Reflection about placement

Reflecting upon placement - I've enjoyed being in a learning environment that consists of 0-5 years old. I feel that planning experiences for children of all ages allows for learning to be formed through all ages, children are learning off each other and its great to engage in. I enjoy children being together in an environment that offers for creativity, exploration and imagination. The environment is filled with great experiences that have been planned to cater for all ages, and to be displayed as an environment that allows for independent learning. Children are able to freely move from different experiences at their own pace. I feel that this placement has been an enjoyable experience as it gives opportunity to engage with the children as well as the parents who are essential part of children's lives. 

I've enjoyed creating experiences at placement that cater for arts and allow for further exploration through natural materials. I've emmensly enjoyed utisiling materials that are of natural materials such as leaves, rocks, water, sand etc. I've learnt that the simple experiences can offer a huge amount of enhanced learning where children appreciate and engage in their learning. I've encountered many children develop through many problems they have had for example independently playing without their loved ones which has been great to witness as it shows that children are young capable learners. Overall I've had a great experience at placement and have enjoyed getting to know the children and look forward to seeing the children again 

Democratising in children’s learning

Reflecting upon MacNaughton and Williams chapter on ‘Democratising’, I have been able to understand the importance of utilising this in the classroom. Children are capable learners who are valued highly in decision making their learning. As a pre-service teacher it is my responsibility to listen carefully to the children and respond respectfully to their opinions. Children’s participation is a vital element in my emerging philosophy as I strongly believe incorporating children’s strengths and interests are an essential part to planning and implementing activities/experiences for the children. 

Giving children the opportunity for decision-making in their learning is excellent in providing children with responsibilities and demonstrating the importance of equal rights to learn.All children should be provided with the same opportunities to learn and be treated equal. I believe that my goal in my future teaching practice is to ensure all children’s interests are incorporated together into learning experiences in order to have a balance of whole group and individual activities. Giving children the opportunity for empowerment allows children to have choice, freedom but most importantly be apart of decisions in the classroom. When children have responsibility they feel a sense of belonging and a sense of need. When children are felt as though they are needed, they feel as though they are highly valued. I believe that children are the most important aspect of learning, they are capable and responsible young learners who should be treated equal, fair and all of their opinions should be taken into consideration. 

Do you believe that children should be involved in decision making towards their learning?

Documenting in early childhood programs

Documenting is early childhood programs is a process to gather and organise information that provides written or pictorial record of what has occurred. Through my 0-2 placement I encountered children’s portfolios which consisted of photographs and a variety of learning stories based on children’s play. Documenting children’s play is one of the many aspects that teachers need to fulfil in order to help for future planning in regards to each individual child in order to target the strengths, interests, needs, but also ensuring their learning is constantly being extended. Reflecting on children’s portfolio can occur with staff and between the staff and children, giving children choice I feel creates a sense of independence, and respect for the child. It is essential for the teacher to ‘explore multiple perspectives on children’s learning and projects work as a provocation and invitation to further work and exploration of a topic’ (MacNaughton & Williams 2009, p. 300).

Collating children’s original artwork and also photographs of their artwork, I feel should be collaborated into a portfolio as a way of giving sentimental value, children may one day be able to look back on their early years education and their sense of achievements. I believe its an important aspect to give to families of their child in order to show how much their child has development throughout the year. 

References:

MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.

The importance of empowerment as a pre-service teacher

Reflecting upon class discussions about empowerment, I believe it is a vital component to be brought into the classroom, however, I feel that it is not the teachers direct role to provide such a role. I believe that the role of empowerment should not be posed on one individual, rather a tool to give children choice, freedom and open-ended responsibilities that each child can be apart of, which will build children’s ability to think critically. I strongly believe that children should all be apart of a classroom environment which firmly supports equality but most of all children are working together as a learning community who can provide experiences for other children that can help to improve the learning of others around each other.

