Early Learning 2.0 Spring 2019

1. Early Learning 2.0Spring 2019 Dr. Darlene Estes-Del Re, Executive Director, Office of Early Learning

2. Welcome and Introduction Icebreaker As a team, take five minutes to use the materials on your table and create something that represents your group. Select a team member that will introduce the team by sharing: • Name of your district or program • Curriculum of your district or program • Description of your team’s creation and how it represents you

3. Today’s Objectives • Enhance your understanding of the power of children’s play, the developmental progression of play, and the adult’s role in scaffolding learning through play • Recognize and discuss instructional supports and materials that scaffold learning, advance children’s understanding of concepts, and promote higher-order thinking skills within the curriculum and through play-based learning activities • Identify strategies for increased interactions between children, teachers, and educational assistants to maximize opportunities for learning • Collaborate with team to create an action plan to monitor and continuously improve curriculum implementation and adaptations based on children’s needs and interests while maintaining fidelity

5. Office of Early Learning Vision • Every child in Tennessee, from birth to age eight, will engage in rich, joyful, learning experiences that purposefully develop leaders, thinkers, and innovators of tomorrow.

6. Office of Early Learning Mission The mission of the office of early learning is to optimize quality learning and prevent potential achievement gaps in the early years when children’s brains develop the most by: • creating a child-centered early learning system focused on a common understanding of quality; • partnering with and empowering families to access and actively participate in high-quality early learning experiences; • ensuring an inclusive environment that is responsive to all children’s cultural, linguistic, and developmental needs without exception; and • collaborating with public agencies, communities, schools, and other key stakeholders to maximize early learning opportunities.

7. Our CLASS Baseline Data Findings

8. The Power of Play

9. Why Play? “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” —Fred Rogers

10. Types of Play • Functional Play: manipulating toys • Constructive Play: building and making things • Dramatic/Sociodramatic Play: engaging as an actor, observer, and interactor • Person oriented, not material or object oriented • Children engage in highly complex thinking • Games with Rules: identifyinggames through the rules that define them (beginning around age six)

11. Sequence of Leading Activities • Infancy: emotional communication with caregivers • Toddlerhood: object-centered joint activity • Early Childhood: sociodramatic play • Middle Childhood: learning activity in educational settings • Adolescence: interaction with peers https://www.revolvy.com/page/Leading-activity

12. Pretend Play • Affords opportunity for children to develop a sophisticated system of short- and long-term goals • Fosters cognitive “decentering” that enables children to “see” from the perspectives of others • Supports the development of mental representation • Supports physical and mental intentionality in actions • Mediates learning as children make meaning of their world as they act out what they cannot yet verbally explain Bodrova, E. & Leong, D. (2015). Vygotskian and post-vygotskian views on children’s play. American Journal of Play, v.7, n.3, p.371-388. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1070266.pdf

13. Cognitive Competencies and Pretend Play Pretend play is the vehicle for building cognitive competencies: • Oral language • Symbolic thought • One-to-one correspondence • Self-regulation skills • Analytical thinking • Fine motor skills

14. Early Literacy and Pretend Play Literacy Skills: • Phonological awareness • Letter recognition • Alphabetic principle • Sound-symbol • Encoding/decoding Communicative Aspects of Literacy: • Purpose of reading • Concepts of print • Text comprehension

15. Mature Pretend Play “According to Daniel El’konin, as children engage in mature play, they develop the mental capacity to master the tools of today as well as tomorrow…even those not yet invented” (Bodrova & Leong, 2015, p. 377). Bodrova, E. & Leong, D. (2015). Vygotskian and post-vygotskian views on children’s play. American Journal of Play, v.7, n.3, p.371-388. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1070266.pdf

16. Video: “Work Time as Play” • https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/work-time-as-play

17. Five Stages in a Child’s Make-Believe Play Bodrova, E. & Leong, D. (2012). Assessing and scaffolding make-believe play. Young Children, v.67, n.1, p.28-34. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292513144_Assessing_and_scaffolding_make-believe_play

18. Teacher’s Role in Play

19. Teacher’s Role in Pretend Play • What are our own understandings of pretend play? • How can we plan for pretend play without dictating it? • Do we recognize when children’s pretend play is “stuck”? • How do we attempt to move the play along without intruding?

20. How Teachers Support Play • Play Facilitator: Most children do not need help engaging in free play. When they have the right props, space, and time, they can play freely without guidance from adults. • Play Supporter: The teacher can join a center, talk with children, and offer support where needed. • Help children with problem solving. • Provide support through scaffolding, such as verbally describing what children are doing, posing questions, and leaving the work and learning for the child to do. • Intervene to support turn-taking or other peer interactions. • Play Assessor: The teacher can focus on how to use play to assess children’s strengths and plan activities for areas of growth.

21. Continuum of Play-Based Learning Pyle, A. & Danniels, E. (2017). A continuum of play-based learning: The role of the teacher in play-based pedagogy and the fear of hijacking play. Early Education and Development, v.28, n.3, p.274-289. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771

22. Play vs. Play-Based Learning • Play is open ended: pleasurable, actively engaging, and focused on means rather than ends. • Play does not have a defined role for the teacher. • Play-based learning allows children to learn while at play. • Play-based learning incorporates a variety of adult interaction that supports playful academic instruction. Pyle, A. & Danniels, E. (2017). A continuum of play-based learning: The role of the teacher in play-based pedagogy and the fear of hijacking play. Early Education and Development, v.28, n.3, p.274-289. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771

23. Child-Centered vs. Child-Directed Child-Directed Play: • Emphasizes child-directed play, but can be child-initiated or adult-initiated with the locus of control remaining with the child • Includes a supportive, not disruptive, teacher Child-Centered Play: • Considers children’s development, interests, and abilities • Emphasizes teaching academic concepts in engaging and developmentally appropriate ways Pyle, A. & Danniels, E. (2017). A continuum of play-based learning: The role of the teacher in play-based pedagogy and the fear of hijacking play. Early Education and Development, v.28, n.3, p.274-289. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771

24. Curriculum Connections • Locate the Curriculum Connections document in your packet of handouts. • Using the curriculum guide that you brought with you, locate examples of: • Free play • inquiry play, • collaboratively designed play, • playful learning, and • learning through games. • Record examples of play on the Curriculum Connections handout. • Discuss these examples and the way they support concept development with your team. • Select one or two key points from your discussion to share with the room.

