Northcote Baptist Community Preschool (TLIF 3-084) - Digital fluency in the presence of an intentional teacher Publications
Publication Details
Project Reference: Northcote Baptist Community Preschool (TLIF 3-084) - This inquiry was partly inspired by a TED Talk by Sarah Curtis. Curtis recalls her own childhood experience of being able to “play in the presence of a thoughtful teacher”.
Author(s): (Inquiry Team) led by Elizabeth Lupton
Date Published: April 2020
Overview
Teachers at Northcote Baptist Community Preschool wanted this for the children at their centre but wanted to go beyond thoughtfulness to the intentionality required to foster learner agency. That is, they wanted to develop the deep understandings necessary to respond to and scaffold complex learning “in the moment”, rather than during later planning sessions.
Before, my learning goals were limited and often based on a “what next” from a learning story. I had many on the go at once and found myself planning for these “what nexts” rather than using “in the moment” to extend learning further. Before, I was being intentional, but how effective was I? Were these “where to from here” opportunities sometimes isolated learning opportunities? Once done, forgotten? Or only limited to an activity or specific learning environment, such as the sandpit? Was this type of intentional teaching benefiting the learner?
Project team member
The preschool’s TLIF project offered an opportunity to develop an intentional pedagogy constructed of six “habits of practice”. These habits connected the teachers’ interpretation of Te Whāriki with the centre’s philosophy and the literature on future-focused learning. They used video extensively, both to develop and refine their pedagogical framework and to focus reflective discussion during their peer coaching sessions.
The team report that the development and implementation of a shared pedagogical framework has helped them become more intentional in their implementation of Te Whariki and more effective in promoting learner agency. Along the way, they have learned to sit with the discomfort of “messy” learning and to appreciate the rich learning that can comes from professional challenge. They have grown their ability to respond, not just to what children are doing but to what they are learning.
While digital technologies were an important part of this story, the most important learning was that it’s not resources or activities that matter most in scaffolding children’s learning. Rather, it is the quality of the moment-by-moment interactions between teachers and children.
The inquiry story
Initially, the inquiry involved four of the 14 teachers at Northcote Baptist Community Preschool. One left when she took up further study. The centre offers a play-centred curriculum in separate rooms for children aged from 2.5 to 3.5 years and from 3.5 to 5 years. All children participated.
What was the focus?
The teachers in the TLIF project had a hunch that if they could become more intentional in how they responded to children’s learning, they would be able to offer the children deeper and more meaningful learning experiences. But first, they needed to know what intentional pedagogy looks like. Together, the team asked: “What happens for children’s digital fluency when teachers develop habits of practice as a way of enhancing intentional teaching?”
The project team had a hunch that if their responses to children’s learning were focused more on the “big ideas” about valued learning and less on resources and activities, they would be able to offer the children deeper and more meaningful learning experiences. They wanted to become more intentional in their responses to children but, first, they needed to know what this means. Together, the team asked: “What happens for children’s digital fluency when teachers develop habits of practice as a way of enhancing intentional teaching?”
What did the teachers try?
The teachers initiated the project by researching future-focused frameworks and concepts, such as those associated with design thinking. None of these suited their context, so they decided to design their own. Working first individually and then as a group, they arrived at an initial framework constructed of 25 “habits of practice” for teachers seeking to foster learning within a future focused curriculum. They made labels for each habit, which they put on small river stones, later to be called “response stones”. Over time, they were able to manipulate and group the stones as they refined their ideas about the most critical habits of practice.
The rest of the project unfolded in two phases, with both focusing on learning contexts involving digital technologies. In the pilot phase, the team piloted the habits of practice, seeking to reduce them to a manageable number that they could carry in their heads. The teachers used the “response stones” to inform both their planning and their spontaneous responses to children. They made brief videos of some of these interactions for analysis at peer coaching sessions and for discussion in their meetings. Their learning from this phase enabled them to settle on six habits of practice: collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, cultural and spiritual connectedness, and citizenship.
