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Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter you will:

1. describe the intent underlying the role of the educational leader in the current Australian early childhood education and care policy context

2. identify key practices that enable effective educational leadership in early childhood education and care settings

3. determine the evidence needed to lead learning and track the effectiveness of the impact of educational leadership on young children's learning outcomes.

Introduction

Educational leadership is key to building high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs and driving the process of continuous improvement. Strong and effective educational leadership supports all teachers in early childhood settings to portray effective, evidence-based practices that advance children's learning. Educational leadership, however, is a complex role and requires conditions to be in place in order for it be enacted in a purposeful and systematic way. In this chapter, we will explore the role of the educational leader as outlined in national ECEC policy and international research. We outline the active ingredients that enable leading for learning.

Conceptualising educational leadership

In Australia, contemporary early years policy testifies to greater recognition of effective leadership and its impact on teachers’ capacities to advance young children's learning. The importance and influence of leadership is embedded, for the first time, within the legal and policy documents that comprise the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care (NQF). The role ‘educational leader’ is enshrined in national law and regulations (Parliament of Victoria, 2010; MCEECDYA, 2010) and leadership is a key aspect of Quality Area 7 of the National Quality Standard (NQS) (ACECQA, 2012). Here, the NQS confirms that effective leadership ‘contributes to quality environments for children's learning and development’, promotes a positive organisational culture and builds a professional learning community (ACECQA, 2011, p. 169). The NQS further outlines the knowledge, skills and characteristics required of effective leaders, noting that effective leaders have a strong understanding of their service and local context; they build a skilled team of teachers; they empower their colleagues through a continuous improvement process; and they manage change.

Learning and Teaching in the Early Years provides a comprehensive, contemporary and practical introduction to early childhood teaching in Australia. A strong focus on the links between theory, policy and practice firmly aligns this text with the Early Years Learning Framework. Written for students of early childhood programs, this book covers learning and development, as well as professional practice in teaching children from birth to eight years. In recognition of the evolving role of educators, topic areas include learning, teaching, working with families, leading, advocating and researching. Each chapter contains learning objectives, key terms and reflection points. Detailed case studies document the intersection between research, policy and practice, enhancing pre-service and practicing educators' appreciation of how a policy-aligned approach reinforces learning and development in the early years. This text draws on the latest research to present children's learning as a dynamic and active process requiring specific, intentional teaching behaviours.

Summary

When I was documenting my own thoughts of the 2007 Federal Labor Government and its achievements in early childhood policy, it was Collette Tayler who said to me: ‘we're involved in a decade-long effort. If we hold our nerve, we're on track to achieve something fine in this country’. Then, as now, I loved the optimism and ambition of this statement. This publication, guided so ably by Collette, Jane Page and many other academic colleagues, is an important and timely compilation. It explores the raison d’être behind Australia's renewed investment in the early years of a child's life, and details the policy framework and research ideas that govern learning and development in all care settings – be it pre-school, family or long day care.

As described across these chapters, there is now a national focus on policy goals, and a set of standards and regulations against which we can judge the quality of the services provided for Australian children. There has been fine-tuning, to be sure, but there now exists, across the disparate jurisdictions that make up the Commonwealth of Australia, a recognition that the Australian National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care is a core foundational document.

Within this volume the authors have also considered the many critical issues that are needed to achieve an optimal pedagogical environment. They include the recognition that young children are learners with rights, that intentional teaching is the way to help children achieve the skills they need to succeed to life, and importantly an acknowledgement that families are the ‘first’ partners in the learning process.

Readers of this publication will emerge with a finer appreciation of the complexity, hard work and critical thinking that now informs practice by teachers and families. We know that children are born hard-wired to learn and that the major life phase that represents early childhood is a period of astonishing development. That so many of our talented academic thinkers, policy makers and practitioners are working collaboratively is testament to the open spirit and sense of opportunity that is shared across the early childhood education and care sector.

Summary

Learning and teaching are two of the most honourable pursuits in life. In the first eight years, a child's learning is nothing short of remarkable, and it is conditioned on the context in which each child lives. This text explores the many opportunities that exist for early childhood teachers to promote, support and maximise young children's learning and development. The authors draw upon contemporary Australian and international research into child development and education, social and educational policy, and professional practice in order to highlight the active ingredients of learning and teaching young children. Forming and sustaining positive and strong learning and teaching relationships is at the heart of human engagement. The quest of any early childhood teacher is to enable every child to progress along optimal and equitable learning pathways as children engage with others, including their families and members of the broader communities in which they live and grow.

