Recently I presented 'Listening with our eyes' to a great group of motivated and ambitious teachers at the Tamaki-Maungakiekie Early Years Conference, organised by Naketa Ikihele (Core Education early years facilitator). Each time I share this journey with teachers, I am excited by the fact that they are left with a provocation to seek yet another perspective into their own reflective teaching.
This journey began in 2008 and has evolved ever since. The title says it all and it’s reassuring to know that I am still invited to share this story with other teachers.
Even though the ECE ICT PL 3 year contract has ended, we are continuing to un-pack our over-arching research question which was ‘How to use ICT as a tool to enhance our pedagogical documentation’. Further investigating the endless ways, ICT tools can be intertwined into our curriculum to enhance children’s teaching and learning.
Pedagogical Documentation. . .
Pedagogical documentation is based on teachers’ decisions of how they choose to make children’s learning visible.
Are we creating documentation that articulates meaningful and understandable perspectives of what children see?
It is the significance of what lies beyond our teaching pedagogy that embodies who we are as individuals. This reflects on our practice and most importantly how we decide to interpret the learning of children and ourselves as professional practitioners. If we believe that it is important to advocate our early childhood teacher roles to the wider community, then I firmly believe we should be articulating meaningful and rigorous pedagogical documentation.
Life through a Lens - Photography
An interest as well as a passion for myself personally and professionally is ‘Photography’. Photographs tell their own story, and I feel share the essence of what we as teachers decide to capture. I have found that using photographs as a tool to document children’s learning, only drives our motives as teachers to form valid and informative pedagogical documentation.
Over the years I have learnt to use photography as a means to communicate with others the potential of it, but more importantly to tell the visual stories of infants and young toddlers investigations and experiences. How do we justify the stories we tell with the images we make?
The possibilities are endless really. If this can inspire, motivate others to seek other perspectives into making learning visible through ICT, then we can all provoke each other to further un-pack using ICT as a tool to utilize and enrich teaching and learning with children.
To be able to share the history on how this all began leaves me with so much pride of such achievements. This falls back on the imbuing team of leaders at Tots Corner, that have contributed to this learning journey in many ways.
This year I am an eFellow recipient along with 5 other teachers from around New Zealand.
The CORE Education eFellowship Awards recognise innovative e-learning practice by New Zealand teachers.
The Fellowship celebrates teaching excellence in an e-learning context and aims to raise public and educational community awareness of the benefits of e-learning. Once inducted into the fellowship, fellows will provide ongoing, community-focused leadership in the field.
http://www.core-ed.org/foundation/efellows-2011
Prior to this Jen Boyd (The Nest Teacher, Tots) and I sent in an abstract to present at the annual Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa, New Zealand Childcare Association (NZCA) conference in Rotorua this July. The excitement was that we had moved on in leaps and bounds with this next chapter of our ICT journey.
Having completed the Ministry of Education ECE ICT PL programme in 2008, the Infant/Young Toddler teaching team at Tots Corner continue to un-pack the ways in which ICT could enhance their pedagogical documentation. Through the use of ‘Google docs’ teachers are able to better interact and collaborate as they critically reflect upon their role as teachers. We wish to share how we have been challenged in our understanding of collaboration, coming to the conclusion that truly reflective practice comes through multiple perspectives.
Here I would like to acknowledge where my blog title 'Truly reflective practice, comes through multiple perspectives' came from. To be able to work alongside another teacher who sees what I see is not only a gift, but truly an experience I will cherish for as long as I teach. I can only say that this really is the beginning of something that took us beyond the true meaning of 'Collaboration'.
I look forward to sharing my next posting following presenting our keynote at the NZCA Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa Conference 2011.
This journey began in 2008 and has evolved ever since. The title says it all and it’s reassuring to know that I am still invited to share this story with other teachers.
Even though the ECE ICT PL 3 year contract has ended, we are continuing to un-pack our over-arching research question which was ‘How to use ICT as a tool to enhance our pedagogical documentation’. Further investigating the endless ways, ICT tools can be intertwined into our curriculum to enhance children’s teaching and learning.
Pedagogical Documentation. . .
Pedagogical documentation is based on teachers’ decisions of how they choose to make children’s learning visible.
Are we creating documentation that articulates meaningful and understandable perspectives of what children see?
It is the significance of what lies beyond our teaching pedagogy that embodies who we are as individuals. This reflects on our practice and most importantly how we decide to interpret the learning of children and ourselves as professional practitioners. If we believe that it is important to advocate our early childhood teacher roles to the wider community, then I firmly believe we should be articulating meaningful and rigorous pedagogical documentation.
The concept of a ‘Community of Learners’ is having a growing influence on how teachers are viewing learning and teaching processes. For this to be successful, teachers need to consider ways in which they present children’s learning and adult’s learning occuring within the group context, as opposed to learning that occurs in individualistic ways.
Giudici, Rinaldi & Kreschevsky (2001)
Life through a Lens - Photography
“ You don’t take a photograph, you make it. - Ansel Adams
An interest as well as a passion for myself personally and professionally is ‘Photography’. Photographs tell their own story, and I feel share the essence of what we as teachers decide to capture. I have found that using photographs as a tool to document children’s learning, only drives our motives as teachers to form valid and informative pedagogical documentation.
Over the years I have learnt to use photography as a means to communicate with others the potential of it, but more importantly to tell the visual stories of infants and young toddlers investigations and experiences. How do we justify the stories we tell with the images we make?
The possibilities are endless really. If this can inspire, motivate others to seek other perspectives into making learning visible through ICT, then we can all provoke each other to further un-pack using ICT as a tool to utilize and enrich teaching and learning with children.
To be able to share the history on how this all began leaves me with so much pride of such achievements. This falls back on the imbuing team of leaders at Tots Corner, that have contributed to this learning journey in many ways.
This year I am an eFellow recipient along with 5 other teachers from around New Zealand.
The CORE Education eFellowship Awards recognise innovative e-learning practice by New Zealand teachers.
The Fellowship celebrates teaching excellence in an e-learning context and aims to raise public and educational community awareness of the benefits of e-learning. Once inducted into the fellowship, fellows will provide ongoing, community-focused leadership in the field.
http://www.core-ed.org/foundation/efellows-2011
Prior to this Jen Boyd (The Nest Teacher, Tots) and I sent in an abstract to present at the annual Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa, New Zealand Childcare Association (NZCA) conference in Rotorua this July. The excitement was that we had moved on in leaps and bounds with this next chapter of our ICT journey.
Having completed the Ministry of Education ECE ICT PL programme in 2008, the Infant/Young Toddler teaching team at Tots Corner continue to un-pack the ways in which ICT could enhance their pedagogical documentation. Through the use of ‘Google docs’ teachers are able to better interact and collaborate as they critically reflect upon their role as teachers. We wish to share how we have been challenged in our understanding of collaboration, coming to the conclusion that truly reflective practice comes through multiple perspectives.
Here I would like to acknowledge where my blog title 'Truly reflective practice, comes through multiple perspectives' came from. To be able to work alongside another teacher who sees what I see is not only a gift, but truly an experience I will cherish for as long as I teach. I can only say that this really is the beginning of something that took us beyond the true meaning of 'Collaboration'.
I look forward to sharing my next posting following presenting our keynote at the NZCA Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa Conference 2011.
A beginning is only the start of a journey to another beginning.. . .