Having empowerment embedded into the classroom allows for children to endeavour responsibility as well as independence. During class today, it was noted of high importance to allow children to be apart of class rules, for example allowing children to discuss what classroom rules can be displayed as a way of respecting everyone around them. I believe giving children the opportunity to be apart of this form of empowerment is a great tool for children feeling wanted, supported and welcomed. Empowerment should be equal to each individual child in the classroom in order to role model the importance of equality and acceptance, each child should experience an equal view and opinion on any situation in the classroom because I feel that each child’s opinions are all equally valued in the same regard as each others. According to MacNaughton & Williams (2009, p. 311) ‘In this usage, empowerment is the process of giving great cultural, economic, social and political power to those who have little access to such opportunities because of injustices and inequalities in a particular society’.

References:
MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.

Connecting placement to place/thought and the concept of grouping

 Today commenced the first day of the Early Years Learning Project and was a very relaxed environment. To be honest I feel that the environment was filled with great learning experiences, however, my mentor believes that children need to be re-directed when they are on the same activity for a long time… I do understand children need to have a variety of learning experiences and can get attached to one experience, however, I also strongly believe children are growing learners who are able to make decisions themselves, based on how they feel. I love seeing children engaged in experiences that excite them, but most of all, are enjoying their time. I feel that taking them away from an experience isn’t what I want to do because children need to express themselves within the learning environment. Overall I had a great time working with the students, as well, as parents and children throughout the program and I do feel that it is very beneficial for both parents/children. It allows the children to interact with other children, and also moves them out of their natural environment.

From reading MacNaughton & Williams chapter 9 called grouping I have been able to make connections the learning from placement. I believe my past experiences with grouping, haven’t always been essential for my learning as I have been apart of the level of ability grouping which I feel isn’t the best tool for grouping, as children can feel embarrassed about being in the lower levels. I also feel children will develop further within mixed ability grouping as children learn off each other. Placement is a great example of mixed age grouping, as the range of children that are offered for the program are between 0-5 year old which means children of those variety of ages, can interact freely within each other. Mixed grouping ability ‘enhances literacy learning. For instance, using mixed groups of children that include children without language delay may provide additional modeling opportunities for children with language delay’ (Lonigan et al. 1999, p.318). I truly believed mixed grouping of gender, culture and different ages is essential to the development of children as it allows for demonstrating our diverse culture, great interactions and allows children to learn from a variety of children.

References:
MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.

The importance of co-constructing meaning to me as a pre-service teacher

Reflecting on co-constructing meaning has never really come to my thoughts as I feel that co-constructing meaning comes naturally without thought, however, upon my current learning and development as a pre-service teacher I feel that children learn best through exploration, creativity and engagement. According to MacNaughton & Williams (2009, p. 233) ‘Sharing meaning with others enables children to reconstruct there on meanings’. As a classroom I feel it is important for children to socially interact with one another as this does have an impact on their language development, as well as enhance their understandings of meanings within the world around us. Children who express themselves through feelings, or generally anything that allows them to explore are within a community of learners. I believe as a pre-service teacher that in a class environment, we are equal human beings who are gathered together for the sake of becoming a community of learners. 


From my past schooling experiences, I don't feel multiculturalism was demonstrated to the best it could of, I can remember it was recognised and touched upon, however, I feel nowadays its very crucial to show how each individual is welcome and accepted due to the fact that some children can be less accepting if they are not fully aware of accepting differences. As a multicultural society, it is always essential to me that everyone has equal access to the learning environment for example, learning equipment, space and knowledge. I strongly feel that children’s interactions within each other is a requirement to learning as children learn from each other, children thoughts can be redirected and thought different from another perspective with the help of another individual. This therefore impacts on a child’s ability to reconstruct meaning to themselves and the world around them. My goal in my teaching career is to ensure culture is strongly embedded into the classroom, and to ensure I demonstrate the importance of equality, race and gender and to always be accepting of one another.


References:
MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.

