Portfolio 1.3

For this portfolio I am looking specifically at Outcome 1.3 (Specifies the teaching approaches you’ll use & the learning environs you’ll create to support the social dimensions of early literacy/numeracy)

To me, this connects with EYLF Outcome 1: Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities. Further, we can also use the educator guidance information where I would ‘promote in all children a strong sense of who they are and their connectedness to others’ (National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care, 2013 p.21). 

This activity would be focused on age 3-4 in kindergarten. The activity would be primarily focused on gender. Based on research I have sourced in another topic, I have come across a range of activities that are typically encouraged more for one gender than the other by educators. For example, girls and domestic play, boys and messy play, boys and climbing.

As an initial introduction into the ideas of gender roles and critical thinking, I would make three columns on a whiteboard (male, female, both), cards with female & male symbols, and a number of activity cards.

With a group of children, ideally 3-10 with both genders & also different backgrounds represented, I would then go through the activities and ask, ‘Who can do this activity’. As we went through, I would ask them to justify their decisions, and see if they could come to a general consensus. At this point, I wouldn’t provide my own input other than questioning.

Once all of the activities were assigned on the board, we can then look at it overall. We can count how many activities are in the boys only, girls only, and both columns. We can look at less and more also. Finally, I would move them all in to the centre, and explain my rationale, in that all children are equally able to undertake these tasks, regardless of their gender.

Reasoning:

This idea was based on the reading I did for another topic, as well as an observation of one 4 year old who insisted that in one activity, only boys could be dinosaurs. It was also to do with my perceived lack of representation for gender issues in the EYLF when compared to cultural issues. Whilst discussing this in the seminar today, it was suggested to me that I check how many times gender was mentioned in the document, versus cultural terms. Gender appeared 3 times (and 1 was in the index), whilst cultur* (wildcard used to capture all variants) appeared 57 times. This further emphasised my need for activities such as the above in ECE settings.

Reference:

National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care (2013). Early Years Learning Framework. [online] Retrieved from: http://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/belonging_being_and_becoming_the_early_years_learning_framework_for_australia.pdf [Accessed: 7 Nov 2013].

Week 8, 6th of November + Portfolio 3.3

What and why?

My literacy reading for this week is “European Early Childhood Education Research Journal”. I chose this reading because it related to this week’s core concept of Analyst through advertising. Advertising appeals to me particularly as a research focus as it is related to my former studies and work.

Central Premise

The paper focused on 96 children from kindergartens in Greece, and looked at their responses to a series of advertising images. It was interesting to me that many people (often myself included) may dislike advertising to children as it can be deceptive – that is, appearing to be exciting and fun, when in fact the primary motive is something else, selling a product to the child. At the same time, the study was presented to children as the researcher wanting to ‘understand how children see and think about pictures’. What it was actually about was how they perceive the intent of, and emotionally react to advertising. Not exactly the same thing, and I understand the need for ambiguity in order to not taint the data, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Though buried in obscure wording (conation, anyone?), the most interesting finding I could gather was that around 8% of the children recognised that the purposes of the images presented to them were for selling / or advertising.

In practice

Based on the above finding, I think children should be exposed to critical literacy activities around advertising. I think discussions with each other around materials provided by the educator would be a good start. This could then be a starting point for online research around the source, purpose, and conventions used in advertising.

Update: 21/11/2013

I am resubmitting this reading reflection as I believe it aligns with Outcome 3.3: States the strengths & possible limits of your own ability to observe & offer literacy & numeracy experiences with children less than 4 years of age.

I believe that my background in business could be an advantage in early childhood in that I can provide an alternative viewpoint based on my experiences in this area. It is perhaps unusual that someone who has studied advertising is now recommending that 'I think children should be exposed to critical literacy activities around advertising'. However, considering that I have both studied and worked in this area to some extent, I think that this is not an opinion without merit.

In terms of potential weaknesses as an educator, I covered one example of this in 'Portfolio Week 5' where I said:

"When I first went to live in the Netherlands in 2011 I discovered to my surprise that I was more similar to other ‘macho’ Australian men than I thought. I refused to ride on the back of my girlfriend’s bicycle and couldn’t really explain why other than it felt ‘wrong’".

Whether this 'weakness' would be a weakness in all cases can be examined further. As prompted by the feedback I have received from Jesse via email (and perhaps similarly to my point about a business perspective above), I wonder if there are some situations where having an alternative, though archaic, point of view would be an advantage?

Reference:

Constandinidou-Semoglou, O. (2007). Early childhood education and adult-oriented advertising discourse. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 15(3), 329-341. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/61903755?accountid=10910

What and why?

