Playful Pedagogy in Enabling Young Childrens Learning - Report Example

Playful Pedagogy in Enabling Young Children’s Learning Introduction Teaching young children requires extensive understanding of their needs that are influenced by their specific developmental stage. While teachers might find necessary to use direct learning as they attempt to have greater impact on the development of the children, it also necessary that children are given room to learn and explore on their own as a basis on which they form personal experiences on different concepts. An important aspect of young children’s learning that advocates for them to gain personal experience is when the teacher engages in playful pedagogy as the main approach in instructing the children. This essay critically evaluates hoe teachers can enable young children’s learning by adopting playful pedagogy. To achieve this task free play and guided play are identified as the main forms of playful pedagogy adopted in playful pedagogy with emphasis on combining the two in order to enhance the value of young children’s learning experience. Playful Pedagogy in Young Children’s Learning Teachers involved in young children’s learning have a range of teaching options to choose from including picking from approaches based on direct instruction to those found in playful pedagogy. When deciding on the choice of direct instruction, teachers are guided by the need to tell children things to do, base on the belief that the instructor should be an active agent in the process. Therefore, direct instruction is about the teacher instructing children on what they needed to know with minimal room for children to demonstrate their own ability during the time of instruction. Playful pedagogy involves a significantly different approach with the children becoming the focal point in the process of learning and exploration. Giving children the lead role affords them greater responsibility in the session increasing their level of activeness and engagement than when the instructor mainly relies on direct instruction. UK policy makers have demonstrated their understanding of the importance of playful pedagogy in recent policies targeting early childhood development education. Among the recent policies on young children’s learning with a focus on playful pedagogy is the Early Years Foundation Stage in England (DfEE/QCA, 2000, p. 25), achieving wider support due to existence of specific sections addressing the role and value of play in supporting learning for this group both at home and while in an educational set up. Effective application of the policy led to further revision that led to the definition of age bracket zero to five, while aligning it to wider social policy issues covered under the Every Child Matters framework (Anning, Cullen and Fleer, 2009, p. 28). Read together with other curriculum polices on young children’s learning, these policies give direction on principles guiding pedagogy, curriculum and assessment with a focus on children’s experience. The policies Literature on playful pedagogy distinguishes between two such forms that young children’s learning may take; guided play and free play. Within a classroom setting, guided play exists between teaching and learning experience involving free play and direct instruction. Free play and guided play are differentiated based on based on the roles and responsibilities that adults and children assume during the session. A number of researchers have sought to define free play with Burghardt (2011, p. 13) noting the difficulty in coming up with an all-encompassing definition. However, a number of features that are essential in determining free play include involvement in fun activities that are also voluntary, flexible, lack extrinsic goals, active engagement of children and may sometimes involve aspects of make-believe (Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Singer, and Berk, 2011, p. 358; Sutton-Smith, 2009, 203; Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk and Singer, 2009, p 33; Pellegrini, 2009, p. 137). The features of free play are distinct from young children’s learning involving guided play based on the involvement of adults. Adults’ role in free play is passive as children are allowed to explore with great amount of freedom to what they can do during a learning and exploration situation. However, free play might have lower achievement rate for the children as they find it difficult to attain any learning goal. Including playful pedagogy in young children’s learning often proves to be challenging for most instructors. Lack of deep experience on playful learning presents difficulties when making decisions on how or when to interact in plays initiated by the children. In this case, instructors find it easy to direct plays they have initiated based on their knowledge on introducing and directing playful pedagogy. Personal experience has shown that attempts to be involved in child-initiated play is always accompanied by a lot of reservations while sometimes it may lead to taking up of roles that do not contribute to smooth flow of play. The challenges in being involved in playful pedagogy leads to discussion about the best approaches that instructors can use to make such learning experience fun for both the children and the instructor. Observation of children playing in the presence of adults indicates children like playing with adults and seeks their involvement as co-players. Therefore, for smooth involvement in child-initiated play, instructors should adopt strategies used by children when they learn how to be good players (DCSF, 2009, p. 14). Strategies for entering play adopted by children includes standing aside to observe play to get the gist of what is happening. This enables the instructor to comprehend the rules of the play while also thinking about what they might offer to make the play more interesting. Additionally, instructors must adopt strategies such as asking permission to join the play using questions such as; ‘Please can I play?’ The learning process in guided learning is adult initiated, which means goals predetermined by the instructor who also responsible for ensuring activities are focused towards achieving these goals. However, guided learning still involves some freedom for the children who are allowed to guide their own discovery. The activities of the instructor might be limited to instigating play with the children having responsibility over direction of learning within the play context. The role of instructors during guided play is to improve level of children’s learning and exploration through strategies that heighten the level of experience reported by the children. Some of the strategies employed by the teachers may include making specific comments about certain discoveries, direct involvement in play activities, introducing new approaches that children might not have in explorations of materials and posing open-ended questions on findings by children (Ash and Wells, 2006, p. 47; Callanan and Braswell, 2006, p 130; Rogoff, 2003, p. 284). This approach in guided play grants teachers an active as they follow children’s lead while avoiding by dictatorial by allowing them