Each chapter of this text highlights both conceptual and practical information to support early childhood teachers in their role, especially to promote young children's learning. Collectively the authors of all chapters are drawn together through a broader unity of purpose – the coalescence of evidence-based principles and priorities for working with young children (infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers and children in school). In different ways, the authors profile opportunities for promoting learning in a range of educational contexts that serve children in the first eight years of life. Research, policy and practice case studies are integrated throughout the text to illustrate specific developments and projects, and to highlight the potential intersections of learning, research, policy and practice.

Learning and teaching in the early years is shaped by how we, as teachers, understand the child as a learner. This book is constructed around an image of young children as strong, competent learners with the capacities to be knowledgeable about their worlds and subjects of interest. This image underscores the importance of viewing young children as capable contributors and thinkers who thrive in the context of warm, secure and interesting environments with respectful, knowledgeable and engaged teachers. It speaks to the importance of early childhood teachers promoting children's active participation in the learning process, listening and responding to children's perspectives and lived experiences, and adopting pedagogical practices that support the realisation of the general principles outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter you will:

1. explore the nature of advocacy and how it can be applied to advance children's learning and development outcomes

2. consider how research has informed advocacy efforts in the Australian context and influenced policy change

3. recognise how advocacy can be applied to support high-quality practice in early childhood education care programs.

Introduction

To be an advocate and to engage in advocacy is to adopt a stance, advance a cause, and attempt to produce a result on behalf of an interest of a person, group or cause.

(Cohen, 2004, p. 9)

Teachers need to be powerful advocates for the children in their programs. Advocacy is an important dimension of the professional role of the teacher as it can produce significant positive effects on children's learning and development. Advocacy can also be complex work – it may involve not only children but also children's families, teacher colleagues, other professionals and potentially other organisations, such as agencies concerned with health and well-being issues, governments and unions. This chapter considers the nature of advocacy, and the way collective action can be a helpful tool for improving the lives of young children and their families, especially in settings where behaviour reflecting racism, intolerance, gender bias and other forms of discrimination results in the marginalisation of some. The material invites you to consider the context of advocacy work in early childhood settings, and the skills and strategies of working as an advocate for the purpose of enhancing children's outcomes.

Nature of advocacy

The power of education to transform lives is the reason behind centuries of effort making access to basic education universal, and the initiatives enabling young children access to high-quality early education and care. A strong start to life-long learning is thought to ensure overall well-being.

This study explored Russian as a foreign language (RFL) learners’ self-reported strategic uses of VoiceThread (VT)—a multimodal asynchronous computer-mediated communication tool—in order to gain insights into learner perceived effectiveness of VT for second language (L2) oral skills development and to determine the factors that contributed to those perceptions. The participants were eight undergraduate students who attended six weekly tutoring sessions that combined face-to-face (F2F) RFL instruction with VT activities. VT allowed them to access text-based, graphic, video, and aural linguistic input; record and store audio/video-recorded output; listen and comment on peers’ recordings; and receive individualized teacher feedback on oral performance. Data from activity logs and researcher field notes were triangulated with participants’ responses to two surveys and a semi-structured oral interview. Findings indicated that participants believed that VT supported their oral proficiency development through the provision of additional time and resources for independent planning, rehearsal, and controlled production of L2 forms. Most participants also agreed that VT’s playback and record features were the most beneficial for developing language skills, enhancing the reflection process, and facilitating self-assessment and creativity in the L2. Yet, despite VT’s multimodal affordances and the availability of communicative tasks via VT, participants did not perceive VT as a social environment that could promote peer-to-peer interaction or replace F2F communication. A thematic data analysis suggested that participants’ preferences for language learning tasks influenced their strategic uses of VT’s features, which ultimately affected their perceptions of VT’s value for promoting meaningful language learning interactions. Pedagogical considerations are discussed.

Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter you will:

1. consider the role of research in building understanding of how children learn and how teaching can affect positive outcomes for children

2. learn about methodologies commonly used in research in early childhood education and care programs, and how teachers and young children can be active researchers

3. discover how research methods inform a systematic and intentional approach in supporting learning and teaching

4. consider the ethical issues particular to research with young children in early childhood programs.

Introduction

Research in early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs is increasingly focused on the practices or process of high-quality teaching in early learning settings and the primacy of learning with families in the home environment. Furthermore, research in ECEC is drawing policy attention to the importance of very early learning in the period from birth to the age of three, as evidence from neuroscience underscores the significance of early experiences for a child's brain development and functioning (see also Chapter 1 and Chapter 2). Research in ECEC necessarily acknowledges children's rights (see also Chapter 3) as a core consideration of research design. Over the past four decades, a great deal of work has been done in adapting or establishing methodologies and methods that enable children's voices to be heard. This chapter is informed by these two key influences – how evidence contributes to our understanding of learning and teaching in the early years, and how research ethics is a central platform of ECEC research – and focuses on approaches to research. Each case study in this chapter is drawn from contemporary research projects in early childhood and they each illustrate methods that are productive in eliciting children's experiences and knowledge. These three research case studies in turn highlight the role research plays in shaping practice and policy in early learning and teaching.

