4 Features of Learning Groups

In this week’s reading I noticed that the author’s broke up learning groups in to four features: (1) The members of learning groups include adults as well as children; (2) Documenting children’s learning processes helps to make learning visible and shapes the learning that takes place; (3) Members of learning groups are engaged in the emotional and aesthetic as well as the intellectual dimensions of learning; and (4) The focus of learning in learning groups extends beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge. Each of these features is important in their own right, which I will comment on.

In the first feature I do think adults are and can be a very important part of learning groups. Where I work we are constantly on the lookout for families who want to be involved in their child’s learning or wanting to do something yet are unsure of what they can do to help out. Just last week we had a parent who taught the children Fire Safety for 3 hours. His job is a Fire Inspector. He had different fire fighters come to our school, two different fire trucks, many different uniforms the children tried on, Sparky the Dog visited, we also did a fire drill with two exits, learned what was safe and unsafe, and so much more. The children were very much a participants of this. Two other parents like to draw so when we need a picture we ask them and there is such pride when the children see their parent’s work up in the room. We also ask families for information about things, especially their culture. We also go beyond families and ask the community. People in the community are another great resource for preschool teachers. Most of them seem so willing to help and love to have visits from preschoolers. The above are examples of adults helping the school but we have adults who learn from what we do. Families will come and talk with me about what their child is learning because their child is telling them about it. Some parents get really involved and ask to come when we are learning about certain things on the Calendar. One child told there mom about the volcano at school and she asked about it and I told her and gave her a copy of the recipe. Another parent didn’t have material for the volcano so I was able to supply it for them. Each of the parents was happy to be able to make volcanoes at home with their child. Do you have parent/family participation where you work? Is it mandatory? Is having families come to visit an open invitation?

The second feature is about documenting the children’s learning processes. This is where I need to work on more. I would love to take a class on how to appropriately take documentation of children and their work. I think with all the different learning going on there should be a class for teachers to take on different ways of documenting. It not only benefits the teachers but it will help families to see what and how their child is learning. As a teacher I would like to get to the “meat” of the child’s learning but I feel I only scratch the surface due to time or should I say the lack of enough time. How do you take documentation at your school?

The third feature deals with the members of the group’s emotional and aesthetic learning as well as the intellectual dimensions of learning. I’m really not too aware of this feature. As a teacher I do focus on the cognitive part of learning not the emotional. Why is this? I believe it is the way American schools are taught. I do believe that if emotion is put into the learning that perhaps more learning will take place. When I do portfolios or documentation I am told not to put my feelings into it or guess how the children are feeling, I’m told it is not professional. This is something I do but I don’t agree with it. It brings me back to the book, “The Story of Laura”; I actually enjoyed reading the “feelings” in the pages of the book. It sure wasn’t sterile. I feel that families would also like to have the feelings put into the documentation instead of how the child looked, for example: “Timmy was so excited when he completed making his zoo that he jumped up ran to me and begged me to come and see.” Instead I would have to write: “Timmy went to a teacher and asked her to see his creation he built.” Now what one would you rather read? Are you aloud to put feeling into your documentation? If not would you want to? What do you think of how you do documentation? Would you do it differently?

The fourth feature is about learning groups that extend beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge. To me this is what the last readings were focused on. This also pertains to feature2. I would like to learn how to better document these learning groups. I want to be able to document the whole group and be able to add it to many of the objectives and different children instead of just one for one child. But now that I’m aware of it I’m trying to take more group learning documentation that can fit into different objectives. What do you think about learning groups?

Learning Group

This week’s readings made me realize that our school isn’t really allowing time for the children to have group learning that can be extended for days. We do have group learning every day, however it is basically group learning at Circle Time, introducing the lesson of the day, during teacher-directed small group and group learning that is encouraged or guided by the teacher.

