Early childhood teachers – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Data, knowledge, action: Exploring sustained shared thinking to deepen young children’s learning

Introduction and Background This TLRI project is part of a larger programme of research referred to as the Data, Knowledge, Action project. The Data, Knowledge, Action programme of research focuses on the development and use of innovative and authentic data systems to help early childhood teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand examine young children’s curriculum experiences and strengthen their teaching practice. To date the programme comprises of: a) a pilot study undertaken in 2017 to develop and trial innovative and authentic data systems to investigate children’s experiences of curriculum; b) a 18-month project funded by the Teacher Led Innovation Fund (TLIF) involving teacher-led inquiries into children’s experiences (July 2018 – December 2019;

Children’s working theories about identity, language, and culture –
O faugamanatu a fanau e sa’ili ai o latou fa’asinomaga, gagana ma aganu’u

Introduction Ma’au i lou ofaga, maua’a i lou faasinomaga. Keep your identity alive to thrive. This 2-year collaborative research project focused on young children’s working theories about identity, language, and culture, how early childhood teachers can nurture and encourage this learning, and how this in turn impacts on children’s participation in early childhood education (ECE) communities. The project builds on a previous Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) project that explored children’s working theories in action in five Playcentres in Canterbury (Davis & Peters, 2011). That project showed ways children express and develop working theories, how practitioners understand these, and how best to respond to this learning (Davis & Peters, 2011).

Move, Act, Play, Sing (MAPS): Exploring early childhood arts teaching and learning strategies and concepts through community arts interventions

Introduction Move, Act, Play, Sing (MAPS) explored early childhood teaching and learning in the performing arts through community artist interventions and relational practices and pedagogies. The research developed three early childhood centre case studies where teachers, children, and parents worked together with community artists, the research team, and other colleagues to explore emergent pathways of performing arts teaching and learning. In MAPS, community artists in music, dance, and drama worked alongside teachers and children in semi-planned, open, and improvisatory pedagogical settings set up to explore the potentialities of performing arts learning and teacher responses in the centre environments and communities. The ethnographic inquiry focused on how the early childhood teachers engaged

Pedagogical intersubjectivity: Teaching and learning conversations between children and teachers

Introduction This project builds on prior national TLRI research investigating teaching and learning episodes between teachers and child during their everyday interactions (Carr, et al., 2008; Davis & Peters, 2008). These prior studies indicated that teachers sometimes found it difficult to: choose which of the children’s interactions they should involve themselves in to develop opportunities for children’s learning (Carr, 2007; Davis & Peters, 2008) interact with children in ways that avoid “hijacking” their developing working theories (Davis & Peters, 2008). International studies exploring early childhood education practices were also considered in the planning of this project. Specifically, the “effective Provision of Pre-school education” (EPPE) study (Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj-Blatchford, & Taggart,

Preparing initial primary and early childhood teacher education students to use assessment

Introduction In our rapidly changing world, in which the future is uncertain, teachers need to prepare children with knowledge, skills, values, and competencies that will support them to become life-long learners and active contributors to New Zealand’s social, cultural, economic, and environmental well-being. Such an aim implies that children should be educated in ways that support them to assume control of their own learning. to that end, they will need to develop the capability to assess their own learning and progress. Vital aspects of every teacher’s pedagogy, then, will be the ability to use assessment that builds, extends, and challenges children to see themselves as competent learners, and equip them with

What’s special about teaching and learning in the first years? Investigating the “what, hows and whys” of relational pedagogy with infants and toddlers

Introductory statement What is special about teaching infants and toddlers? How can the “what, hows and whys” of infant toddler pedagogy[1] be articulated and enhanced to support learning? These questions were at the heart of a two-year study in which researchers teamed up with teachers in five infant and toddler centres in Auckland and Wellington to gather practice-based evidence about pedagogy as the art and science of teaching and learning in this under-researched area of early childhood education and care. Key findings The study found that theorising about children’s learning through discussions of video data enabled the teachers to “really look” at their teaching and open up taken-for-granted meanings about the

Training on the job: How do home-based co-ordinators support educators to notice, recognise, and respond?

1. Aims, objectives, and research questions The aim of this research was: To investigate how home-based co-ordinators support educators[1] to notice, recognise, and respond to children’s learning. The research objectives were to: investigate co-ordinators’ practice document educators’ understanding of children’s learning discover how (a) impacts upon (b). There were three research questions: What are co-ordinators doing to support educators to notice, recognise, and respond to children’s learning? What changes are evident in educators’ practice as a result of what co-ordinators do? What factors seem to be important in this process? Background New Zealand home-based childcare services, as with all services within the early childhood sector, must meet certain requirements set out