My numeracy reading for this week is “Mathematics and Social Justice in Grade 1: How Children Understand Inequality and Represent It”. I thought this would be an interesting reading as I believe social justice issues are equally relevant in Australia as they are in Canada. Secondly, this article appeals to any Australian reader through the promotion of maths versus math, a pet peeve of many non-North American I’m sure, as well as having a focus on ‘The Rabbits’ by Shaun Tan, my favourite children’s book author / illustrator.

Central Premise

The paper uses an example of an activity where the children were asked to demonstrate aspects of The Rabbits books using Cuisenaire rods. It was fascinating to see the various ideas they came up with, and their equation of power with the various rods.

In practice

This reminded me of the reading I had last week, where the educator had isolated the various food items from The Very Hungry Caterpillar and made them into objects on a felt board to be manipulated. I am sensing a common theme of the importance of manipulatives in early numeracy, which is heartening as it seems far more engaging than what little I recall of my own early numeracy experiences.

I feel as though this is a particularly worthwhile example to emulate in that it not only addresses numeracy in an engaging way, but also challenges children to think about complex topics like power and social justice at the same time.

Reference:

Murphy, M. (2009). Mathematics and social justice in grade 1: How children understand inequality and represent it. Beyond the Journal: Young Children on the Web, May, Retrieved 6^th November 2013 from http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200905/BTJMurphy.pdf

Portfolio: Continuum Draft 2

This week for my portfolio I have completed my second draft of my literacy and numeracy continuums.

For the numeracy continuum, I have proceeded as planned. That is, to follow the original source of the Geist continuum and then to summarise key aspects of it to complete my remaining two sections, which were the 36-42 months and 42-48 months sections.

In doing this, I grappled with the ideas of what ‘some’ children can do and the ‘average’ child is able to do at that age, references to which are used heavily in the PBS source. In the end, I was able to use the ‘average’ metric for much of my continuum, which I was pleased with.

The second major change came after discussion with colleagues and also my tutor. That is, how to reconcile the central scale on my numeracy continuum with the literacy one, as the numeracy used ages and the literacy used generalised developmental stages, ‘Awareness’, ‘Exploration’ and so on.

The conclusion we came to was that, given that individual children can vary so markedly in their development, the developmental stages would be a more appropriate model. I probably wouldn’t have come up with this solution on my own, so I was grateful for the collaboration.

However, I needed to work out the implementation on my own. The original 5 stages represented a child’s development from birth-8. Numerically, the first issue is that it doesn’t divide neatly! The second issue is that, even if I were to divide it down the middle (for birth to age 4), this would mean that my scale would end halfway through the ‘Inquiry’ stage. ‘Inqu’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

However, my numeracy reading reflection this week stressed the importance of having high expectations for students. With this in mind, I made the decision that not only could (some) children complete the ‘Inquiry’ stage by 48 months, they could also be utilising their knowledge as well, e.g. using a map to locate an object in a room.

As such, I have applied the first 4 of the 5 developmental stages to both of my continuums. Both are available below. Please note, you need to click on them to view the high resolution versions.  

Numeracy Continuum:

Literacy Continuum:

Sources:

http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/four/mathematics.html

http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/files/links/link_157513.pdf

Week 7, October 31st

What and why?

My literacy reading for this week is “Early adopters: Playing new literacies and pretending new technologies in print-centric classrooms”. I chose this reading because it not only discussed literacy conventions, a hallmark of the ‘technician’ component of this course, but also business terms and video games that I am familiar with.

Central Premise

The paper highlights a situation where over fifty percent of kindergarten (and primary school) teachers identify themselves as ‘technology novices’. As such, technology can be seen as entertainment only, or a minor addition to the actual learning delivered in print. In the paper itself, teachers noted that a focus on high-stakes literacy testing allowed less time for a technology focus.

Much of the text focused on an invented battle video game created by two boys, and the process of making meaning within this. As a regular video game player this was complex even to me, but it was interesting to see this viewed from an academic perspective, e.g. ‘non-linear narrative structure, quite distinctive spatial layouts, ongoing and cumulative challenge levels, multiple and interactive cueing systems’.

In practice

I think it’s essential for educators to stay up to date with technology in order to be able to understand and communicate with students. However, I am still conflicted about introducing additional technology into the classroom at the centres where I currently teach, despite them currently being quite ‘low tech’ in my assessment. On the one hand, I feel as though technology activities are largely indoors, and additional outdoor time is useful to combat the growing obesity issue. On the other, I feel as though a quote by Luke (1999, cited in Wohlwend, 2009) raises a valid point:

“If we don’t [become involved], corporate software developers will maintain their control over content design that invariably shapes how and what [the software we use will] teach.”

That is to say, if we as educators have no involvement in the process, how are we able to have a positive influence on the directions this technology takes?