I liked how the children came up with the idea of sending a letter to a place that if far away that was quicker than by mail, which was the way they were doing it. The teacher did not give the answer, she allowed the children to come with their own ideas, like, rocket, eagle, wind and telephone. The children even drew their own ideas. After having a conversation one of the children came up with the fax machine and from there they involved a parent. We don’t do this at our school. To be honest there isn’t any time. Last week during a Staff Meeting our director had us go over the monthly Calendar and added more things to it. No longer is it only filled with lesson plans but now we have maybe two or sometimes three teacher directed activities. I asked my director that there was no time available if the children wanted to learn something else, and her answer was, “There always is.” But there really isn’t and this is sad. My co-worker and I tried to show her that our days are filled and there is no breathing room but she continued to add more things to do on the Calendar and said we can always fit it in.

I would love to have these learning groups that are children-directed. Everything here is teacher-directed. I’m feeling so over whelming because I’m learning about new and exciting things and want to implement them into the school but if we do it’s added on to what we are already doing, it’s too much! How can teachers change the minds of their directors? I’m getting discouraged. I promised myself that I wouldn’t complain in my blog this week but I am. I believe in what I’m learning and want to make it happen in our school. I really believe that it would be for the betterment of our school, the children, parents, students, and teachers. How can this be done? Are you able to have group learning directed by children? How is it done where you work?

At our school we sometimes get visits from frogs and insects. How fun would it be to have the children, who often are excited by this, learn about them and come up with ideas that we could make happens and come alive! We also hear the train whistle or see helicopters and airplanes fly over our school. The children often point them out the teachers. I bet if it was allowed we could have child directed group learning. Another special visitor is the Nene Goose. The flock will fly low and we often see them every few weeks. Children bring to school a nest to school that they found, a bug they put in a jar, or a shell that they found. I believe if we aloud the time for this, these things could be great learning experiences.

I often hear children tell stories to each other when they play and after reading this week’s reading it makes me wonder if we could extend this type of group learning? I would like to. I look at the different centers that the children are playing in and think of the group learning that is taking place, as well as how it can be extended. Is there a way to do this? How? Do you think group learning is important? The book goes over in detail the Seven Propositions of learning groups, what do you think of them? Aren’t the children learning from each other? Isn’t play an essential part of learning? Is it important enough to let go of old ideas to let new ones take place and form?

Group Play

This week’s readings are based on group play and how teachers observe and support this type of play. In the book it describes how Reggio teachers use different means to document what the children say and do, such as: taking notes, photographs, videotapes, tape recorders, and what I found interesting, sketching. Soon after, usually that day, the Reggio teachers will go over their observations with each other and work together on what direction they will be following the next day. This is something that I find very interesting. Ultimately this would be ideal for me, but it is never what actually happens. Usually the documentation on the observations and assessments will be taken, put away (hopefully in a safe place), and looked at when it’s time to do the portfolios; which is usually several months later. What I would like is time each day to do this and to collaborate with my co-worker on what we should focus on the next day.

I have been noticing, since the readings, how important group play can be. Children in group play can and do learn many things, such as: learning strategies, communication and language, knowledge-building, imagination and creativity, form friendships, and much more. This past weekend I went to the Oahu HAEYC Conference where I took a workshop in play. For the first 20 minutes the class played solitary play and then in the following 25 minutes the class did group play. I much preferred group play. But it made me think of my children in the classroom. How can we focus on small group play? What can I do to support group play? Even in a classroom that does units and lessons there has to be a way that I can incorporate group play as part of everyday learning, but how?

Right now the unit we are on is “All About Me” but tweaked with also learning about the children’s cultures (something new for us – and exciting!) I already have ideas flowing through my head that the children can do that can be group play, but not activity focused (which is what we do at this school). We are learning about our island so I started a mural that the kids could use to grow on – but it didn’t work out so much. So now I will try something else, perhaps bring boxes that the children could work on to make a home or several homes to be played with in the Block Center. Or maybe ask the kids what they would like to do. I’m still thinking on this.

