Innehållsförteckning för OCTOBER ISSUE 18 2024 från Pedagogy+

Welcome to the latest issue of Pedagogy+ — in this edition we delve into the enriching world of inquiry-based learning and project work in early childhood education. As educators, we understand the profound impact of fostering curiosity and exploration on young minds. This edition aims to illuminate the power of inquiry as a transformative pedagogical approach that not only ignites children’s natural desire to learn but also equips them with critical thinking skills essential for lifelong success. Within these pages, you will discover articles from passionate researchers, consultants and educators who share their insights, strategies, and experiences in implementing inquiry-based learning in their classrooms. From articles on thematic approaches to learning through to a guide to bringing inquiry to life, each piece offers practical ideas and inspiration to support your…

This might seem like an odd topic for a moment’s pause, but please bear with me… We are increasingly being asked to nurture relationships as part of our pedagogical responsibility in early childhood education. Note that the EYLF (V2) mentions ‘relationships’ 81 times, while the same word appears only 46 times in the first version! Interestingly though, on the page dedicated to the ‘vision for children’s learning’, ‘relationships’ are mentioned five times in both 2009 (p7) and 2022 (p6). As well as the wonderful definition of ‘Being’ in Version 1… ‘BEING: Childhood is a time to be, to seek and make meaning of the world’ — the idea appears again in the definition of Pedagogy (2009, p84) as: Early childhood educators’ professional practice, especially those aspects that involve building and…

In April 2024, Adam participated in an international study tour to Reggio Emilia, Italy, immersing himself in the Reggio Emilia Approach. He was part of the Australian delegation led by the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange. Adam says that his experience has brought to life more than ten years of reading, listening and thinking about the principles of Reggio Emilia. He shares that the experience has awakened a different kind of curiosity, wonder and responsibility for his work. He says that, as anticipated, he leaves the experience with more questions than answers, finding comfort in the words of Maddalena Tedeschi (Pedagogista, Reggio Emilia), who reminded participants that ‘…our conversations can go on forever and ever in the freedom of discovery…’ My experiences in Reggio Emilia awakened a lighter self, yet…

One of the most beautiful gifts we can offer children is to show up with curiosity, keenly interested in all they have to offer and say. This, in turn, has always brought me great joy as a teacher, often reminding me of the importance of wonder, imagination, and delight in the seemingly ordinary encounters of our daily lives. Indeed, the birthplace of all good curriculum decision-making must start here. Project work and inquiry approaches embrace this as the pulse that drives meaningful and engaging learning experiences. This approach ensures that the curriculum is dynamic and relevant, rooted in the children’s real experiences and questions, and encourages them to explore, discover, and grow through their sense of wonder and imagination. Being curious, tuning in and listening Every day, children offer us…

PEGS Kindergarten is an integral part of the learning journey at Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School. Located on the junior school boys’ campus, our three kindergarten cottages each offer a full-time tailored program to 27 children from differing backgrounds and services. However, our overarching focus is relationships—to each other and to our environment. The PEGS kindergarten approach emphasises curiosity-driven exploration, fostering critical thinking, creativity and self-confidence through hands-on, inquiry-based learning experiences. This article features the children and educational team from Cottage 51, highlighting their work and discoveries as documented in ‘Our Inquiry Story – Building a Sense of Identity’. As our journey together begins, our focus is to ensure: ▪ All children feel a sense of belonging – building a sense of identity ▪ All children build positive relationships. ▪…

SHARE WITH US YOUR JOURNEY INTO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION. HOW DID YOU END UP WHERE YOU ARE NOW? My journey in early childhood education began at our family-run centre, which was owned by my parents. Initially, I started helping out after school and working on my days off from university, where I was studying a bachelor’s degree. As time went on, I found myself taking on part-time work at the centre. By the time I finished university, things were shifting—my parents were in the midst of expanding the service, and it felt like the perfect opportunity for me to step in and play a bigger role. This was back in the day when there were no computers and not many policies or procedures. They asked if I wanted to take…

For early childhood education and care professionals seeking a new inquiry-based project, incorporating an additional language program offers a dynamic opportunity to explore language as a medium for cultural expression, cognitive development, and social connection. This encourages continuous questioning and discovery in the learning process. Educators and children can collaboratively explore language as a tool for communication, identity, and cultural understanding, continually questioning and reflecting on how language shapes their experiences and interactions. Embedding an additional language project into the service can start as simply as including some words, phrases and songs during daily routines and transitions, laying the foundation for a rich, inquiry-based space where educators can explore essential questions about their role in supporting language development. They might ask themselves: How can we support cultural identity through language?…

