Teaching Early Years Mathematics, Science and ICT: Core concepts and practice for the first three years of schooling - Softcover

Campbell, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1743314418 ISBN 13: 9781743314418

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

When young children first arrive at school, they generally know how to use a mobile phone and a tablet, and how to count, share and measure. They have a sense of wonder about the world around them. They expect to further interact with technology and to build and extend their mathematics and science knowledge. Teaching Early Years Mathematics, Science and ICT shows how teachers of children in their first three years of formal schooling can guide students in developing a sound understanding of the key concepts in mathematics and science in classroom and field activities. It shows how to select appropriate educational technology, and effectively and routinely integrate it into the learning experience, as part of students' wider classroom learning. Throughout the authors make connections between children's out-of-school and in-school experiences, as well as connections across key learning areas. They provide real classroom examples of learning experiences which can be adapted for different

About this title

About the Author

Annette Hilton is an associate professor in science education at Aarhus University in Copenhagen, Denmark. Geoff Hilton is a postdoctoral fellow. Shelley Dole is an associate professor. Chris Campbell is a Lecturer, all at the School of Education, The University of Queensland. They all have extensive classroom and research experience.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Teaching Early Years Mathematics, Science & ICT

Core Concepts and Practice for the First Three Years of Schooling

By Geoff Hilton, Annette Hilton, Shelley Dole, Chris Campbell

Allen & Unwin

Copyright © 2014 Geoff Hilton, Annette Hilton, Shelley Dole and Chris Campbell
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-74331-441-8

Contents

About the authors, 
Introduction, 
1 Teaching young children in the first three years of schooling, 
2 Information and communication technology in the first three years of schooling, 
3 Science in the first three years of schooling, 
4 Biological science, 
5 Chemical science, 
6 Earth and space science, 
7 Physical science, 
8 Making ICT integral to a science lesson sequence: Biology, 
9 Mathematics in the first three years of schooling, 
10 Number and Algebra, 
11 Statistics and Probability, 
12 Geometry and Measurement, 
13 Making ICT integral to mathematics: Time, 
A final note, 
References, 

CHAPTER 1

Teaching young children in the first three years of schooling

The first day of school

The first day of formal school is a highly emotional experience for children, and often for their parents. School is a place of high expectations, of meeting new friends, of playing in new environments, of using brand new pencils and other new equipment, and of becoming familiar with the routine of the day. There have often been weeks of preparation for school, resulting in a mounting sense of excitement and perhaps anxiety. On the first day of school, most young children arrive with expectations of learning — of becoming 'smart'. They have lofty career aspirations of becoming astronauts, doctors, firemen, palaeontologists, zookeepers, ballerinas or rock stars. They are brimming with a desire to learn. They look to the teacher to provide this.

When they begin formal schooling, many young children are ICT savvy. They know how to use a mobile phone and an iPad, how to scroll through screens to find their favourite game or app. They sometimes know how to count and share and measure. They have a sense of wonder and inquiry about the world around them. When young children come to school, they are poised to interact with technology to build and extend their mathematics and science knowledge.

The purpose of this chapter is to focus on some of the important aspects of teaching and learning that teachers need to consider in their daily work with young minds. This chapter overviews teaching strategies, questioning techniques, assessment strategies and curriculum integration, all of which are important regardless of the curriculum area in which a teacher works. These ideas are revisited and extended in more detail in each of the chapters on teaching science (Chapters 3 to 8) and teaching mathematics (Chapters 9 to 13).

Teaching strategies

There are many effective teaching strategies and learning environments that teachers can utilise when working with young learners. A central consideration that should be at the heart of teachers' decisions is how they can come to know, and capitalise and build upon, children's prior knowledge and their experiences beyond school. This constructivist approach not only allows children to make connections and construct their own knowledge; it also makes learning more authentic and relevant to the children.

According to Ausubel (1968), what a learner already knows has a significant impact on their future learning. The challenge for teachers is to elicit children's prior understandings. This can be done using many and varied strategies — for example, questioning, looking at children's drawings or making observations of children role-playing or using puppets to discuss their ideas (Campbell & Jobling 2012).

When planning to develop and build on children's understanding in any subject, the teacher should use as many varied and appropriate learning approaches and environments as possible. Play-based learning is a very important element of teaching and learning in the early years of school. It capitalises on children's natural skills and interests, as well as their instincts and questioning to learn. Play-based learning environments for mathematics are elaborated in Chapter 9, with detailed learning experiences to build and extend mathematical thinking given.