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit the Reggio-based school at Mid Pac. The teacher met with us for almost 2 hours. We looked at the classroom which I just loved and I got more ideas that I wanted for our classroom. I have already implemented a few of them. One of them is using sand as continual art. This is where I went to the beach and got 2 buckets of sand, placed it in a large, shallow, see-through container and placed it on the table along with other material that I collected from the beach: drift wood, coral, different types and sizes of shells, kukui nuts, hamburger nuts (that’s what I call them), opihi shells, small coconuts, and little twigs; which were placed in containers next to the sand. The children then use the material to make art with. It’s wonderful to see them doing this instead of building sandcastles or volcanoes. Also the children played in small groups and came up with how they wanted to work with the materials. I haven’t gotten a chance to observe them close up but I will try to soon.

Also at the Mid Pac school the centers were free to whoever wanted to play in them, without nametags. I found this interesting and would like to visit when children are there. The teacher also shared with us numerous portfolios of the children and also the children’s work. The project they had been working on at the time was wind. It was amazing to see the activities that came from wind: the children drew wind, named their wind, went to field trips about wind, made things that would move in the wind, and etc. It was truly based on what the children wanted to learn about. In the pictures it did seem that there was a lot of group play. It was different to see this instead of what I’m used to: a teacher on a table with 3 to 4 children doing an activity. If possible I would like to blend group play with learning the objectives that we need to follow. How do you see group play as part of learning in your school? Would it be possible to do assessments in a group? What about the quiet children in the group how could you get a true assessment on them? Is one on one assessment no longer necessary? I’m not sure, but I would like to look over our objectives to see if group play (not the group play with the teacher at the table) be incorporated into our assessments, how about you?

Different Styles

It doesn’t surprise me that these teachers have different styles of taking documentation and also interpreting the observation in their own way. I believe that since each of the teachers has a different background they most likely will have a different perspective on how to do things. For example I feel that it’s much easier to take a picture to help jolt my memory when I put the observation into the portfolios and it also takes less time away from the children. I sometimes write down observations, however, it's very time consuming and especially when I’m doing a lesson it’s even harder to write down, word for word, what the children say. When I do assessments with the children I will write things down and take the picture. On the other hand my co-worker seems to prefer to write things down and she will also take pictures. I have also noticed the students that come through the lab school write things down and take pictures, however, I rarely see what they do unless there is a red flag with the child, something extra ordinary that happened, or something to do with how or what the student wrote down.

I have seen many different portfolios and no two are alike. Some are really good and others not so good. I have never been trained to do a portfolio and I think that could be why it’s been so hard and time consuming. I will have ideas of how it should be done and will do it that way. Every few years our director changes the program and then I would come up with a new way of doing them, well, actually now that I have a new head teacher – WE have come up with new ways of doing the portfolios. I also have learned from some of the student’s ways of documentation on observations and have intertwined it with the way that I do mine.

Something I would like to change is how we do portfolios. I think it would benefit everyone if the teachers, students, and director participated in the documentation in each of the portfolios. After this week’s reading on the three teachers and how each of them viewed the observation on the children, it made me question how can we change how we do portfolios so that we can maybe getting a better rounded picture of each child. As of right now the class is split in two, where I take 10 children and my co-worker takes the other 10 children. Each of us tends to focus on those 10 children because we are doing their portfolios. However I wonder if there is a way were we both can be equally responsible of all 20 children. We have tried some things in the past to make this happen, such as: writing on note pads and putting the note pad in a documentation folder of each child. This way we would be getting all the teachers and students documentation on each child. However the flaw I had with this is that on top of, at the time 50 objectives, there wasn’t enough time to add those documentations to the portfolios and at times the way the observation was written was questionable. I have also tried sorting the pictures into each child’s folder (on the computer) but the problem was that the pictures I didn’t take, I truly had to make a judgment call on what I thought was actually happening in the picture. If anyone has some ideas – throw them my way – please!

I do like how by reading each of the teacher’s documentation on the children there seemed to be a fuller picture of what happened, because if you just read one teacher’s observation (apart from the others) you would have a different view of what happened. But is this way of documentation reasonable in you place of work? Why or why not? Is there a different way of documentation that you find easier and still meet the criteria of your school? What is it?