The role research plays in shaping practice and policy in early learning and teaching

Research plays an important role in the lives of teachers. Throughout this text we highlight the ways in which research:

Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter you will:

1. explore the key principles underlying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and their implications for young children's learning

2. consider why rights-based principles have been integrated into the documents that comprise the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care

3. reflect on the image of the child as a rights holder and the implications this has for teaching values, approaches and practices.

Introduction

This chapter will draw on the key principles underlying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989) and research to position young children as dynamic and capable participants in the learning process. It will highlight the key rights-based general principles, policy directives and research studies that underscore the central importance of relationships and interactions between adults and children and the impact that they have for learning and teaching. Against this background, it will examine and profile policy directives, key rights-based principles and research studies that assist teachers to explore their role in promoting children's active participation in the learning process.

Repositioning young children as active social agents: Australian policy context

Teaching and learning in the early years is predicated on how we, as teachers, understand and construct the child as a learner. In this chapter, and indeed throughout this text, we put forward an image of the child as a holder of rights, and a competent learner from birth with the capacities to learn in and through her relationships with others. In this chapter, we will explore the principles embedded in the UNCRC that assist us to reflect on how we, as teachers, understand and construct children as competent learners and the implications this has for our teaching values, approaches and practices.

The UNCRC is a major international document that has shaped theoretical debates, policy and practice around young children (Cordero Arce, 2015; Woodhead, 2006). In Australia, the key principles underlying the UNCRC have been integrated into the documents that comprise the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care (NQF), including national law and national regulations, the National Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) for children from birth to five years of age and the National Quality Standard (NQS).

Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter you will:

1. understand how Australian policy regarding the provision of education and care in the early years is shaped and informed by research evidence

2. explain how the Early Years Learning Framework and National Quality Framework affect learning and teaching

3. describe how Australian policy reform has influenced the role of teachers.

Introduction

Government policy sets out a vision and a program of ideas about what governments want to do, and the governance for implementation. In this way, government policy is positioned both to frame the social discourse that takes place across communities around a topic, and change the context and practice within the area of interest or concern. Government policy formation varies in its nature according to political leadership – in brief, democracies differ from autocracies in the way that policy is designed, decreed, legislated and implemented. Furthermore, government policy may set direction across a wide range of areas (e.g. regarding efficiency or accountability), address a population issue (e.g. social well-being) or direct action in a specific area (e.g. child protection).

Decisions to develop or change policy may be motivated by a range of factors including: community pressure; changing societal values; political idealism; information on the status or well-being of the whole or sectors of the population; economic imperatives; a need for better governance, transparency or accountability; and findings from recent research or global trends and developments in the area. Typically, no single factor alone accounts for a decision by government to develop or revise policy in an area of concern or interest.

Policy may be designed to: change the behaviour of businesses, organisations and individuals; solve a particular problem; or improve on policy and systems that are already in place (Victorian Public Sector Commission, 2015; Australian Public Service Commission, 2009). Policy setting is by no means free of controversy! In Australia, the combined and sometimes competing policy interests of investing early to support the long-term human development of its youngest citizens, intervening to protect and ensure the well-being of children living in disadvantaged circumstances, and supporting parental (especially women's) participation in the paid workforce shape the policy design and ongoing adjustment of the National Quality Framework. Within the constraints of a chapter, priority is given to the aspects of early childhood and family policy that pertain to children's learning.

Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter you will:

1. characterise the role of the ‘intentional’ teacher within the Australian context, and the process of planning for learning to ensure the effectiveness of children's learning programs

2. identify evidence-based teaching strategies and interventions that are known to advance young children's learning and higher-order thinking

3. consider the balance, purpose and intent of adult-led and child-led learning in play-based educational programs.

Introduction

To make a positive difference to each child's learning and development is the core work of teachers, at once posing unique challenges and delivering great reward. Teaching children from birth to eight years of age affords real opportunity to ensure that ‘none of the talents which are hidden like buried treasure in every person [are] left untapped’ (International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, 1996, p. 23). Delors and colleagues set four key pillars underlying education and life: ‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’, ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to live together’ (International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century), and each of these pillars affects the processes that teachers deploy to assess, plan for and promote children's learning. No matter whether teachers work with infants, toddlers, young children or children in their first years of schooling, the quality of planning to support children's learning, and the pedagogical strategies selected, will be strongly influenced by each teacher's knowledge and understandings of children and their development, interests and culture, and the learning theories and strategies available to support learning (see also Chapter 1).

