mean to you reflecting upon your own knowledge and other modules?

Pedagogy “How children are taught…all teachers have pedagogy or, more accurately, a cluster of pedagogical notions. These may be held consciously or unconsciously. During the course of a school day, different pedagogical approaches are required.” (Athey, 2007, p.37) Reflect on this. What does it mean?

Pedagogy “While curriculum may be therefore be understood as denoting all of the knowledge, skills and values that children are meant to learn in educational establishments, pedagogy is referred to as the practice…pedagogy refers to the interactive process between teacher and learner and the learning environment.” (Siraj Blatchford, 2002 in Anning, 2004 pp137-138) REPEY findings

What is pedagogy? Gage, 1995 (Sylva et al 2010, p.149); Argues we should have scientific basis for the art of teaching We should distinguish between knowledge that is general (nomothetic) and knowledge that applies to the understanding of particular events or individuals (ideographic knowledge) Argued “that teachers creatively apply their nomothetic knowledge to the ideograpic problems posed by the unique groups of children that they are faced with; with all of their specific needs, socio cultural status and cognitive and affective demands.”

Weikart in Highscope, 1972 (in Athey, 2007, p.38) Evaluated three pedagogical models Child centred – views children with respect and as a unique individual Programmed – teacher initiates and child responds The open framework (constructivist pedagogy) – it is assumed that learning comes about through the direct action and experience of the child (Athey, 2007, p.39)

Excellence and Enjoyment - DfES (2004,pg.15) Direct – to acquire new knowledge or skills Inductive – to develop a concept or process Exploratory – to use, consolidate or refine skills or understanding Also; experiential, problem solving as well as social or relationship approaches

Dvd - The Role of the Adult After watching the footage, what pedagogical strategies were used to deliver these activities? (use the REPEY list as a prompt) What strategies were not evident in the poorer examples? What pedagogical strategies were used in the most effective examples?

EPPE study and effective practice In this study pedagogy was defined to refer to “the full set of instructional techniques and strategies that enabled learning to take place in early childhood that provided opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes and dispositions.” (Sylva et al, 2010, pp157-160)

A focus on pedagogy In EPPE excellent/good settings were: found to engage in sustained shared thinking Extending child-initiated interactions Adult modelling of combined with periods of SST and open questioning associated with better cognitive achievement Two thirds of the activities were child initiated Highly trained staff i.e teachers provided children with more experience of academic activities Adopted discipline/behaviour policies that involved staff in supporting children in rationalising and talking through their conflicts Firm knowledge and understanding of ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ Shared child related information between parents and staff and parents involved in decision making From Sylva et al (2010, pp157-160)

Socio-pedagogy In most Northern Europe contexts child-care was originally family orientated and concerned with promoting the ideology of the family which may be contrasted with more educationally oriented approaches. central aim of social pedagogy has been to empower children as active citizens, so they can act to change their own lives. Nurturing of children’s identity and self esteem (Sylva et al, 2010 pp151-152) How they do it in Sweden

Plenary What have we learned today? OOCA Read what is applicable to you: ‘Good and Excellent Practice,’ ‘Learning in the Home and at School,’ ‘Pedagogy and the Curriculum 2000 at post 16,’ Teachers Talking to Young Children.’ and access Riley ebook.