Advanced investigation into the issues and contexts that both enhance and constrain the learning of young children in educational settings.
Have you ever wondered how and why diversity should be recognised and celebrated
in early childhood education? Or perhaps you've wondered how children's rights and
agency can actually be promoted through their education engagement? Are you curious
about how societies and cultures construct their ideas about learning, curriculum
and assessment?
In this paper you will engage in cooperative learning experiences
with others to investigate and make meaning of the contested terrain of young children's
learning and explore how various issues and contexts enhance and constrain the learning
of young children in their earliest years.
| Paper title | Contemporary Understandings of Young Children as Learners |
|---|---|
| Paper code | EDUC311 |
| Subject | Education |
| EFTS | 0.15 |
| Points | 18 points |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 1
(On campus)
Semester 1 (On campus) |
| Domestic Tuition Fees (NZD) | $912.00 |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Prerequisite
- One 200-level EDUC or SOCI paper
- Schedule C
- Arts and Music
- Contact
- Teaching staff
Paper Co-ordinator: Professor Alex Gunn (Dunedin)
Other staff:
Meredith Kelly (Southland)- Paper Structure
Diversity, inclusion and changing participation in early years settings:
- Theorising difference, diversity and inclusion
- A learning community approach
- Pedagogical responses to difference and diversity
Rights and Citizenship:
- National and international responses to children's rights and citizenship
- Rights and citizenship within early years settings
- Upholding rights and practising citizenship: successes and challenges for thinking and practice
- Learning, development and assessment: debating perspectives in the early years
- Contested perspectives on learning, development and assessment
- Critical questions of contemporary theories and practices in learning, development and assessment
- Researching learning, development and assessment
Transitions - shifting terrains:
- Curriculum continuities and discontinuities
- Changing conceptions of knowledge and moves towards testing
- Teaching Arrangements
In 2023 the paper will be delivered online and via Blackboard with students from Dunedin and Invercargill campuses together. Lectures are to be watched by students prior to online workshops. Synchronous classes at the specified timetable times is expected.
- Textbooks
- Required Text:
Carr, M. & Lee, W. (2012). Learning stories: Constructing learner identities in early childhood education. Los Angeles: Sage. - Graduate Attributes Emphasised
- Interdisciplinary perspective, Scholarship, Critical thinking, Ethics, Information
literacy, Research, Self-motivation, Teamwork.
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes. - Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete this paper will:
- Gain understandings of current literature and debates on children's rights and citizenship and what this might mean for educational settings
- Investigate concepts of diversity and inclusion as educational issues for young children
- Appraise and consider the wider politics of assessment practices and purposes in education
- Gain knowledge and understanding of contestable theories and thinking about children's learning