…By inviting children’s questions, we unleash the power of intrinsic motivation. We all tend to develop more enthusiasm for, and ultimately become more skilful at, pursuing questions about which we’re genuinely curious than those handed to us by someone else. Alfie Kohn 2015 …children can raise the right question for themselves if the setting is right.’ As a result, ‘they are moved to tax themselves to the fullest to find an answer. Eleanor Duckworth 1987 The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Dorothy Parker If you only ask questions that seek one right answer, children will not be engaged in interactions that stretch their schema about the world Unkown I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious. Albert Einstein…

With each report on the news or social media about yet another Australian woman being murdered or another woman and her children being murdered by an intimate partner, I immediately try to imagine who the perpetrator, the man, may have been as a young child. I also wonder what happened in this child’s life trajectory that led to such devastating and tragic events. As an early childhood teacher, I can only imagine that for these men, it was a gradual change in their way of being throughout early childhood and adolescence, and finally into adulthood, with the impact of various social influences along the way. ‘Our Watch’, an independent, not-for-profit organisation, established by the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments, was a key initiative under the National Plan in June 2013 to…

Of course, we love themes. That’s the way we organise ourselves. We have neatly labelled boxes in the cupboard—holidays, seasons, dinosaurs—all those things that come up every year and give us a sense of order! It’s what we’ve always done; it’s traditional. Families expect to enjoy the Easter hat parade and the scary Halloween costumes! Well, maybe. What happens if we put those expectations to one side for the moment? What if we consider other possibilities for ways to engage with curriculum? What about this philosophy? ‘The gift teaching gives is a continual experience of the not-yet-known – even the unknowable – in our students and in ourselves.’ (Stremmel, in DeGioia et al., 2023, p4). That would mean that we would focus more on the children and adults in the…

INQUIRY-BASED PROJECT LEARNING IN NEW ZEALAND If we create cultures of inquiry… how will our view of ourselves as teachers and the children as learners transform?—Sarah Probine and Jo Perry WHAT WAS THE RESEARCH Inquiry-based project learning as an approach to foster wellbeing, sustained focus, and bi-cultural practice in early childhood education. WHY WAS THE RESEARCH CONDUCTED To determine how early childhood teachers in New Zealand have interpreted global and local ideas and discussions on inquiry-based project learning and how this impacts children’s learning. WHO DID IT? Sarah Probine, Jo Perry, Joanne Marie Alderson, Yo Heta-Lensen, Rachael Burke and Fiona Louise McAlevey. (The research was a collaboration between researchers from Manukau Institute of Technology, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, Auckland University of Technology and Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology)…

This is a way to focus your thinking. Finding titles for your ‘noticings’ may be part of your organisational strategy for formative assessment, an attempt to understand more about pedagogical documentation, or a chance to analyse everyday interactions in order to be better informed about the children in your care. This strategy ‘lifts the bar’ on traditional ‘observations’ and ‘anecdotal records’–both of which are expected early childhood professional practice. So, what are we talking about? Let’s say you have been intrigued by the way a reticent child is beginning to hover around the edge of vivacious play events or a small group has begun to make signs to go with their block-built roadworks. In order to remember the incident in the middle of a busy morning, you’ve made some quick…

Dr Alma Fleet, Associate Semann & Slattery and Honorary Associate Professor of Macquarie University is a leading thinker, thought-provoking presenter, and a highly respected author renowned for her expertise in pedagogical documentation. Alma is well-known for her ability to make complex ideas clear and practical. She has significantly influenced how educators approach documentation. Her contributions continue to shape how we work with children, helping educators integrate meaningful documentation into their practice, which is essential for deepening children’s inquiry and learning. Published in 2017, ‘Pedagogical Documentation in Early Years Practice’ is considered a seminal work in early childhood education. The book, co-authored by Dr Alma Fleet, Dr Catherine Patterson and Janet Robertson, is well regarded for its guidance and ability to deepen educators’ understanding of children’s learning processes through pedagogical documentation.…

