Exactly one year ago, I was presenting at the 3E Learning Conference in Ho Chi Minh City and it's crazy to think how much has changed since then. During my Inspire Talk at 3E, I spoke about change and the opportunities that come with it...in education of course! One year on though, I'm thinking there are some important lessons in there for me personally! So this year, whether you are headed back to the classroom or embarking on new adventures in life, let's be sure to view every moment as opportunity. Who knows what wonderful things might come as a result!
I am experiencing some major shifts in life. In March, my first child was born. In June, I moved back to Canada with my young family after 12 years away from "home". And for the first time in 8 years, I am not going back to the classroom this August/September. Right now it feels like my life is all about change, change, CHANGE!
Exactly one year ago, I was presenting at the 3E Learning Conference in Ho Chi Minh City and it's crazy to think how much has changed since then. During my Inspire Talk at 3E, I spoke about change and the opportunities that come with it...in education of course! One year on though, I'm thinking there are some important lessons in there for me personally! So this year, whether you are headed back to the classroom or embarking on new adventures in life, let's be sure to view every moment as opportunity. Who knows what wonderful things might come as a result!
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Books:
Videos:Articles:
Blogs: A Word of Caution
Many blogs (including this one!), include posts about Reggio-inspired learning. INSPIRED is the key word here and this information should not be considered as a primary source or perceived as a sort of Reggio 'methodology'. Instead I would encourage readers to think thoughtfully about the unique learning context of the blog owner and how the very particular history, experiences, and practices of educators, children, and families in Reggio Emilia Municipal Infant-Toddler Centres and Preschools may have been interpreted.
What are you 'go-to' resources for developing your understanding of the Reggio Emilia approach to education?
Before every school year starts, I try to reflect on what has been successful in my classroom during the previous year and what I would like to change, expand on or even omit. Every year of course there are tweaks to be made and shifts to consider. One of the most important things I reflect on are the routines that organize the day, including the functions they have and purposes they are serving. I like purposeful routines. In fact, I require them. For me this means routines that are developmentally-appropriate, yet complex. Routines that address basic curriculum components and desired learning outcomes, yet also respect students as people, individuals and learners, and reflect their participation as class- and community-members and citizens. Over the last few years I have continued to take this criteria into consideration, continually fine-tuning my approach. The ultimate goal for me is that all aspects of my work with children - including the daily routines - align with my philosophies about learning and my image of the child. This approach has led me to make some pretty significant changes over time in how I implement and address some common-place classroom routines. Here are a few major things I've evolved since I started teaching:
So, the routine needed to be re-thought. There is still a calendar in my classroom. Months, days and dates are still marked. This time though, it's all of them. Now our calendar is a co-constructed piece which evolves every day. The main purpose is not counting and temporal time, but rather reflection and the recording of community events. We look at our calendar in our Afternoon Meeting and discuss what happened during our school day. The Special Helper chooses one or more significant events and draws a picture on the date card. The biggest difference? Now children are engaged in self-motivated and personally-meaningful dialogue around this shared tool - not just memorized songs and scripted conversations. Check out these great reads on classroom calendar routines for more inspiration:
Try it and see how the self-regulation and interpersonal skills that are discovered and demonstrated through the process are also extended to other areas or learning and interaction.
We still have one 'Special Helper' everyday who leads our class line and organizes the Morning Meeting. This person also lends an extra helping hand to any other incidental tasks, but, in general, the culture in our classroom is that everyone is responsible for everything all the time. We are all responsible for recognizing when the recycling needs to be emptied. We are all responsible for keeping track of when the plants need to be watered. In the past, I found that designated classroom jobs didn't really work to support the class community and environment I wanted. While they did give everyone a sense of responsibility eventually, they narrowed it to one area and encouraged those without classroom jobs to 'check out'.
A few key issues I noticed about the chart:
Now, there is no behaviour chart in my classroom. No traffic light, no stickers, no happy and sad faces. Instead, we emphasize supportive group dialogue, private conversations, and trusting relationships. Check out these great reads on class management for more inspiration: What routines have changed and evolved over time in your classroom?
Have you taken the time to reflect and adapt? After attending a Kath Murdoch (@kjinquiry) inquiry workshop in May 2014, I became interested in exploring how I might introduce Discover Time (i-Time, passion projects, etc.) in my classroom of 4-5 year olds. Kath had been working on developing this with the Early Years teachers at another school in Singapore and I was curious about how this might look in my own school setting and classroom.