Using a play-based learning approach is not the only teaching strategy for the early years of school. The approaches adopted often depend on the nature of the learning and the concepts involved. For example, guided discovery or inquiry learning may be more appropriate than play-based activities for developing children's science understanding of certain topics. Further, school-based events provide rich contexts for learning. The teacher's role is to draw upon the context of the school to create rich learning experiences. For example, the school may be located by the sea, near a rainforest or in bushland; it may have a creek running beside it, or be located in the middle of a busy city centre. The school's surroundings provide immediate access to a plethora of resources and contexts for making learning more meaningful. Similarly, events such as sports day, the swimming carnival, the visiting circus and the dental van can become the focus for learning. Many schools have kitchen gardens that are part of a whole-school enterprise. The kitchen garden provides opportunities for learning both science and mathematics, which are only limited by a teacher's imagination and creativity. Specific teaching ideas and suggestions for developing young children's mathematics knowledge are presented in Chapter 9, with links to science in relation to hypothesising, experimenting, recording and analysing data, and drawing conclusions.

Not all valuable and important learning experiences are achievable through play-based discovery or inquiry activities. Sometimes, teacher-directed activities will be needed to scaffold the children's learning. While play-based, discovery, active or hands-on learning activities are integral to facilitating children's learning in the early grades, it is reasonable to expect that children will sometimes sit quietly and listen to you, the teacher and/or each other. It is important to remember that children's learning experiences need to be diverse, and for this reason it is not sufficient for a teacher to rely exclusively on direct instruction; however, we do our children no favours by not expecting that they will develop the skills of quiet observation and respectful listening.

Questioning

Much has been written about questioning, and we consider questioning to be one of the most important skills of an effective teacher. Questioning allows teachers to establish what children already know. It is an effective means of formatively assessing children's understanding on an ongoing basis. In addition, questioning can be used as an effective means of scaffolding children's learning, and it can prompt children's reasoning and extend their thinking. It takes time, effort and practice on the part of the teacher to develop good questioning skills and techniques. Questioning approaches can appear to be teacher-centred, however, the effective use of questioning, for example, hypothetical questioning or open-ended questions that prompt children to explore ideas or make tentative suggestions can create a child-centred learning situation (Department of Education and Training 2003).

Campbell and Jobling (2012) described the purposes of effective questioning in early years classrooms. These include:

• creating stimuli or impetus for exploration or investigation

• making predictions or hypothesising

• identifying existing knowledge and alternative conceptions

• promoting reasoning and argumentation

• encouraging discussion and problem-solving

• scaffolding thinking

• making observations.

They emphasise that the teacher need not always initiate the questions. Children can also generate many important and thought-provoking questions.

We encourage readers to explore online resources that are designed to support teachers in identifying and using effective questioning — see, for example, Jamie Mackenzie's questioning toolkit for teachers (Mackenzie 1997). Elaborations of questioning to extend children's thinking, reasoning and vocabulary specifically in relation to science and mathematics have been provided throughout the chapters, with examples given of teacher actions and learner experiences.

Assessment

Assessing learning in the first three years of schooling can be a complex task. It is, of course, important to determine what the child has learned through the experiences that have been facilitated. The type of evidence the teacher collects to determine a child's learning of a particular topic varies greatly, depending on the age of the child, their ability level, the topic, the concept or skill, the type of learning strategy engaged and the requirements of the education system. This means that one single assessment of a child's learning does not provide sufficient evidence upon which to draw conclusions about the child's learning. Teachers must collect data on children's learning from a variety of sources and using a variety of tools. Good assessment techniques also inform further teaching. Some possible assessment methods include the following.

Annotations

Teacher annotations in a journal of children's actions, behaviours and responses during activities can be a powerful means of informal, ongoing assessment, and can be applied to many of the activities described in all chapters of this book. Annotations cannot be completed for all children all the time, but a regular recording of these attributes will develop a clear picture over time. Try to record what the child can do and not what they cannot do. It is also necessary to give a clear context for the annotations so that in future the full meaning can be retained. Annotations can be made while children are participating in activities or responding to questions in group discussions (particularly open-ended questions).

Checklists

Similar to annotations, checklists can be a quicker method of recording a child's learning, but considerable thought is needed to predetermine the learning attributes on the list. In mathematics, for example, checklists can be constructed to monitor children's problem-solving and hence metacognitive skills. The four general stages of problem-solving — read and understand; make a plan; carry out the plan; and check reasonableness — with ratings of with help/without help can provide a teacher with a quick assessment as children undertake problem-solving tasks and inform planning for teaching. Similarly in science, checklists can be used to monitor children's acquisition of inquiry or questioning skills. Checklists are useful tools for tracking the development of children's ICT skills. In all subjects, checklists can be valuable for assessing children's social skills for group work, with such criteria as listens attentively, interrupts politely, takes turns, and values others suggestions providing key data for monitoring children's learning processes.

Written responses

For children who have advanced to be independent writers, much of their written work can be used for assessment. Written work can be viewed to determine a child's observations, predictions, descriptions, knowledge of important facts or language, and their conclusions or opinions. For children who are not yet writing, the teacher or class helper can transcribe their ideas as the children explain their thinking. Children should always be encouraged to reflect upon their learning experiences. Providing children with time to explain and describe their thinking processes sends important messages to students about the nature of the subject and what the teacher values about the subject.

