scholarly journals Visual Ethnography as tool in exploring children's embodied making processes in preprimary education

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Carlsen
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Reggio Emilia ◽  
Visual Methods ◽  
Visual Ethnography ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Preprimary Education ◽  
Children's Learning

This article presents and discuss Visual Ethnography as Methodological approach to research on embodied making and learning in preprimary education. Children’s making processes with materials and tools are visible. What children learn in and through these processes is not necessary visible. The article reflect on how visual ethnography (Pink, 2007) contribute to uncover and understand ongoing learning processes through visual documented making situations. The empirical material referred to, includes children from one to six years old and staff in Norwegian kindergarten as participants. Ethnographic methods are frequently used in educational research. Rose (2007) discusses visual methods within different methodological approaches. Preschools and Early Childhood Centers in Reggio Emilia, Italy (Giudici, Rinaldi, Krechevsky, 2001; Rinaldi, 2006; Vecchi, 2010) has developed various ways of documentation that focus on visual readable material. Norwegian kindergartens inspired by the educational experiences in Reggio Emilia aims to develop pedagogical documentation as didactic tool in daily educational processes, with visual presentations as central part. The article discusses how visual ethnography as method gives the opportunity to present research findings also through visual representations, how these may give another insight in small children’s making than pure written text, and focus on ethical dilemmas concerning visual presentation. The connection between visual ethnography as research method and the presentation of research insights and findings, explore and visualize small children’s learning processes during embodied making with materials and tools, and contribute to research on children’s learning processes in preprimary education. Key words: Visual ethnography, pictures, video, preprimary education, materials, embodied making and learning, Reggio Emilia atelier

scholarly journals Stop, collaborate and listen: Reimagining & Rebuilding the Royal Alberta Museum

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Charette ◽  
Evelyn Delgado ◽  
Jaclyn Kozak
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Reggio Emilia ◽  
Multiple Literacies ◽  
Visitor Experience ◽  
Project Staff ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
Museum Experience ◽  
Unstructured Play ◽  
Children's Learning

The field of museum education is continually examining and reconsidering how best to engage child audiences, offering child-centered experiences to complement knowledge-rich environments. The implementation of Reggio Emilia approach-based programs and activities, which embrace children’s multiple literacies and provide opportunities for free, unstructured play, are best served when complemented by documentation in order to render learning visible to all audiences. It is through documentation that we can actively demonstrate our respect and value for children’s learning and play. Play has to be honoured and celebrated in its own right, and the act of documentation needs to be incorporated into daily operations so it becomes a natural part of the museum experience, and a natural part of evaluation practices. The Royal Alberta Museum has recently undergone a large-scale renewal project; staff sought inspiration from these Reggio Emilia-based philosophies in designing a space that will welcome play and value it as learning, reframing the museum educator’s role as one that documents, collects and curates children’s learning experiences on the gallery floor. In this way, our museum will continue to shape the visitor experience in a ways that place children’s contributions at the forefront – in the way that Elee Kirk imagined.

Inquiry-Based Curriculum in Early Childhood Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fikile Nxumalo ◽  
Lisa-Marie Gagliardi ◽  
Hye Ryung Won
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Reggio Emilia ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
Children's Learning

Inquiry-based curriculum is a responsive approach to education in which young children are viewed as capable protagonists of their learning. Inquiry-based curriculum has the potential to challenge the dominance of developmental psychology as the primary way of understanding young children’s learning. This approach to curriculum-making also disrupts the instrumentalist “technician” image of the early childhood educator. Practices of inquiry-based curriculum can also extend beyond the early childhood classroom as a potentially transformative teacher education tool, and as a research methodology that counters dominant deficit discourses of childhood. Inquiry-based curriculum in North American early childhood education has been greatly influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach, which is a powerful alternative to predetermined theme-based didactic curriculum. The revolutionary possibilities of inquiry-based curriculum, inspired by Reggio Emilia, are not standardized frameworks to be copied in practice; rather, they create critical entry points into contextual, creative, rigorous, meaningful, and justice-oriented curriculum. One of these entry points is the practice of pedagogical documentation, which not only makes children’s learning visible but also enables educators’ and researchers’ critical reflection. Such reflections can act to foreground the complex, political, and dialogical thinking, doing, and exchanging that happens in inquiry-based early childhood education classrooms. Reggio Emilia–inspired inquiry-based curriculum has brought attention to the important role of the arts in young children’s inquiries. Important research in this area includes work that has put new materialist perspectives to work to gain insight into new pedagogical and curricular possibilities that are made possible by attuning to children’s relations with materials, where materials are active participants in learning. While more research is needed in this area, recent research has also engaged with how attention to the arts and materials does not preclude attending to and responding to issues of race and racialization. In U.S. early learning contexts, an important area of research in inquiry-based curriculum has demonstrated that this approach, alongside a pedagogy of listening, is central to shifting deficit-based practices with historically marginalized children. This is important work as access to dynamic inquiry-based curriculum remains inaccessible to many young children of color, particularly within increasing policy pressures to prepare children for standardized testing. Finally, there is a growing body of work that is investigating possibilities for inquiry-based curriculum that is responsive to the inequitably distributed environmental precarities that young children are inheriting. This work is an important direction for research in inquiry-based curriculum as it proposes a radical shift from individualist and humanist modes of understanding childhood and childhood learning.

scholarly journals Koncepcja stu języków dziecka w przedszkolach Reggio Emilia. O przełamaniu hegemonii języka werbalnego w dziecięcym procesie uczenia się

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-120
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Maj
Keyword(s):  
Short Description ◽  
Reggio Emilia ◽  
Scientific Language ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Learning By Using ◽  
Children's Learning

The paper presents the idea of the hundred languages of children interpreted by Reggio Emilia educators as “the different ways used by human beings to express themselves” (Vecchi 2010: 9). It also discusses the role of different languages (verbal, visual, mathematical, scientific language, etc.) in children’s learning. By using various symbolic representations, children have the opportunities to show the same concept in different media. This process is described on the basis of short description of project conducted in Reggio Emilia preschools.

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