to engage in discovery. Nevertheless, the children’s learning is expected to correspond to the confines of a prepared environment. Guided playful pedagogy corresponds to learning and exploration activities that are adult-led. Adult-led activities in playful pedagogy present opportunities for instructors to have essential role in supporting children’s exploration and learning by making it possible to introduce new ideas in addition to developing and practising new skills. Instructors involved in adult-led playful activity get the opportunity to extend the development of children’s learning experience regardless of whether the activities are prompted by children’s interest as observed in their play (DCSF, 2009, p. 6). Playful pedagogy corresponds to the need for instructors to encourage children to develop positive attributes regarding skills and values like risk taking, commitment, exercising independent judgement, resilience, intrinsic motivation and curiosity. These skills and values contribute to development of creativity in children necessary for the early stages of their growth and development. Guided playful learning also contributes towards the development of inclusive approach to pedagogy based on a classroom situation where the instructor passes control back to the children. As an aspect of inclusive approach to learning and children exploration, guided playful pedagogy contributes to the development of a co-participative process. According to Jeffrey and Craft (2004, p. 8-9) co-participative process in pedagogy present the opportunity for instructors and children to engage in a learning situation that allows for asking questions, problem identification in addition to debating and discussing different contributions. Striking a Balance in Playful Pedagogy Although free or unstructured play and guided play might appear, as two distinct forms of playful pedagogy, therefore, should be applied in isolation, they present an opportunity for instructors to combine them creatively for enhancement of learning outcome. given the fact that too little adult involvement constrains learning while firm control of the learning activities deny children a chance to be creative, achieving a middle ground will result in a more productive outcome for both the instructor and children. Effective playful pedagogy requires the instructor to have the skills and attitude necessary for organisation of time, space and activities in a combination that supports children’s interests in the learning environment. Creating a learning environment that is in recognition of the role to be played by both adults and children requires that the instructor recognise what is best for the particular development stage of the children functioning as individuals and in groups (DCSF, 2009, p. 5). A specific instance where the two forms of playful pedagogy finds application in a learning situation where the teacher divides a particular day into periods of teacher involvement and child-initiated play. In this case, free play compensates for children’s need for space, relaxation and independence. During a period of free play, the teacher might intervene with sessions of structured activities targeting useful skills. This is important especially when the group of children include some with special educational needs, offering demonstrations on the use of certain tools, and when clarifying on particular vocabulary. The need for playful pedagogy that combine aspects of free play and guided play are supported by several literature emphasising the contribution of these forms of playful learning. Free play has been found to have positive relation with children’s social and emotional development (Siraj-Blatchford and Mayo, 2011, p. 57). Additionally, free play during the early development stage contributes positively to children’s language learning and literacy (Lillardet al. 2013, p. 13). Given the close link between guided play and didactic pedagogies in terms of teacher or adult involvement in children’s learning and exploration, the outcomes of the playful pedagogy can be seen as contributing to the enchantment of children’s knowledge. Therefore, children taken through guided form of playful pedagogy also gain the benefit of improved academic skills found in didactic pedagogies. Generally, playful pedagogies for pre-schoolers seem to result in high quality outcome in terms of performance compared to children who learn through direct instruction (Waldron-Soler et al. 2002, p. 76; Weisberg, Hirsh‐Pasek and Golinkoff, 2013, p. 105). UK policies on young children’s learning have indicated greater support for pedagogical approaches that combines both child-initiated and adult-led activities found in approaches that range from free to structured play. Integration of playful pedagogies in supported both in scholarly research and in studies funded by the government under Effective Provision for Preschool Education (EPPE). While insisting on the importance of combining the playful pedagogies, EPPE has also provided evidence on the positive contributions of quality pedagogical actions that connect play with positive learning outcomes (Sylva et al. 2007, p. 52; Wood, 2010, p. 10, 16). Existence of curriculum advocating playful pedagogy does not contribute to better practice for teachers who find it difficult to combine and balance various responsibilities in the learning environment. Teachers face considerable challenges when implementing playful pedagogy due to a combination of factors related to their level of performance, accountability, and achievement from the learning sessions. Additionally, deciding on what comprise effective teaching and learning is an issue that affects the wider education educational sector including the aspect of playful pedagogy in children’s learning (Wood, 2007, p. 310; Wood, 2008, p. 22). Conclusion The UK early childhood development education puts greater emphasis on learning experiences involving playful pedagogy. Through approaches that allow children to learn through play, teachers are able to provide learning experiences with greater benefit to the children as opposed to children taken through direct instruction. The essay has identified free play and guided play as being representative of the appeasing ends that playful pedagogy might take with existing UK policies on curriculum for young children’s learning seen as promoting integration of the two forms. Although integration of the forms of playful learning enhances learning experience for the young children, teachers at this developmental stage sometimes encounter greater challenges in creating the necessary balance. However, teachers seeking to put interests of the young children at the forefront of their practice should find enough space within the learning environment to combine aspects of the two forms of playful pedagogy in picking the curriculum for young children is learning. References Anning, A., Cullen, J., & Fleer, M. (Eds.), 2009. Early childhood education: Society and culture. London: Sage. Ash, D., & Wells, G., 2006. Dialogic inquiry in classroom and museum: Action, tools, and talk. In Z. Bekerman, N. Burbules, & D. 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