Reference:

Wohlwend, K. E. (2009). Early adopters: Playing new literacies and pretending new technologies in print-centric classrooms. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 9(2), 117-140. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/61860267?accountid=10910

What and why?

This week I searched for numeracy readings specifically related to development, in the hope that I could relate it to the numeracy continuum I am in the process of solidifying. I found that adding this extra requirement to my search made it more difficult to find articles, as I am now narrowing my search based on papers that are:

•  Peer-reviewed
•  Less than 10 years old
• About numeracy
•  Hopefully about children 4 years and younger
• Relevant to the ‘technician’ concept
• Relevant to my continuum

The article that best fit this description was ‘Numeracy in the early years: Project good start’ from the Australian Council for Educational Research. The study examined the numeracy skills of more than 1600 pre-school students who were tracked up until the end of their first year of school. A number of ‘assessment instruments’ (gap analyses / tests) were used to gauge the children’s skill levels.

Central Premise

It was found that girls outperformed boys on tasks that required verbal processing and fine motor-coordination skills, which was considered unsurprising as this is seen as common from a developmental perspective. Indigenous students performed less well in all areas assessed.

In centres that implemented numeracy in a subtle, play-based manner, it was found that those who used ‘systematic / planned play’ produced better results than ‘random play’. These terms were not elaborated on, but I assume this means that the activities were not purely child-led but had higher degrees of teacher preparation, facilitation, and interaction.

[Such a great idea, expanding on the numeracy within 'The very hungry caterpillar]

The report highlighted three key areas typical of pre-schools with exceptional numeracy performance:

1. “High expectations and clear goals, and an ability to communicate these clearly;
2. An awareness of the need for direct, formal development of children’s concepts in numeracy, and so having pedagogical focus on numeracy as well as literacy. Explicit plans for numeracy as a separate area of the program;
3. An awareness of numeracy on the part of the teacher, embedded in materials bought and made, and in the use of mathematical language with the children.”

(Thomson, 2004, p.16)

In practice

I feel like point three goes without saying. Pre-schools run by educators with poor awareness of numeracy seem very unlikely to perform well. However, the first two points are well worth remembering. The concept of having a ‘play-based’ and ‘child-led’ environment seems very common, but it’s important to remember that this should be tempered with an appropriate level of formal focus and planning. High expectations is also an aspect that I am thinking more about as I develop. When children say to me “I can’t do X”, I am taking this more as a challenge than a ‘get out of jail free card’.

Reference

Thomson, S. (2004). Numeracy in the early years: Project good start. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 9(4), 14-17. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/61906121?accountid=10910

Portfolio Week 6 - Continuum First Draft

For Numeracy, I've been trying to adapt the Geist continuum from the custom book to the purposes of this course. The difficulty is that the course covers up to 4 years whereas the continuum in the textbook covers only to age 3. So, I will need to source additional material. In the meantime though, here is my first draft:

I have found a fantastic resource for my literacy continuum from the DECD, called 'English language & literacy, Birth–Age 8, Planning for learning. It is split into three parts as follows:

Each of the above section also has a large number of examples, so I find it highly practical. These are split into three subsections as follows:

1) Language

2) Texts and Contexts

3) Strategies

The full document is available here:

http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/files/links/link_157513.pdf

Week 6, October 23rd

What and why?

This week for my literacy reading I looked at ‘Readers as text code breakers’. This ‘code breaker’ aspect appealed to me as it alluded to ideas of espionage and secret missions. I was not disappointed, by page three I was struggling my way through a secret message, and on page four I was learning about ‘word attack skills’!

As a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the exciting section was actually largely a summary of several Freebody and Luke articles. I must confess I was actually anti-Freebody and Luke up until this point, due to their disdain for paragraph usage in their paper we were provided earlier this semester. I was pleased to see that their ideas did live up to the hype after all, they just need Harris, Turbill, Fitzsimmons & McKenzie (or Jovanovic) working tirelessly to convert these ideas into concise English for me to be able to follow the ideas.

Central Premise

Text code breakers “Attend to visual information and to non-visual information to decipher text”. They build up a range of knowledge, such as the conventions like grammar in writing. They also have a range of skills, such as the aforementioned ‘word attack’ skills which include sounding a word out, and breaking a word down into its component syllables, the awkwardly-named ‘syllabification’.

I also learned about ‘phonemes’, a term I had heard of but never knew the definition of. I was interested to learn that without an understanding of these key sounds, “children are most likely to have serious difficulty in learning to read and write”.

In practice

I found the section on ‘Scaffolding Children as Text Code Breakers’ to contain the most practical advice. I have included the list as it isn’t too long. I found the idea of linking reading to ‘meaningful contexts’ to be worthwhile advice, and I immediately thought of the recipe ideas with Ali and Luca’s bakery we discussed earlier.

