Thinking Through Pedagogy for Primary and Early Years

Tony Eaude

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780857250650
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

This practical, accessible book encourages a deep, often challenging, consideration of how young children learn and how teachers and other adults best support their learning. Essential reading for education students, it draws on research and practice to help readers reflect critically on their beliefs and practice. After comparing different views of pedagogy, it explores children?s development and the importance of culture and context, emphasising the attributes of successful learners, relationships and the learning environment. Readers are helped think through how different aspects of pedagogy are interlinked and consider the implications for breadth, balance, planning and assessment and continuing professional development.

1 Revealing assumptions about learning and teaching

Chapter Focus

The critical thinking exercises in this chapter focus on:

analysing widely held assumptions and beliefs related to pedagogy and effectiveness;

challenging these, and your own, assumptions;

considering the link between pedagogy and aims;

identifying key features of professionalism and how this affects personal beliefs and policy expectations.

The key ideas discussed are: pedagogy, context, effectiveness, professionalism

This chapter is particularly relevant to QTS Standards: 3 a,b, 7 a, 8, 26 b and to Knowledge and Understanding and Application (Education Studies) and Subject knowledge and Subject skills (Early Childhood Studies)

Introduction

This chapter introduces several themes and ideas discussed in greater detail subsequently. It starts by exploring different meanings ascribed to ‘pedagogy’, drawing especially on the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP, 2006) to emphasise that one should focus initially on how children learn rather than what adults do, though later chapters explore the interaction between these. Discussion of effectiveness leads into a consideration of the purposes and aims of education and the idea of what professionalism entails. This is the basis of the view that pedagogy for young children must take account of:

• children’s differing backgrounds and prior experience;
• the varied and complex ways in which children learn;
• the multiple, sometimes conflicting, aims of education;
• assumptions made about children and learning;

showing that many current assumptions, often unexamined, are not the only ones possible.

CASE STUDY

I taught a series of lessons each week on science, focusing on forces, to a class of eight- and nine-year-olds. In groups of three or four, the children conducted simple experiments – for example, rolling different items down ramps and making parachutes – to explore concepts such as friction and gravity, recording these simply and then discussing the results as a class.

The children were not familiar with such an approach. They enjoyed the experiments, gradually learning to plan these more systematically. They were keen at first to work with their friends, but got used to working with others, since I ensured that the groups kept changing. Accurate observation and, especially, recording they found difficult, but practice helped with the first and a worksheet to encourage them to draw or write exactly what they saw with the second. Most children enjoyed and benefited from the whole-group discussion, though some found it hard to listen to others and some were reluctant to join in. Rules to encourage them to listen and participate were helpful, especially at first.

This description inevitably tidies what happened. At times, there were balls rolling over the floor, interrupting other groups. Some children complained at working with others, though they got used to it. The recording, at times, was unsystematic, though when the children became familiar with what was expected, this improved significantly. The whole-class discussion was rather dominated by me initially, but most of the children became more confident in explaining their thinking. They showed a wide range of understanding, with some demonstrating remarkable insight and explaining ideas more accessibly than I could; and others whose understanding remained at a simpler level.

This case study illustrates how complex learning is in a fairly ordinary series of lessons, rather than how science should be taught, showing some difficulties the children encountered, what seemed to help them most and what changed as time passed. The challenges were not just cognitive, related to science. Some were organisational, as in controlling the experiments and recording the results. Some were social, such as the groupings, and listening and speaking in a large group. Some were emotional, like being uncertain about whether their ideas were acceptable. Especially for young children, these are closely interrelated. The experiments were what most children enjoyed best. The practical activity led to most children being engaged and active, though a few remained tentative. The structure of setting clear expectations and rules helped to limit the range of possibilities and to enable a thoughtful discussion, though often they found too much freedom a challenge. Working both in small groups and coming together as a large group meant that they learned from each other. Indeed, children explaining what they thought had happened seemed to improve the understanding of both the person talking and those listening. Over time, the children became more used to what was expected and the rules, in some respects, could be interpreted more flexibly. Much of the discipline they showed resulted from what the activity demanded, rather than being externally imposed. Practice, building on previous feedback, led to more accurate observation and recording and enhanced the discussions.

We return to these themes in future chapters. Some ideas, such as agency and self-concept, may sound complex, others like rules and groups more familiar. Some are general, others more specific to a particular situation. You may have identified others. However, they are all part of the detailed tapestry of pedagogy.

Key idea: Pedagogy

Doesn’t teaching just involve common sense?

The TLRP is a large-scale, cross-phase project, which provides a good starting point to think about pedagogy. This identifies ten principles, set out in the next section, and suggests that three fundamental changes applicable to all ages are required.

1. Learning processes, as distinct from learning contexts, do not fundamentally change as children become adults, with the interventions of teachers or trainers most effective when planned in response to how learners are learning. So we [TLRP] have retained ‘pedagogy’. The term ‘pedagogy’ also has the advantage of highlighting the contingent nature of effective teaching, i.e. the interventions of teachers or trainers are most effective when they are planned in response to how learners are learning.