Bunjilaka

My visit to Bunjilaka at the Melbourne Museum allowed me to further my prior knowledge of Aboriginal history. Reflecting on my past education in primary school, the topic of Indigenious Australian’s wasn’t covered appropriately as my only memory of the topic was dot painting. Extending on my education and knowledge I had been exposed to many beliefs and ideas that Aboriginals were all about, which therefore meant dot painting wasn’t the only way to cover a topic.

Through my visit at Bunjilaka, I have been able to think beyond my usual thinking and I recognised the importance of culture, family and connection to the Indigenous Australian’s. As a pre-service teacher I do believe that children’s family and culture are one of the most important elements to a classroom and I feel children should share themselves through their heritage. My big concern as a pre-service teacher is being accepting of others, and demonstrating with children the importance for treating each other with respect and equal. Making connections with family history is essential to my learning in the classroom as I believe children will be able to explore their similarities as well as learn from each others differences. The topic of Indigenous Australian’s to me is an essential part of learning and I do believe that teaching this topic is crucial to being realistic and real. I feel that teaching should be directed to specific language groups that are within Australia, so therefore children are learning through real experiences and learning about specific cultural backgrounds.  Bringing the children’s culture into the topic of Indigenous Australian’s for myself as a pre-service teacher is important as I feel that we are a diverse society and we should all be celebrating our diverse cultures.

Linking children's book as a way of collecting materials

How can I as a teacher link children’s book as a way of collecting materials?

The bowerbird workshop consisted of finding a children’s story book that would be able to connect to the idea of collecting materials.  The book chosen was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. As a pre-service teacher I was wondering how I can use this book in the classroom as an idea of getting children to collect items.

As the Hungry Caterpillar’s environment is in the outdoor setting, I began to cumulate ideas of getting children to explore natural materials through the outdoor environment. The caterpillar lives outside amongst leaves, trees, bark, food scraps and sticks so therefore children can really explore and expand on their knowledge of the outdoor. Children are able to categorise items through colour and shape, texture, size and smell. ‘Collecting can help children learn how to sort, classify, match and organize their world’ (MacNaughton & Williams 2009, p.19). As a pre-service teacher I am constantly questioning the idea of children feeling a sense of belonging in their environment, I feel that children should be taught through many different learning arrangements that allow different learning experiences. Natural materials are a great way to let children investigate the earth and their environment. As a pre-service teacher I believe it is essential for children to share their thoughts and experiences as a class discussion. Through using storybooks and the collecting of materials children are able to hear different perceptions and perspectives on ideas that children will all be complete different too. Listening is a key tool in the classroom and I believe children can listen to the ideas of others through being respectful. According to MacNaughton and Williams (2009) it’s vital that as a teacher welcoming the thoughts of what children have to say to us in all its diversity is very important as all children’s ideas are correct as there is no wrong in your thinking.

References:
MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.

Importance of cultural diversity

The importance of cultural diversity and how as a pre-service teacher I will be able to use my knowledge to utilise this in a classroom?

As a multi-cultural society I feel as though as a pre-service teacher allowing children to bring their sense of identity into the classroom is essential to their learning experiences as all children should feel welcomed, appreciated and accepted for their diversity and similarity.  From my recent learning experience about collecting, I have come to understand that ‘collecting becomes an enjoyable and worthwhile learning experience when children are encourage to explore, sort and classify the objects they or the staff have collected’ (MacNaughton & Williams 2009, p.21).

The use of collection can be utilised in order to target culture diversity by allowing the children to bring photographs, ornaments or anything in order to represent their identity and background. By creating an experience for children like this you are allowing children to feel apart of their learning environment and the teacher can use this as a way of decorating the classroom to provide an engaging room. From recent learning I have been exposed to the challenges teacher face when using collecting with cultural diversity as an issue of being racist, sexist or not being respectful, however I feel as a teacher I will be able to demonstrate my cultural background to the children in order to model how to be accepting of others and what their identities are.

I truly believe that as a pre-service teacher children should feel a sense of belonging and I feel that their culture background is a great tool to use in order to create a room that is accepting, inviting and respectful to those around us. As an upcoming teacher I feel it is my duty to demonstrate the right values of cultural diversity.

References:
MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.