Early Childhood Education Commons^™

The Contribution Of Learning Trajectories To Enacting The Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, Caroline Cohrssen

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia v2.0 (EYLF) guides pedagogy and practice with children aged from birth to 5 years and states that ‘over time, children engage with increasingly complex ideas’. With 5 learning outcomes and 8 principles of practice, this requires educators to be highly skilled in facilitating children’s engagement with increasingly complex ideas. It also assumes that all educators recognise children’s demonstrations of understanding, and know what knowledge (or capabilities) likely preceded this understanding, and what comes next. As a framework, this specific information is missing from the EYLF. Learning trajectories may assist educators to recognise demonstrations …

Conceptual Development: How Do Early Educators And Teachers Support Children's Early Thinking In Stem?, Marilyn Fleer

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

As national and state-based reforms in early education roll-out across Australia, concern for building a well-qualified workforce to meet growing demand has intensified. In parallel with the reforms, teachers and educators are reminded by the recently released 2022 Early Years Learning Framework to design programs that support intentionality in play-based learning. However, the literature shows that despite the concept of intentional teaching being around since 2009, difficulties with how to do this remains. This presentation takes up this challenge, by 1) sharing the collective findings of 6 Australian Research Council-funded research projects into play and learning in STEM; and 2) …

The Journey To Becoming A Reader: Relationships Between Home Activities, Attitudes And Reading, Kylie Hillman

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Progress in International Reading Study – PIRLS for short – has been running since 2001, with Australia joining in 2011. Along with a well-researched measure of students’ reading comprehension, PIRLS includes a number of questionnaires for students, teachers, principals and parents/guardians that provide background and context for students’ performance in the reading assessment. This presentation will provide educators with an introduction to PIRLS and discuss what PIRLS can tell us about various home, attitudinal and behavioural factors that relate to Year 4 students’ performance in the PIRLS reading comprehension assessments.

We will discuss relationships between reading scores and factors …

Does Play Belong In The Primary School Classroom?, Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Rachel Parker

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Learning through play has emerged as an important strategy to promote student engagement, inclusion, and holistic skills development beyond the preschool years. If we want to build an education system preparing children for lifelong learning, we can use these strategies and achieve a balance of academic growth, holistic skills and a joy of learning. This presentation addresses the disconnect between policy, research, and practice, by summarising 5 key findings from international studies and 4 challenges to connect policy and practice. The evidence that play supports learning is considerable, and a new framework can create continuity between the early years learning …

Themes, Resources And Uptake Of Acer’S Science In The Early Years Suite, Gayl O'Connor

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Science in the early years series was developed to assist preschool and Foundation to year 2 primary educators to incorporate the latest research in science learning into their programs and teaching practice. This paper focuses on the educator resources developed to support early years educators implement activities to assist children to develop science concepts and inquiry skills. The activities are underpinned by evidence-based research that revealed 4 themes in the early years’ science literature.

Assessment Is Coming And The Early Childhood Sector Must Lead The Way, Dan Cloney

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Assessment is a core component of quality early childhood practice. It is explicitly highlighted in the new Early Years Leanring Framework V2.0 and is a standard within Quality Area 1 of the National Quality Standard. In everyday early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings, and in initial teacher education, assessment is often limited to observational and narrative-driven approaches. Recent reviews of the literature highlight that there are few other assessment tools readily available to educators. What assessment looks like in early childhood is changing. The Commonwealth, as part of the Preschool Reform Funding Agreement, is developing, trialling, and implementing a …

Partnerships In Early Childhood Education: Engaging Families In Professional Conversations, Simone Griggs, Greta Rollo

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Effective monitoring of learning and development involves integrating multiple perspectives from a child’s parents, carers, family, and their educators. A collaborative approach between educators and families not only recognises the family’s critical importance in their child’s life but it has also been shown to benefit children with learning difficulties, delays and behavioural concerns (Parenting Research Centre, 2012; Prior et al., 2011). Efforts made towards the integration of multiple perspectives can also support stronger inclusion of diverse families into communities of early childhood education and care. However, discussions with parents and carers about issues regarding their children’s development can be a …

Science In The Early Years: Concept Cartoons As Monitoring Tools. Educator Resource, Australian Council For Educational Research

Early Childhood Education

Cartoons can be used as a way of monitoring children’s developing understanding of concepts (‘concept cartoons’). Cartoons provide a simple narrative in which two or more characters provide commentary or opinions about a phenomenon. The cartoon format is likely to be familiar to children, so is a non-threatening format to present and elicit their thoughts on the opinions provided by the characters. There are four concept cartoons in this resource. Each concept cartoon provides a monitoring tool for finding out how children’s understanding about science concepts is developing. Each cartoon is customised to one of the activities in the educator …