2. The conception of what is to be learned needs to be broadened beyond the notions of curricula and subjects associated with schools.

3. More prominence needs to be given to the importance of learning relationships.

As we shall see, the first of these is more controversial than it may appear. Several reports and researchers (e.g. Anning, 1991; Ball, 1994; Siraj-Blatchford, 1999) suggest that Early Years pedagogy has distinctive features. The second reflects the many (often-overlooked) opportunities outside school to support children’s learning in school and, importantly, to learn in ways other than those available, or valued, in school – ranging from football training to the Brownies and from reciting the Quran to computer games. In emphasising relationships, the third takes account of the interactive and social nature of learning.

Critical thinking exercise 1: exploring what pedagogy means

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines ‘pedagogy’ as the art or science of teaching; teaching.

Watkins and Mortimore (1999, page 3) describe pedagogy as any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another.

We have already read Alexander’s definition (2004, page 11) that it is what one needs to know, and the skills one needs to command, in order to make and justify the many kinds of decisions of which teaching is constituted.

A Consider whether teaching is just applied common sense and, if not, why not.

B Compare the advantages and difficulties of a narrow definition, such as that of the OED, and broader ones, such as the others.

C Articulate and discuss (preferably with someone arguing each case) to what extent teaching is an art, a craft or science. It may be best to identify the features of each and match them to what you have observed a teacher (of young children) doing.

Comment

Many parents and politicians – and some educators – are suspicious of educational theory, arguing that teaching is largely applied common sense. Every so often, a politician becomes a teacher for a few days. Imagine this happening for an engineer or a surgeon! Or a proposal is brought forward suggesting that the amount of training required, especially to work with under-fives, is minimal. After all, one might say, it’s not rocket science, they’re only small children. But this book paints a picture of:

• pedagogy as far more complicated than rocket science;
• educating young children as more challenging and crucial, because they are unpredictable and the foundations of tomorrow’s society.

The reluctance of English teachers and policy-makers to discuss pedagogy seems to be related to a suspicion of theory, saying that theory makes everything too complicated and we need only to know ‘what works’. However, ‘what works’ in one situation may not in another, and is, logically, associated with what one wants to achieve. This is behind my attempt to help you understand better how and why children (and we) act, react and interact. What seems common sense may not be borne out by experience and research. Research often reveals that the ordinary is complicated, exposing that what may seem obvious may not be so. For instance, you will have a view of what children should know by a certain age, but I will encourage you to question ideas as basic as what it means to know something and what is worth knowing. More practically, you probably think that feedback works best when it is positive. Yes, but we shall see that some types are more beneficial than others.

The OED definition focuses on the act of teaching, rather than the broader context within which teaching occurs. This may lead to a view of pedagogy, based on notions of instruction and transmission, which fails to capture the complexity of the different elements involved. Watkins and Mortimore’s definition broadens out to include interaction and relationship, though I shall question whether pedagogy includes only conscious activity. Alexander’s definition moves into the arena of knowledge and skills and the underlying rationale for these, recognising the complex range of decisions required. This is reflected in the TDA Standards’ emphasis on professional attributes, knowledge and understanding and skills. The picture that I shall try to create is even broader, reflecting:

• the Cambridge Primary Review’s emphasis on a repertoire to deal with the inherently unpredictable nature of learning and of teaching;
• the TLRP’s emphasis on relationships.

This suggests that all of these definitions focus too much on cognition rather than the close interaction of social and emotional influences and the wider development of the ‘whole child’. This is why judgement, based on a range of attributes, knowledge and understanding and skills, matters so much, especially with young children.

One long-standing debate is whether education is an art, a craft or a science. Those who see it as a science may emphasise the link between objectives and outcomes, the use of evidence and the value of being systematic. Those advocating for it as an art could cite the elements of playing to, or with, an audience and creativity, both in planning and adapting activities and in original means of presentation. The features of a craft are more practical, often with tasks involving design and adaptation, and an approach where the skills and theory are learned from someone more experienced, in view of the recognition of uncertainty and the limits of predictability (Watkins and Mortimore, 1999, page 2). Pedagogy seems to require the systematic approach of the scientist, the imagination of an artist and the practical wisdom associated with a craft.

Alexander (2008, page 36) highlights two main approaches to teaching: didactic and exploratory. In the first, the teacher is largely in control, wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Revealing assumptions about learning and teaching
• 2. Exploring the historical, cultural and political context of pedagogy
• 3. Making sense of young children’s development
• 4. Understanding knowledge and intelligence
• 5. Identifying the attributes of, and barriers to, successful learning
• 6. Creating an inclusive learning environment
• 7. Providing breadth and balance
• 8. Supporting successful learning
• 9. Assessing and planning for learning
• 10. Building up your expertise
• 11. Facing the challenge of an unknown future
• References
• Index