I don’t know whether I would use it in the method presented, but I like the idea of the six groups of ‘code breaking behaviours’ listed here. Whilst we’ve discussed that ‘testing’ is becoming an out-dated concept, at least having a list of behaviours to look out for is a very useful starting point. I could be diagnosing ‘graphophonic miscues’ of my own before long.

Criticism

I found the sections on ICT to be oddly out-dated for 2006, with phrases like “CD-Roms are not part of the internet” as well as “And what about the computer keyboard?” Perhaps this is just because ICT is second nature to me. I did a little research and note that there is also a 2001 edition of the same book, it seems like this maybe wasn’t updated for the 2006 edition.

Reference

Harris, P., Turbill, J., Fitzsimmons, P. & McKenzie, B. (2006). Readers as text code breakers, Reading in the Primary School years(pp. 114-158). South Melbourne: Social Science Press. 

What and why?

My numeracy reading for this week is the ‘Early number’ chapter from ‘Teaching mathematics in primary schools’. Whilst the article approaches early number from a school context, it is invaluable in that it frequently discusses which point children tend to be at in their number learning when they arrive at school. E.g. “Before they begin formal schooling, many young students have the capacity to subitise” or “Many children can count to 10 before they commence school”.

  

Central Premise

There are a great deal of topics covered over the chapter including classification, patterning, counting stages, counting strategies, conservation of number and so on. I find the ‘jump strategy’ and ‘split strategy’ of counting particularly appealing as it represents computation visually.

Something that surprised me was that there is apparently debate over whether base 10 blocks should be used to teach place value. This is interesting to me as I have a maths subject this semester where we have been looking at base 10 blocks, and I wasn’t aware of the debate. This is something I may research further in future.

In practice

As well as researching base 10 blocks and jump / skip counting further, I also liked the idea of presenting mathematical word problems in a variety of ways. This lends itself to my comfort with words over numbers, but also allows word problems to cover a variety of practical situations that will hopefully be relevant to the student’s life.

Reference

Zeuenbergen, R., Dole, S. & Wright, R. (2004). Early number, Teaching mathematics in primary schools (pp. 121-148). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Portfolio Week 5 - Recognition of personal prejudices

For this portfolio, I specifically wanted to focus on outcome 4.3 by looking at my own prejudices and how I propose to try and overcome them. To provide some background, when I first went to live in the Netherlands in 2011 I discovered to my surprise that I was more similar to other ‘macho’ Australian men than I thought. I refused to ride on the back of my girlfriend’s bicycle and couldn’t really explain why other than it felt ‘wrong’.

Perhaps similarly, there are many occupations that are gender imbalanced, and sometimes the reasons people think this is the case are just as vague and unhelpful. For example:

“When I started as a nurse student myself, all those decades ago… we were starting to come into the profession in fairly regular numbers, and at one stage we thought that [the percentage of males] is likely to get up to 15, 20, 25 per cent but it never has, and it’s not clear to us as to why that is.”

Source: http://lipmag.com/featured/the-gender-imbalance-in-female-dominated-occupations/

What I think many people could agree on is that all professions should offer people pathways to pursue them, and not be blocked based on societal perceptions of whether that role is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for a particular gender. Perceptions can be formed from a very young age, and as such, I think it’s important that educators, to quote the Hippocratic oath, at least ‘do no harm’ in this regard.

So, in order to challenge some of these stereotypes, I came up with 6 occupations that I perceive as gender-biased in one way or another, and sought out pictures depicting someone from the opposite gender carrying it out. My idea is that these could be used in a room to provide children (and educators such as myself) with examples that run contra to our expectations. 

Here are my 6 posters. Please note that I have linked them rather than uploaded them due to very large file sizes, so they would be suitable for printing.

Female engineer

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/pls/portallive/docs/1/64437699.JPG

·     Female ICT specialist

http://blogs.cisco.com/wp-content/uploads/Women-in-ICT_gallery.jpg

·     Female welder

http://newsroom.lincolnelectric.com/images/9026/media_gallery/JessiCombs8.jpg

·     Male nurse

http://www.jacksonnursing.com/uploads/2011/07/aa-male-nurse.jpg

·     Male early childhood teacher

http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/life/parent/2013/02/07/men_stand_out_as_daycare_workers/nicholas_earle.jpg

·     Male dancer

http://balletnews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/audition-attitude.jpg

Just the act of seeking these images out was insightful. I found some of them very difficult to find a positive image of, for example female construction worker images seem to be largely caricatures or ‘sexy’ Halloween outfits, so I had to scrap that category.

I also found some of the male ballet dancer photos confronting. I think this is partly because many of these were scantily clad, but also I think part of this is due to my own prejudices, something that I will need to continue to work on.