In the second phase, the teachers worked on using their stones to embed the habits into their practice. Here are some examples of what this looked like. You will notice that the various habits are interconnected and, that while it is not named below, many of them involve collaboration:
- Critical thinking: An interactive display system (purchased at the suggestion of parents) as a place where children could upload screenshots of their artwork. Teachers prompted the children to critique and compare their own and each other’s work. Teachers also changed their patterns of talk to go beyond prompting children to add on to their ideas (for example, extending their mathematical thinking) but to think about their own learning and where it might go next. They used phrases and questions, such as “I wonder why that happened …”, “What else could you try?”
- Communication: The teachers used iPads and the display system to create opportunities for children to talk with each other, to share ideas, and to understand and hear each other’s input. The display system also became a place for teachers and children to learn the sign language for activities around singing.
- Creativity: Children used iPads and apps, such as Storypark, to tell stories and to retell events from home.
- Cultural and spiritual connectedness: Teachers encouraged bilingual children to use both English and their heritage language to tell their stories. Some children used the Book Creator app to create a Te Reo Māori counting book resource. They then used Storypark to teach their parents what they had learned. A Samoan parent used Storypark to teach everyone some gagana Samoa. Children also used it to document school transition visits and shared these with peers.
- Digital citizenship: When a teacher spoke with a parent about her child using her phone to make a video blog of her bedroom, the parent expressed concern that the child would find it easy to upload the blog to YouTube. The teacher drew on the digital citizenship response stone to discuss what they could do together to help the child understand how to be safe on the internet.
- Creativity: When children coded a robot, teachers introduced coding language, as they would have done previously, but they also encouraged creative thinking about what their robot might do, how a robot might be used, and where they could get help to make their ideas work. They trusted the children’s own ingenuity and were not afraid to reveal that they themselves were learning in this space.
The videos and peer coaching sessions were critical in this phase. Protocols around the peer coaching sessions pushed them to engage in critical thinking on their pedagogy while also giving agency to the teacher whose practice was being analysed. This teacher always had the first opportunity to share what they were thinking. The group learned to use questions and prompts, such as:
- “Tell me what you were doing here?”
- “How else might you have responded?”
- “What might you have said if you had your … habits of practice hat on?”
- “How would it look if you were to…?”
- “I’m wondering if …”
- “What were you thinking about…?”
- “What was in your head when…?”
- “What lens were you using…?”
- “How were you being intentional…?”
- “And how did you do that…?”
- “Is there anything you’d do differently…?”
Teachers could notice for themselves where they were talking too much or inadvertently being prescriptive in their responses to children. They could help each other consider alternative responses that gave children more space for creativity and for communicating their own thoughts and ideas.
What happened as a result of this innovation?
The framework has succeeded in helping teachers to be more intentional in their interaction with children and to foster their agency. Examples of the impact include:
- Teachers made more deliberate connections between the learning outcomes described in Te Whariki, their community’s aspirations for their children (“what matters here”), and the pedagogies they had developed and the habits of practice necessary for success.
- Responses to children have become more personalised and attuned to children’s learning dispositions. They are also more future focused.
- The community is rethinking the role of documentation and how to set up systems to ensure this important task is also done with intentionality and does not take away from their attention to the moment-to-moment interactions between children and their peers and teachers.
- Having seen the impact of their changes on children’s digital fluency, the teachers are seeing opportunities to apply the same six habits of practice across the curriculum.
What did they learn?
Essentially, there were two elements to this inquiry. On the one hand, the teachers worked to hone a shared framework for organising their thinking about what matters most for effective teaching and learning in their context. They ‘nailed down’ what it is they wanted to be intentional about in order to achieve their community’s aspirations for its children. On the other hand, they took risks, particularly through pushing through the discomfort of the video coaching sessions. The ability to see themselves from a distance, to listen to multiple perspectives, and to share knowledge, generated deep professional insights. At the same time, it grew collegial respect and support. Members of the team know they have more to learn, but they also know that what they have learned is worth sharing with others, both within their community and beyond.
Combining the structure of a shared framework, with the ‘messiness’ of collegial conversations around videos of practice, proved an effective means of growing children’s agency and enhancing connections across the community.
Inquiry team
Elizabeth Lupton was the project leader of a team that also included Rosemary Turvey, and Megan Corin.
Expert support was provided by:
- Ann Hatherly (CORE Education)
- Tara Fagan (Te Papa Tongarewa).
For further information
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leader, Elizabeth Lupton, at elizabeth.l@nbcp.org.nz
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