In this chapter, the role of teachers in promoting children's learning and development is explored. Emphasis is placed of the role of the intentional teacher and the importance of the planning cycle, including documentation. Research has highlighted that what teachers know and do has the power to heighten children's motivation to learn and their love of learning, while also strengthening children's capacity to engage progressively in higher-order thinking (Hamre et al., 2013; Siraj & Asani, 2015). A core skill of teachers is to make children's learning visible to the children themselves and to others, including families who are acknowledged as the child's first teachers.

This article draws on research data from a state-wide case study, intertwined with three key moments that occurred in late 2014, to critically engage with the hopes and prospects of the Sustainability Cross-Curriculum Priority (CCP) in Australian schools. These key moments — the IPCC 5th Assessment Synthesis Report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014), the conclusion of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005–2014 (UNDESD), and the release of the Australian Government's Review of the Australian Curriculum: Final Report (Donnelly & Wiltshire, 2014) — illuminate both the imperative of societal change towards sustainability and the difficulty associated with integrating sustainability learning into Australian schools. The research findings presented in this article suggest that while there is reasonable support for the Sustainability CCP in some Tasmanian schools, there are many concerns that may be preventing effective integration of sustainability into curriculum. Most notably, there is a limited level of teacher understanding or capability in relation to the Sustainability CCP, which is probably compounded by a distinct lack of professional learning and development. As the spotlight is increasingly focused on the CCPs, we argue for structural change to the curriculum, alongside increased support for schools and teachers, in order to see sustainability learning effectively weaved into Australian schooling.

Current methods of agricultural and environmental education for indigenous farmers in Papua New Guinea (PNG) fail to provide high level engagement. Indigenous knowledge (IK) forms the basis of natural resource management, agriculture and health of farmers in PNG, yet its value to agricultural and environmental education in PNG is rarely recognised. The argument made in this article is that valuing indigenous knowledge will enhance agricultural and environmental education. The purpose of this empirical study was to assess the application of a knowledge management model in understanding indigenous knowledge to enhance agricultural and environmental education. This article focuses on agricultural and environmental indigenous knowledge and culture in two villages in the Western Highlands of PNG. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and apprentice observations were methods to collect data from small-scale indigenous farmers. The study found that as farmers shift to cash crops, IK is devalued against Western knowledge. The study also found that trust, culture, and social barriers limit sharing of knowledge. The article concludes with recommendations for future agricultural and environmental education in the PNG highlands.

The case study reported here seeks to promote the sharing of successful practice in Education for Sustainability (EfS). It uses literature and three personal and professional autobiographies as background to the development of a set of sustainability educational practices integrated into a primary/middle school teacher education program. The set of activities focus on developing in students an understanding of EfS and of processes appropriate to it that they can use in their classrooms on graduation. It is the authors’ view that their collaborative building on shared beliefs, contemporary ecojustice literature and three decades of developing enabling pedagogical practices has assisted their efforts to ‘get’ EfS, and to ensure that their students, particularly as beginning teachers, ‘got it’. The ecojustice principles for teacher education programs are outlined in this article and are believed to have wide applicability in many aspects of ecojustice approaches to pro-ecosocial education.

Education

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Chapter 6 - Leading for learning

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Governance of the Illegal Trade in E-Waste and Tropical Timber: Case Studies on Transnational Environmental Crime Lieselot Bisschop Green Criminology Series, Routledge, Ashgate, UK, 2016, ISBN 147241540X

Learning and Teaching in the Early Years

Foreword

Summary

Contents

Introduction

Summary

Chapter 7 - Advocating for learning

Summary

Developing oral proficiency with VoiceThread: Learners’ strategic uses and views

Frontmatter

Index

Chapter 8 - Research for learning and teaching

Summary

Chapter 3 - Young children as learners with rights

Summary

Chapter 2 - A policy frame on early learning and teaching

Summary

Chapter 4 - Teaching for learning

Summary

Hopes and Prospects for the Sustainability Cross-Curriculum Priority: Provocations From a State-Wide Case Study

Education for Sustainable Development in Eco-Schools: Contextualised Stories From England and South Africa Jo Anna Reed Johnson Lambert Academic Publishing, 2014, ISBN 3659167363

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science Andrea Wulf John Murray Publisher, London, 2015, ISBN 1848548982

Valuing Indigenous Knowledge in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea: A Model for Agricultural and Environmental Education

Motives in Children's Development: Cultural-Historical Approaches Edited by Mariane Hedegaard , Anne Edwards , and Marilyn Fleer Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2014, ISBN 1107626889

Pathway to ‘Knowing Places’ — and Ecojustice — Three Teacher Educators’ Experiences

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Learning and Teaching in the Early Years

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