Projects are not ‘activities’, themes or topics, but rather co-constructed and co-designed pieces of research, which weave together the complexity and beauty of children’s ideas, thinking and theories (continually emerging from their inquiry and play) with adult intentionality, responsiveness and curiosity. Projects are also not a final product, or a list of ticked-off outcomes – even though joyfully working towards a ‘product’ – something of shared importance – is often at the heart of many projects. Core to a project’s development, as both a strategy and a stance, is pedagogical documentation. Without pedagogical documentation – a process of listening, noticing and gathering data which is intentionally anaylsed, interpreted, reflected upon, and used as a relaunch for planning – projects cannot grow authentically in their trajectories in ways that honour both…

Pop ‘Floorbooks’ into Google. What do you get? Dr Claire Warden, Dr Claire Warden, Dr Claire Warden… ad infinitum! — Dr Claire Warden is well-known as the creator of the Thinking and Talking Floorbooks® Approach. Claire and Floorbooks® have made a global mark in early childhood education. Recognised in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) for its unique way of capturing children’s voices, Clare’s Floorbooks® have transformed how educators document learning and foster collaborative cultures. Like a tree with many branches, Claire’s work extends across numerous areas of early learning. With a PhD in nature pedagogy, Claire is passionate about getting children outdoors and connected to the natural world. She established Auchlone Nature Kindergarten in Scotland, where her inquiry-led practice connects children with nature in meaningful ways. As the author…

What do we mean by ‘meaning-making?’ We are hearing the term more and more often in professional contexts, but as is the case with much professional language, we may not agree on what we think the term ‘means’! Waiting in a car park, the following idea caught my attention as I was reading the paper. In the enforced quietness, I mused about a book review of Svend Brinkmann’s Think (2024), in which Davis (the reviewer) wrote that, ‘Meaningful thought must be done slowly and carefully. It is also easy to forget that it requires practice, patience and guidance from good teachers.’ Seeking ‘meaningfulness is unlikely to be a straightforward matter. I suspect it has more to do with ‘state of mind’ than ‘programming efficiency’. Let’s think more about it! Peter…

This article follows a previous article in this edition, The warmth of project work, where I highlighted that projects are not ‘activities’, themes, or topics but rather co-constructed and co-designed pieces of research that joyfully weave together children’s ideas and theories with adult intentionality, responsiveness, and curiosity. They are unfolding visible stories of thinking that engage a community of learners. Carla Rinaldi adds further layers to this: A project, which we view as a sort of adventure and research, can start through a suggestion from an adult, a child’s idea, or an event such as a snowfall or something else unexpected. But every project is based on the attention of the educators to what the children say and do, as well as what they do not say and do not…

A project is an in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about. The investigation is usually undertaken by a small group of children within a class, sometimes by a whole class, and occasionally by an individual child. The key feature of a project is that it is a research effort deliberately focused on finding answers to questions about a topic posed by the children, the teacher, or the teacher working with the children. —Katz, 1994 STEP 1: DEFINE THE INQUIRY FOCUS It all starts with a good question! Begin by clearly defining the focus of your inquiry-based project. We have selected the concept of friendship—a fundamental aspect of children’s social development, offering a rich and meaningful theme for exploration. The project will consider the various dimensions of friendship with…

We hope you enjoy Pedagogy+ the art of teaching. Each issue of the magazine looks at a theme relevant to early education; exploring and challenging practice and thinking. The pages of Pedagogy+ brim with inspiring articles, candid conversations, the latest trends and lifestyle treats - our brief being to foster critical thinking and stimulate conversations that can advance the theory and practice of pedagogy in early education settings, and to encourage you to think about you. Why subscribe? - it’s an opportunity to: ■ Slow down, relax and enjoy a well-informed read ■ Share in the insights of highly-respected and knowledgeable education experts ■ Enjoy the experience of deciding - what might I like for me or that would make a great gift for someone else ■ Critically reflect on…

Let me introduce my dear friend and professional colleague, Carol Lee. Carol was the administrative heart of the Mia Mia Child and Family Study Centre at Macquarie University. Carol joined the team on day one of our opening in July 1994. For 24 years, she guided the centre’s operations with her sharp administrative skills, precise accounting, understanding of complex funding arrangements, and meticulous eye for detail. Yet always a warm and personable presence welcoming children and families to the centre, often the first point of contact from waiting list to enrolment. Managing budgets, coordinating staff schedules, organising relief staff and overseeing Mia Mia’s varied events calendar – open days, staff retreats – the monthly Mia Mia program visits were her favourite projects. Carol was an indispensable member of the Mia…