The role of the teacher ACPD sessions 5 & 6, August 2015

Session overview Review of Tots Corner visit. The various roles of a teacher. Making learning visible. Co-operating to respond to documented listening.. Revisit listening and provocations Supporting sustained shared thinking Incorporating content knowledge What a good learning story looks like The range of lenses for a response. Use of ICT in your centre… List the principles we are looking for in the assessment…and what they mean

What questions do you have? Connecting working theories, dispositions, schemas etc to observations How you bring it together in the display, esp inviting further reflection An example of a board More about Reggio Emilia – what it is for each age group – the positives and constructives… Provocations – how involved the teacher can be Whether my documentation meets the standards of the course

Tots Corner visit What surprised you? What comforted you, affirmed your own understandings of teaching? Your response to their picture of the role of the teacher? Your response to retrospective planning? What you take for your own practice?

The various roles of the teacher for learning Making learning visible. The cycle of noticing, recognising, responding (notion of possibilities), revisiting & documentation Family engagement in your documentation Who initiates experiences… and learning. Researches – learning and teaching – children’s, own… Bringing professional knowledge – of aspirations, about children in general

Children play & investigate Teachers/' 'visibly listen' to and DOCUMENT children's play Teachers consider the individual AND the collective thinking/ learning of the children (DOCUMENTED) Teachers make DOCUMENTED hypotheses about children's theories, questions, potential schema as a result of studying the documentation Teachers share/display the documentation thereby inviting further reflection and interpretation from others e.g children, teachers, whanau (DOCUMENTED) Teachers respond based on prior listening & documentation e.g via provocation, re- visiting, invitation to express thinking using different language/s (DOCUMENTED) Teachers make further hypotheses about children's theories, questions, schema including critical reflection on own role (DOCUMENTED)

The principles in the assessment (again) an image of children as capable and intelligent the process of children’s learning visible providing provocations. utilising the environment ‘as a third teacher’ teacher’s theories visible, a range of documentation and sharing it with others for re-visiting ‘a community of learners’ visible

Incorporating content knowledge Te Whariki Te Whatu Pokeka New Zealand Curriculum What else?

Supporting sustained shared thinking Tuning in: •Showing genuine interest •Respecting children’s own decisions and choices by inviting children to elaborate: Re-capping: Offering the adult’s own experience: Clarifying ideas:

ctd Suggesting: Reminding: Using encouragement to further thinking: Offering an alternative viewpoint: Speculating: ‘ Reciprocating: ‘ Asking open questions: ‘• Modelling thinking: ‘

A good learning story… The purpose: To whom is it written? Whose voice? Narrative style – why? Recognising – making visible aspirations etc Responding – possibilities Sociocultural approach in action?

Learning stories… (Lee, Carr, Soutar & Mitchell…) Enhance children’s sense of themselves as capable people Focus on children’s developing identities as learners, as interested and interesting, who persist with difficulty, communicate, are a citizen in a community with rights and responsibilities Take credit vs deficit approach Include children’s voices Describe progress so that families and children can appreciate

The range of lenses What theories? Sociocultural approach – what does this mean? Participation? Relationships? 100 languages – what are they? Developmental stages? Te Whariki – how? The Principles? NZ Currriculum – how? Dispositions? The philosophy of the centre Own subjectivity

100 languages Using your body Cooking Clay paints Drawing Music, singing, instruments Talking Blocks Sandpit Water Constructions Dress ups – dramatic play\ Messey play

Sociocultural assessment? ‘instead of studying the person’s possession or acquisition of a capacity or a bit of knowledge, the focus is on people’s active changes of understanding and involvement on dynamic activities in which they participate’ (Rogoff. 1998, p. 690, cited in Marilyn Fleer

“ Assessment practices can prohibit, weaken, support or strengthen a curriculum” (Lee, Carr, Soutar & Mitchell, 2013, p. 7)

References Fleer, M. (2002) Sociocultural assessment in early years: Myth or reality? Internation Journal of Early Years Education, 10 (2). p