Session Information
27 SES 02 C, Students Learning Trajectories and Ways of Knowing at School
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper is part of a larger study (cf. Pihlgren, 2013, 2014) including a thorough investigation and analysis of current research literature on how education can meet the demands for cognitive development of students in school and children in preschool, compared with results from observations and teacher interviews, recorded at 65 lessons in classrooms with students from grade K-12, in 30 sessions of afterschool activities, and 30 sessions of preschool activities. Part of the larger study has also investigated how the teachers’ ways to plan and carry out classroom activities changed after having participated in development programs, and what methods seem to be more effective than others when changing teachers’ behavior (Pihlgren, 2015).
This particular paper concentrates on the analysis of how preschool teachers and caretakers meet the demands to reach the curricular goals for cognitive and creative development of children, and how the preschool teachers changed their teaching after having participated in development programs. The material was collected in Swedish preschools but the result will, no doubt, be of interest for all European countries with preschool activities. The previous articles about schools, afterschools, and the development programs have met with much international interest.
Swedish preschool programs are attended by most children age 1-5 years old, and are, although subject to parents’ choice, part of the Swedish school system, and regulated by a stately curriculum (Lpfö 98, 2010). The staff is mainly of two categories: preschool teachers, with a university degree, and caretakers, most often with a secondary school degree, but not necessarily in child care.
The questions guiding this analysis have been:
- What criteria, according to research literature, are important when teaching thinking and creativity to enhance children’s cognitive development?
- How do the preschool teachers describe the considerations they make when planning and how are these represented in the observed preschool activities?
- What differences (if any) can be found when comparing these results to the analyzed school and afterschool teachers?
All teachers act in their everyday practice from a more or less explicit pedagogical ‘praxis theory’ (Pihlgren, 2013). This is often a concoction of their practical experiences, teacher training, examples from others, and in time expertise. At least three main groups of theories affect practice in today’s teaching (Pihlgren, 2011): the behaviorist, the maturity, and the interactive. The interactive theory (cf. the tradition of Vygotsky) and the maturity theory (cf. Fröbel, Montessori, Steiner) see the learner as active, as opposed to the behaviorist view that individuals will learn when tempted by rewards or in fear of punishment (cf. Pavlov, Skinner). In the behaviorist tradition, learning and maturing are more or less considered to be the same process (Carlgren in Carlgren, 1999). In the maturity tradition learning is taking place as an effect of the learner maturing. In the interactive theory base, the child will learn in interaction and thereby mature and develop.
Teaching thinking and creativity presupposes that the preschool teacher plans, assesses, chooses activities and tools, and arranges the setting carefully, with focus on fostering children’s habits of mind (Pihlgren, 2013). The contextual and communicational interactions play a vital part of support (Jensen, 2011). Learners should have time to make implicit experiences from a variety of angles, gradually taking them to generalized knowledge by challenging explicit cognitive work, training them in analysis, meta-cognition, and formative assessment (Hattie, 2012, Marton, 2006). Teachers’ planning should start in identifying central areas and desired results (Wiggins & McTighe, 2011). Open dialogue and goal focused interaction affect the cognitive outcome positively (Pihlgren, 2008). The teacher has to take responsibility for all activities going on in preschool to create a ‘community of learners’.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Anderson, L. W. & Krathwohl, D. R. (ed.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Pearson Education. Carlgren, I. (ed.) (1999). Miljöer för lärande. [Contexts for learning] Lund: Studentlitteratur. Hattie, J. (2012). Visible Learning for Teachers. Maximizing Impact on Learning. London: Routledge. Jensen, M. (red.) (2011). Lärandets grunder – teorier och perspektiv [The Fundamentals of Learning – theories and perspectives] Lund: Studentlitteratur. Lpfö 98 Läroplan för förskolan, reviderad 2010. [Curriculum for Preschool] (2010). Stockholm: Skolverket. Marton, F. (2006). Sameness and Difference in Transfer. The Journal Of The Learning Sciences, 15(4), pp. 501–537. Pihlgren, A. S. (2014). Complementary Education in Classrooms and Afterschools. Paper presented at The Teacher’s Approach Conference, TA, 2014, Riga, Lettland. www.igniteresearch.org. Pihlgren, A. S. (2015). Enhancing Teachers' Understanding of How to Develop Students’ Thinking. Paper presented at The International Conference on Thinking, ICOT, 2015, Bilbao, Spain. www.igniteresearch.org. Pihlgren, A. S. (2013). Planning for Thinking and Cognitive Development of Students. Paper presented at The 5th International Conference of Cognitive Science ICCS 2013 in Tehran, Iran. www.igniteresearch.org. Pihlgren, A. S. (2008). Socrates in the Classroom. Rationales and effects of philosophizing with children. D. diss. Pedagogical institution, Stockholm University. Pihlgren, A. S. (2011). Thoughtful Dialogue in Relation to Other Instructional Methods. Paper presented at the 15th International Conference on Thinking, ICOT 2011, Belfast, Ireland. www.igniteresearch.org.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.