I December 2014 I wrote a post on my class blog about how Discovery Time had evolved in our classroom. I was excited by what I was observing during our Discovery Time sessions:
Something kept nagging at me though that I couldn't quite make sense of or even form into questions until recently: How was this time any different from the unstructured playtime children already have in the classroom? My students also pursue projects, passions and inquiries during this unstructured play time. And in fact it's probably more spontaneous and authentic. Am I trying to impose a structure on something that doesn't need it? Am I trying to dress something up in a new way that's actually already happening?
To remedy this imbalance, I went back to an approach quite similar to what I had before: extended periods of uninterrupted free play time in the morning. I keep our schedule almost completely unplanned for these morning sessions until we find a natural time to break for our Morning Meeting (where students have the option to share their play and project work) and then snack. Some mornings this time is significantly shorter and sometimes it extends for a very long time - the schedule is all dependent on that active explorations and interests that are in motion that day. Of course there is also space throughout the whole day for divergence from the teacher's 'planned possibilities' if an important learning opportunity emerges.
While I'm now nearly back to what I did originally, the experience has had positive results:
Emergent (or negotiated) curriculum is one of my favourite parts of being an Early Childhood teacher. It makes me excited about my job every day because I know that, just by listening to my students and following their lead, countless learning opportunities will organically emerge, perhaps without my even planning them. We know though, that emergent curriculum is not about not planning, but rather about listening, documenting, making creative connections, and planning possibilities. I have written before about my emergent curriculum approach in a post called "Planning" an Emergent Curriculum and a few weeks ago I led a workshop on the topic at a Singapore/Malaysia PYP Network event. If you are new to the concept of emergent curriculum, here are some excellent places to start. I gave this document as a take-away handout at my workshop and have received great feedback on how helpful the resources have been. So, I thought I would also share it here on my blog. Thanks to all those who have allowed me to share links to their exceptional work. Please leave a comment if you find these links and resources useful!
Every so often (and very often on Pinterest!) I come across pieces of resources and ideas that have been shared online. Maybe there's some explanatory text missing, or a teeny tiny image that just can't be expanded, or a broken hyperlink. Regardless of what the issue is, it is it can be frustrating. Today I came across a piece of something that I think I shared in a post on my former Grade 1 blog a couple of years back - and no doubt, parts were missing. I know from experience how frustrating and misleading that can be, so now I want to make sure I share the whole thing. I also think it's important that we have the full picture of what's happening in the inquiry cycle, for both teachers and students. I created the document below to support my team as we were exploring how to embed inquiry cycles more meaningfully in the planning process. You will likely recognize this cycle as Kathy Short's Authoring Cycle, which she has thoroughly explained in her own literature as well as in her chapter in Taking the PYP Forward (2010, Carber & Davidson). This representation is a summary of the points she makes in her chapter 'Inquiry as a Stance on Curriculum', p. 11-26. The first page summarizes what teachers might be focusing on asking themselves and planning for at each stage in the cycle. The second page has examples of questions students might be asking themselves as they proceed through and go back and forth between the stages. The third page summarizes again what is happening at each stage in the cycle. I hope this (now complete) adaptation is helpful! Click here to download the file:
"[Educators should] reflect on the ways we can create dispositions towards listening and understanding children's curiosity as platforms to authentic teaching and learning...rather than seeing the curriculum narrowly." - Dr. Margaret MacDonald (Simon Fraser University) By now we know that when children play an active role in determining their own learning experiences and constructing knowledge, more meaningful and lasting understandings and skills are developed. One stance that early years educators in particular take toward achieving this approach is 'emergent curriculum'. In other words, a curriculum that is open-ended, self-directed and responds to children's ideas and interests. But what about the written curriculum requirements? What about the prescribed learning outcomes and benchmarks that need to be taught and assessed each year? Both of these are common questions from teachers and questions that were also raised this week in an early childhood course I am currently taking through the University of British Columbia. We know that emergent curriculum emerges from the children, but we must also remember the role that teachers play: "Curriculum emerges from the play of children and the play of teachers. It is co-constructed by the children and the adults and the environment itself. To develop curriculum in depth, adults must notice children's questions and invent ways to extend them, document what happens, and invent more questions." (Jones, 2012, p. 67) This is why we often use the term 'negotiated curriculum' in place of 'emergent curriculum' to describe the complexity of influences and determinants at play as projects and investigations unfold. Here are some of the strategies I use to support the development of meaningful emergent curriculum in my own classroom, while keeping the required written curriculum in mind:
Anticipating curriculum connections is a strategy I picked up from Lilian Katz's Project Approach. In Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years (2011), Katz & Helm describe a series of phases teachers may use to guide children's projects or investigations. One suggestion for after a possible topic emerges, is for teachers to complete "anticipatory webs" on possible questions, curriculum opportunities, resources and field sites that may arise and support children's learning as part of the project (Katz & Helm, 2011, p. 12). Here is an anticipatory web I completed just this past week after a student question was expressed which excited all of the children: "Who is the tallest man in the school?" This web reflects possible curriculum connections in relation to the IB Primary Years' Programme framework, as well as my school's Kindergarten 1 learning outcomes and benchmarks for different subject areas. To help myself think of next steps and teacher questions, I've also noted students' theories/ideas so far and the understandings and misconceptions that they demonstrate. Of course this is still emergent curriculum, meaning that we won't necessarily cover all the things on the web over the course of the investigation. I will also ensure that the investigation continues to be child-led. The connections on the web should rather be viewed as predictions or hypotheses that may or may not come to be. In In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia, Carlina Rinaldi cautions about taking 'anticipations' too seriously: "a hypothesis on how the project might proceed is valid only to the extent that it is seen precisely as a hypothesis and not as a 'must', as one of a thousand hypotheses on the direction that might be taken. " (2006, p. 132-133). By brainstorming possible curriculum connections, however, I am ensuring that I am 'covering the curriculum', so to speak, by having elements of the required programme in mind while still pursuing an 'unplanned' and negotiated approach to learning that responds authentically to the children involved. For more support on anticipating learning in emergent curriculum: What strategies do you use to support & "plan" for an emergent curriculum? References:
Yesterday I attended 'The Art of Inquiry Teaching' workshop with Kath Murdoch (@kjinquiry). Many of us in IB PYP and other inquiry-based settings know her work well and have referenced it in our teaching. Surely by now most inquiry-based teachers have seen her "inquiry cycle" or phases of inquiry and have even applied it to our teaching. But have we interpreted it correctly? In the workshop, Kath reminded us that the 'Tuning In' phase, is not about tuning in to a topic...it's about tuning in to the students! Of course! So let's be sure that we honour students' existing wisdom and capacities by doing exactly that. AND give enough time, space, and thoughtful planning to listen, document, and interpret. For more information about Kath's stance on inquiry, visit the Resources page of her website. Here is a recently example of how I 'Tuned In' to my four and five year old students at the beginning of our inquiry into stories and storytelling. Click on the image below to link to the blog post: How do you practice 'tuning in' to your students?
One of the reasons I love following other educators' blogs (and have ventured into blogging myself) are those moments when you come across something that just makes you say "YES!" YES, this is exactly what I've been looking for! YES, someone is thinking what I'm thinking! I had one of those huge "YES!" moments last month when I found Jeanne Zuech's (@jeannezoo) "my break-up letter with the Reggio Approach" on her blog Zella Said Purple. Like Jeanne, my teaching life has been deeply impacted by the Reggio Emilia approach. In fact, I would go even further to say that my personal life has been deeply impacted in the sense that my perspectives on people, interactions, materials, and communities have been transformed. Lately though, I have been doing a lot of thinking about to what extent this defines who I am and what I do as an educator. And then, to what extent I am comfortable and confident with this. And so came the other "YES!" moment for me in Jeanne's post: YES, I have just been able to clarify my own thoughts! While I may not be prepared to 'break-up' with the Reggio Emilia approach - or any approach that my practice is influenced or inspired by for that matter - I am ready to shed the labels. The labels we put on ourselves and our programmes are what I believe get us into trouble. They trap us, in that we respond less directly to our current circumstances and the specific needs of the individuals and environments that surround us and focus too intensely on making choices that align with the labels (whether that be 'Reggio-inspired' or otherwise). We become complacent and comfortable in the fact that we are 'doing' a curriculum and approach that is well-respected and well-researched, thinking too much about the 'what' and too little about the 'why'. One of my strongest memories from the Reggio Emilia Study Tour that I attended in 2011 is when our leading pedagogista said that the Reggio experience cannot be reproduced and cannot be replicated. And if we truly understand the Reggio experience, this is true, and should also be true for every unique and individual programme and approach around the world. We may be inspired by each other -- and this is of course a significant part of the process -- but we should not strive to replicate, for this is exactly when other communities and approaches, as well as our own, become "misinterpreted and misrepresented" as Jeanne discussed. Which labels do you need to be careful about placing on your programme and yourself as an educator?
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I'm a PYP educator passionate about visible thinking, learning environments, Reggio Emilia, arts, technology, pedagogical documentation, visible thinking, nature & play. Always inquiring, always reflecting, always learning!
View the About Me page to learn more. Contact MeRecent PostsEmbracing Change
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