Specific assessment tasks

The teacher may choose (where they deem it appropriate or necessary) to ask children to complete a prepared task sheet that requires them to demonstrate understanding of an aspect of their learning. From an early age, children learn to associate tests with feelings of self-worth. There are ways in which task sheets can effectively be disguised as fun learning tasks yet still provide specific assessment data. Consider including 'fill the gap' sentences, puzzles, fun quizzes and coding tasks, as well as images of interesting characters and icons on task sheets.

Non-written representations

Children may create non-written representations such as role-plays, diagrams, illustrations, models and collections that reflect their understanding of both science and mathematics topics. Such activities can provide a dimension of fun and sharing for both assessment and learning. Non-written representations provide a range of opportunities for ICT assessment.

Student interviews

Student interviews can be very revealing. They can be as brief as a single question or more complex and probing. They occur while children are engaged in a learning activity, either individually or in a group. The teacher needs a clear idea of the focus of the interview, but also has to be prepared to diverge as the child completes explanations, descriptions, predictions, conclusions and opinions, or draws on their own background knowledge. Interviews can be recorded through brief notes on a prepared interview sheet or using software such as Soundnote.

Portfolios

A great deal of children's work can be gathered and filed in a portfolio as evidence of learning. Children like to have some control over their portfolio, so it may sometimes be appropriate to negotiate with a child as to what is kept. This is good experience for children's self-assessment and ref lection. Sometimes, when one piece of work supersedes another, the child may wish the initial work to be removed, though this circumstance would also be excellent evidence of the child's progress. Dating the work is important to show how a child is progressing over a period of time.

Digital portfolios

A digital portfolio can be used in a similar way to a physical one. Photographing children's work is a good way of easily capturing a great deal of evidence of learning, and digital photos are easy to store and share. Children's own photographic collections can also be saved in this way. Paper-based work samples can also be scanned and saved in an electronic format to add further evidence to the digital portfolio.

Self-assessment

Children can self-assess in a number of ways — for example, through interviews or prepared pictogram criteria sheets needing a tick in the appropriate box. In the early years, smiley face icons appeal to students and can provide a window into how they feel about their own progress in relation to learning particular topics.

Planning and reflection teaching template

We have created a template intended for use in conjunction with each chapter or unit of work described in this text. The purpose of the template is to provoke you to reflect upon and make decisions about important elements of effective teaching. Each of the elements presented within this template highlights important considerations for teaching children in their first three years of schooling. Thus the template allows you to individualise the ideas for specific year levels, cohorts of children with particular needs and diversities, and particular school contexts. The template is shown in Table 1.1. During or after your reading of each chapter in this book, note your responses to each point on the template, to provide a comprehensive summary of the intent and key messages of each chapter.

CHAPTER 2

Information and communication technology in the first three years of schooling

Overview

Information and communication technology (ICT) is ubiquitous in our society. The majority of children entering formal schooling have interacted with ICT in many and varied ways. For teachers of children in the first three years of schooling, this presents a challenge but also a wonderful opportunity to ensure that ICT is an integral part of the teaching and learning process across all learning areas.

Different educational authorities may place varied emphases on ICT in early years classrooms. For instance, some see it as a discrete subject area while others combine it with a design focus. Still others require children to attain a set of capabilities that allow them to effectively interact with ICT. Whatever the systemic priorities, it is widely accepted that children learn to use ICT effectively when it is an integral part of their wider classroom learning. This makes the use of ICT authentic, and its valuable contribution to the teaching and learning of all subject areas in the classroom can be harnessed. When using ICT with children in the early years of schooling, there are a number of aspects that must be addressed. The ICT may be used to aid teaching and learning by accessing existing information (investigating), by making new products (creating) and by sharing information (communicating). Beyond this, children must also develop awareness of the need to manage ICT effectively, and use it in a safe and ethical way (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] 2013). This chapter overviews a number of important considerations for the use of ICT in the first three years of schooling.

What is ICT?

In this book, the acronym ICT refers to the term 'information and communication technology' — both singular and plural. Where necessary, the acronym ICTs is used as the plural form. Alternative terminology with similar meaning may be encountered in educational literature — for instance 'digital technologies', 'new technologies' and 'educational technologies'. The term 'ICT' includes a set of tools and systems that allow our society to access, generate and share information. These tools and systems include hardware such as computers and tablets, software such as learning games and applications (apps) and systems and networks, including the internet. As far as early years classrooms are concerned, ICT is a term that refers to any digital tool that supports the teaching and learning process by allowing the teacher and children to investigate, create, share and manage information.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Teaching Early Years Mathematics, Science & ICT by Geoff Hilton, Annette Hilton, Shelley Dole, Chris Campbell. Copyright © 2014 Geoff Hilton, Annette Hilton, Shelley Dole and Chris Campbell. Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1743314418
• ISBN 13: 9781743314418
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 238