Early Childhood Quality: interactional Pedagogy, Curriculum and Progression in Playful Learning

1. Early Childhood Quality: interactional Pedagogy, Curriculum and Progression in Playful Learning Prof. IramSiraj Institute of Education, University of London Leaders of ECE Conference, Sweden March 2014

2. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years Teacher initiating activity: “…effective pedagogues model appropriate language, values and practices, encourage socio-dramatic play, praise, encourage, ask questions, and interact verbally with children. Excellent settings tended to achieve an equal balance between teacher-led and child-initiated interactions, play and activities” (Siraj-Blatchford et al 2002)

3. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years Teacher’s extending activities:“…a particular form of teacher initiation that may also be applied in cases where initially the child initiated. The most effective settings were found to provide both teacher-initiated group work and freely chosen yet potentially instructive play activities. ‘Extension’ was included in the definition of ‘sustained shared thinking”(Siraj-Blatchford et al 2002)

4. Percentage of high cognitive challenge activities within each initiation category in each setting type REPEY Study Findings percentage

5. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years Differentiation and Formative Assessment:“…effective pedagogues assess children’s performance to ensure the provision of challenging yet achievable experiences (i.e. within the ZPD) and provide formative feedback. The most effective settings have shared educational aims with parents supported by regular communication”.(Siraj-Blatchford et al 2002)

6. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years Attention to the relationships between children:“Effective settings view cognitive and social development as complementary and they support children in rationalising and talking through their conflicts” (i.e. another context for SST).(Siraj-Blatchford et al 2002)

7. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years • Sustained shared thinking: • An episode in which two or more individuals “work together” in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate activities, extend a narrative etc. Both parties must contribute to the thinking and it must develop and extend. • Open-ended questions feature; and • Playful learning, building on the child’s interests. • The above are difficult to assess as outcomes but are essential to achieving good outcomes! Necessary but not sufficient, we still require good content. • (Siraj-Blatchford et al., REPEY, DfES 2002)

9. REPEY Study Findings Proportion of adult cognitive pedagogical interactions in settings varying in effectiveness

10. Time spent by children in different social groupings across settings of varying effectiveness REPEY Study Findings

11. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Play-Learning: The major features of progression are: • the child initially manipulates symbols/signs in their emotional communications with adults and peers and engages in significant gestures • they begin using symbols and signs in pretend play • pretend role play and object substitution become internalised as imagination • the child is first able to be another to herself, develops the capability of ‘interacting with pretend others (increasingly acknowledging ‘their’ perspective), and then ‘switches’ freely between roles in play.

12. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London (Cont.) Play-Learning: The major features of progression are: • socio-dramatic play becomes more collaborative as partners at first share symbols and then reciprocally negotiate roles • conceptual knowledge and understanding of the ‘other’, and of the ‘self’, develop further and learning ‘dispositions’ become more significant • most children become oriented more towards more formal learning and school subjects and disciplines (communities of practice)

13. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Understanding Sustained Shared Thinking: Curriculum – Most broadly the term refers to the formal and informal (overt and hidden) collection of experiences that socialise the individual into citizenship (however narrowly or broadly this is defined). Pedagogy - maybe broadly defined as any behaviour applied by an individual that supports the learning of another. In professional terms it has been defined as the; ‘science of the art of teaching’ (Gage,1985) All learning has content as well as form, and whenever learning takes place we can say that a curriculum and some form of pedagogy is involved (however implicit or hidden it might be).

14. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London The Social Nature of Human cognition: All cognitive development emerges in the process of an internalisation of external social experiences in the process of socialization.There are two independent original sources for this:Vygotsky (1896-1934)Developmental Psychology G.H. Mead (1863-1931) Social Psychology

15. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy Curriculum Play in the development of ‘self’ — ooooooooooo— improvised play with partners — ooooooooooooooooooooooo— improvised collaboration — oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo— disciplined collaboration (..the “collection of experiences”)

16. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy “Significant gestures” The creative process: ‘Smile’ from adult ‘objectified’ Child recontextualises adultbehaviour that leads to smile Child creatively makes= eye contact eye contact to produce adult smile Curriculum development of ‘self’ — A cyclical creative process of: ‘progressive continuous re-contextualisation’(van Oers, 1998)

17. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy Play is increasingly reciprocal and collaborative Sharing symbolic representations: The symbol must be ‘second hand’ for one partner – but they creatively reconstruct it for this particular collaborative play context. Curriculum ooooooooooo— improvised play with partners —

18. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy Play becomes even more collaborative Constructing an understanding of the ‘other’: “…the child’s position towards the external world changes…and the ability to co-ordinate his point of view with other possible points of view develops”(Elkonin, 1978, p282).. Play partners provide scaffolding: …Within the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (Vygotsky) – that extends beyond what the partner can do on their own to include those activities that they can do successfully with the support of their peer. Curriculum ooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo— improvised collaboration —

19. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Metacognition Whenever play partners communicate they do so from their own historically constructed perspective, which includes their understanding of the perspective of themselves constructed by the other participant in the communication: “…the child’s position towards the external world changes…and the ability to co-ordinate his point of view with other possible points of view develops” (Elkonin, 1978, p282). The development of these sophisticated levels of abstraction (and metaconciousness) also facilitate the development of a wider metacognition. This metacognition required in learning to learn, also develops as the child finds it necessary to describe, explain and justify their thinking about different aspects of the world to others.

20. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy The transition to ‘learning activity’ “…when children consciously reflect upon the relationship between their ‘pretend’ signs and ‘real’ meanings in play they are engaged in a form of semiotic activity that is a valuable precursor to new learning activities” (van Oers, 1999,p278). Curriculum ooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo— more structured collaborations —

21. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy Learning Activities: “Learning Activity” (van Oers) “Socio-dramatic play” (Lieontiev) “Object-centred joint activity” (Elkonin) “Emotional communication with caregivers” (Lisina) Curriculum “emotional communication with caregivers” (Lisina) “Object-centred joint activity” (Elkonin) “Socio-dramatic play (Lieontiev) Learning Activity (van Oers) development of ‘self’ — ooooooooooo— improvised play with partners — ooooooooooooooooooooooo— improvised collaboration — oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo— disciplined collaboration

22. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London Pedagogy CurriculumStrongly Classified CurriculumWeaklyClassified Co-construction

23. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London PedagogyWeakly Framed CurriculumStrongly Classified CurriculumWeaklyClassified

24. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London PedagogyWeakly Framed CurriculumStrongly Classified CurriculumWeaklyClassified PedagogyStrongly Framed

25. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London PedagogyWeakly Framed Child-centred Free Play approach DiscoveryLearning Thematic Topic Work CurriculumStrongly Classified CurriculumWeaklyClassified Open Framework approach Programmed Learning approach SchoolSubjectteaching PedagogyStrongly Framed

26. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London PedagogyWeakly Framed Baby Child-centred Free Play approach CurriculumStrongly Classified CurriculumWeaklyClassified Open Framework approach Programmed Learning approach PedagogyStrongly Framed Transition To School

27. IramSiraj, Institute of Education, University of London The implications for Early Childhood Education: • Providing progressively more experience, knowledge, and stimulus (through the provision of challenging playenvironments and guided or direct intervention (Withinthe Zone of Proximal Development [ZPD]) • They can also scaffold the creative ‘cycles’ byprogressively encouraging more sophisticatedSustained Shared Thinking (Siraj-Blatchford et al 2002) (within the ZPD).

28. Playful learning for children is based on some of the following ideas: Building on and extending the child’s interests The child is usually active physically, socially and intellectually The learning is exploratory without necessarily fixed outcomes in mind Playful learning motivates children to try more challenging learning Children use, apply and extend their knowledge, skills and understanding through active exploration In social contexts children develop their capacities for cooperation and collaboration and can often explore complex ideas Characteristics of Playful Learning

29. Supporting playful learning involves the use of a suite of strategies including: Creating well resourced environments with rich materials Being involved and interacting with children as they play and explore Maintaining a purposeful focus on the child’s learning and development Modelling expressive language and consciously extending children’s vocabulary Constructively engaging with children to scaffold and extend learning Using sustained shared thinking strategies to build on child-initiated activity to extend knowledge, skills and understanding Prof. IramSiraj i.siraj-blatchford@ioe.ac.uk Playful Learning