Facilitating Children's Learning

Hey all

I am part way through my first year in a foundation degree in early years. I feel like have struggled through the first two modules, Developing Child and ICT and now hit a huge blank wall with the third module - Facilitating Children's Learning. Hoping you can provide me with some inspiration!

We have to do a presentation on the above subject and back it with e reflective essay. http://data.bolton.ac.uk/academicaffairs/viewmodulestyle.asp ?code=EYC1003

I have to find a resource that I can use in three different activities and that could be innvative to the 3/4 years I work with. This is where I am stuck, I have found loads of info from books/journals etc on how to plan things but seem to be stuck on the innvative resource itself.

I can think of lots of creative fun things to do but sadly I seem to be lacking in coming up with new ideas - think my poor brain is slightly frazzed out.

Hoping you can point me in a direction where I can get the creative juices flowing again!
Thanks
Mel

Facilitating Children's Learning

I bet you have read much about how children, in their curiosity, are natural learners. They are naturally creative, curious, exploratory. They are little learning machines, and if you brainstorm some powerful words I bet you can write an incredible essay about how you have to FACILITATE that process.

The thing is, they are learning so much so fast at that age, that it is hard and maybe even inappropriate to try to "teach" them the way you teach older kids. Furthermore, you cannot communicate with them as well as you communicate with older kids, so it is a special situation. You need to facilitate their exploration, and that is what this module is about. The developmentally appropriate way to teach early learners is through play and through facilitation of their exploration.

With this understanding, write an awesome essay. As for the innovative resource, what is a device that meets the definition of "innovative" (google that for inspiration) and helps with the delicate process of facilitating learning? How about the Native American talking stick? It is like a game during which the holder of the stick gets to talk while the others listen. That way, they can be in control of what happens as they learn -- language skills, social skills, knowledge of whatever the topic of discussion is, etc. -- but you facilitate their interaction.

If you want a more technological resource, maybe the interactive whiteboard.

Good luck with your very meaningful work!!

You might try thinking of standard resources that you could use in innovative ways, rather than trying to come up with a whole new resource no educator has ever employed before. Or maybe a resource that could be used to encourage the students to be innovative in different activities. I wish I could give you better suggestions, but the idea of teaching 3-4 year-olds is frankly horrifying to me. I mean, they aren't really old enough to engage in any sort of reasoned discourse or to take any sort of serious instruction. I'm guessing you would need to design activities that involve colorful and imaginative elements just to keep their attention.

Just wanted to say a huge thanks for the help with this :D it changed the way I was thinking about the essay and I was able to get a 62 for the essay which is awesome for me!

Glad to hear that you found the site useful. Next time, you might want to consider posting a draft of your essay here for more feedback. That way, you can improve your marks even more!

hey dudes
just i wanna see d essay about facilitating children learning but where n how?????

It was never posted. There are other good threads about similar subjects, though.

I had no idea I could do that, thanks. Just a query how would that work with the plagarism rules etc? if someone copied my work?

Check out the TOS for information about that. Also, anything you post will have "Mel Arnold" as the author, so if anyone ever copies you it will be easy to show the date on which your work was created and posted. That is why it is important for people to use their real names when creating memberships: to protect their work. Does that answer your question?

It does thanks :) when I've done a bit more on my new essay, I'll post it and pick your brains

At issue in this study was the extent to which large numbers of classroom teachers were able to implement research-based materials with a minimum of inservice education and whether students of these teachers were able to develop the rich mental images for fractions similar to the ones students from previous Rational Number Project (RNP) studies developed in smaller experimental settings. An analysis of student interviews demonstrated that RNP students did in fact develop rich mental images for fractions similar to students in previous studies. As expected the nature of RNP students' thinking about rational number was far richer than students who used textbook curriculum and indicated a more conceptually oriented framework.