25. “The Bakery - Supporting Children to Succeed in the Dramatic Play Center” • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXqyum4YeEc

26. Instructional Supports within Play

27. Focusing on Instructional Supports Instructional Supports

28. “The Bakery looking at Concept Development” • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXqyum4YeEc

29. Concept Development

30. Video: “Quality of Feedback” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Au2vojqQE

31. Quality of Feedback

32. Video: “Language Modeling” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKlEUckWyF8

33. Language Modeling

34. Practice time As you watch the video, write down examples of the type of language modeling you observe based on the category next to your role: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeeT6TBhgIs • VPK directors: frequent conversations • Principals: open-ended questions • Pre-k teachers: repetition and extension • Special education pre-k teachers: self-talk and parallel talk • Instructional coaches: advanced language

35. Tower Building Activity • Select a teammate to take the role of observer, encourager, and supporter of learning. • Remove the playing cards and Dixie cups included in the supply box at your table. • Construct the tallest tower possible as a team. • The designated observer gives encouragement, without scaffolding. • After three minutes, the observer will begin scaffolding, prompting thought processes, and making connections to the real world.

36. Video: Pinky Promise https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QqljnK4HVaw

37. Lunch

38. A Strategy to Guide Conversations https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/no-search/iss/language-modeling-and-conversations/conversation-teacher-tips-poster.pdf

39. Facilitating THICK or RICH Conversations • Focus on children’s interests and experiences. • Provide time for children to respond. • Expand children’s words by adding a little more. • Add new vocabulary to words children are already using. • Ask questions about what children say or do and what they can do next. • Encourage children to make comparisons, consider other possibilities, and think beyond the here and now. • Explain your thinking process.

40. Activity: Conversation Vignettes Work in small groups to practice engaging in “thick” conversations. • Have one group member volunteer to take the perspective of the teacher while the other members take the perspective of the preschool children. • Based on assigned vignettes, role-play a “thick” extended conversation. • Then, respond to the discussion questions included in the vignette on page 8 of your note catcher. • Share out the ways your group created a “Thick” opportunity for conversation. https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/no-search/iss/language-modeling-and-conversations-birth-to-5/0-5-conversations-la-vignettes.pdf

41. Intentional Planning • Take time to plan for instructional supports to include in your daily routine. • Identify vocabulary, connections, and discoveries that will guide your conversations with children. • Spend time observing and listening to children. • Be prepared for the unexpected!

42. Increasing Interactions

43. Planning Conversations and Questions • Begin with your curriculum resources and refine or extend based on your children’s needs. • Plan and post conversation stimulators and question stems in the learning centers as a resource for adults. • Play and become familiar with the materials that children will use to anticipate conversations and plan interactions. • Think about your environment, how to utilize all adults, and how to maximize interactions with children. • Accommodate the unique needs and interests of children.

44. Conversation Questions and Stems • What is this like? • How do you think this works/happens? • What is similar/different about these? • How else could you do that? • What if you added this? • What if you take this away? • Can you show/tell me how you figured that out? • How could you fix it? • What else can you use this for? • Tell me about... • What do you think… • What would happen if… • Why did… • How did you… • Tell me about a time when you… • Tell me how you sorted the… • What did you notice about…

45. Activity: Conversations around the Classroom • Locate “Conversations around the Classroom” (page 9 of note catcher) and the set of learning center photos your team brought today. • Look at the different photos together with your team and brainstorm conversation topics for each center. • Record your ideas for conversations with the children in your classroom. • Be prepared to share out at least one center.

46. Why ask open-ended questions? • Open-ended questions prompt conversations because you don’t know what the child’s answer is going to be. • Close-ended questions usually limit conversation to a one- or two-word response, and sometimes they end the conversation. • Children must use a high level of verbal skills to respond to open-ended questions. • If the child has limited verbal skills, use parallel talk, repetition, extension, and/or picture cues to support thinking.

47. Types of Open-Ended Questions • Making predictions • What do you think will happen if… • Stretching thinking • What would happen if… • Considering consequences • What would happen if you… • Assessing feelings • How would you feel if… • How did this make you feel when…

48. Types of Open-Ended Questions (cont.) • Thinking about similarities and differences • How are these the same? • How are they different? • What makes these things go together? • Applying knowledge to solve a problem • What could you do to … • How would you… • Evaluating • How do you feel about what you did? • What could you do differently? • How would you do it next time?

49. Examples of Questions Close-ended question: “What color is this?” Open-ended question: “You used a lot of blue on your painting. What does it remind you of?” Close-ended question: “How many teddy bears are on the block?” Open-ended question: “What are those teddy bears thinking about?” Close-ended question: “What’s your doll’s name?” Open-ended question: “Your baby is so beautiful! Tell me about her.”

50. Thought Provoking Open-Ended Questions • Challenge children by posing open-ended questions that are: • thought-provoking, • rich and clear, and • stimulating. • These questions are often expressed in conditional form such as: • What will happen if you…