When I began to observe children 30 years ago, I would fill my notebooks with pages of handwritten narrative which detailed what children were doing and saying, minute by minute. I would have no sense of what I was looking for. I also took hundreds of photographs.
Everything I collected was stored and used occasionally when asked to provide evidence that children could do something. Looking back, I can see that the emphasis was on collecting and storing these observations, and not on using them to inform my understanding of my teaching on children’s learning. It took up a lot of time; I did not have capacity to think about the quality of what I was doing with children.
Nancy Kline (1999) in her book Time to Think describes how in daily life we are all so busy ‘doing the work’ that we often don’t take the time to think about this work. She underscores how ‘everything we do depends on the thinking we do first’ and advocates for a thinking environment to become a centrepiece of organisational culture and relationships. Kline describes this centrepiece as a way to think about what we do to enrich our work and to produce better ideas with better outcomes for all.
LEARNING INTENTIONS
When on a study tour to Reggio Emilia in Italy I saw educators preparing clay and drawing materials for a small group of three- to four-year-olds. They imagined beforehand how children might organise their marks and forms with these materials, how they might play on in two and three dimensions, what materials they might begin with first and how they might borrow ideas from each other.
This thinking enabled these Reggio Emilia educators to make carefully considered adjustments to how the materials were presented to the children and to reconsider their interactions. A child drawing a tree with charcoal said, ‘I’m drawing the front of the tree.’ This alerted the educator to how this child might be thinking about the limitations of representing a tree on 2D paper. The educator could hold that idea until next time, to then invite the child to think again about their tree in clay, comparing what they do in one material with another.
I began to realise how my observations were not focused on what might be explored conceptually (in this example, it was the border between two and three dimensions in representation), and therefore not enabling me to make thoughtful adjustments, or to return to ideas of children in my practice, pedagogy, provision or planning. Instead, I was focused on the ‘doing of the work’, e.g., did they have a turn, did they share the materials, and what they said about the materials.
Now, when I observe children and when I am teaching other educators to observe, the focus is on our intention, which can relate to previous observations. How and what are the children learning? How are they expressing that in relationship to my teaching, and the way I am interacting with them and organising materials within their learning environment? I might ask:
- What do I think is important for the children to understand in this learning context, and how will I know if they understand it? This relates to my intention – why I have curated and organised these materials? It helps me to attune my observations of children’s understanding of specific concepts, e.g., which of these materials in the water tray float and why?
- What will I be looking out for in my observation as I interact with children? This alerts meto what I might discover about the children’ knowledge and the ways in which they construct their understanding with materials through play.
- Then, afterwards, I can consider and reflect upon:
- What has each child gained in their understanding (as related to this learning situation and my intentions)?
- What does each child still need time to experience to consolidate their understanding (as related to this learning situation and my intentions)?
- And then, thinking about the above – what do I now need to do to develop this (related to the materials, my interactions and my new intentions)?
This process of observation enables educators to think and reflect both in the moment of action with children (so that interactions with them are responsive, attuned and fitting) and on action after the event – where the what and the how of their learning experience and its impact can be thoroughly considered to then plan what will be best to do next (Schön 1991).
Educators are acting researchfully to identify how these materials help or hinder children to understand the world around them.
CASE STUDY: Woodlands Primary and Nursery School
At Woodlands Primary and Nursery School in Telford, educators are always listening out for the enquires of the children as they encounter intelligent materials. Recent questions include:
- Do snails have teeth?
- How does the water get into plants?
- Do worms like slides?
- How do crabs hear?
These questions are at the heart of children’s motivation to learn, and the educators value and work with these questions by co-designing with children the plan of what to do next to find answers to their ideas. It is an example of curriculum-making with children (Chesworth and Wood 2022) and holds significant meaning and relevance for children. In practice, children might watch a film about worms and then use drawing materials to visualise their thinking to explore how worms might like slides. Or they might build a ‘worm park’ with blocks.
In the block area, children aged three to five were exploring their ideas about different kinds of vehicles – both ones they were familiar with and ones they imagined, such as rockets and rovers used in space. Educators observed how children talked about these vehicles and then offered them images and films of them. The educators also observed the careful and intentional placement of the blocks, which illustrated ideas about engines, power and energy, and how these vehicles moved.
Caroline Whale, Woodlands Nursery class teacher, says, ‘We realised the children needed a wider range of circular parts to choose from for them to explore how these vehicles moved along different surfaces such as the moon, road or tracks. We then noticed this opened up discussion around the different ways in which their vehicles moved – such as going slowly over bumps or having to break fast in an emergency if needed.’ The children shared their thinking about the blocks and their ideas about their vehicles with each other.
These observations were jotted down in a journal and shared by educators so that they could assess the impact of their teaching against their intentions. They would also note the unexpected ideas or thoughts arising of the children which may not have been initially anticipated and that could become starting points for new projects. Caroline says, ‘It is really important for us both individually and as a team to reflect on our written recording and observations from memory as it helps us to know if the children are making progress with their learning and are understanding what they are building. This then enables us to make any adjustments to the teaching or the materials offered in our project areas – it’s how we effectively plan for learning.’
about this series
In this four-part series I have been investigating what intelligent materials are and how educators design learning environments through exploring them. In this final article, I look at observation: how to identify gains children make in their learning and how to make thoughtful adjustments to materials and environments. I begin with thinking about why observation is crucial to understanding the impact of our pedagogy, practice, provision and planning (the four Ps) and how it enables educators to make meaning of learning and development.
Reflection points
- How do you pinpoint what learning is occurring with intelligent materials?
- How do you use this information to adapt your pedagogy, practice, provision and planning?
- How do you further children’s enquiries in your planning and provision with intelligent materials?
References
- Chesworth L. and Wood E. (2022) Creatinga curriculum with young children, Froebel Trust. Available at: https://www.froebel.org.uk/uploads/documents/FT-Creating-a-curriculum-with-young-children.pdf [Accessed on: 15 September 2023]
- Kline N. (1999) Time to Think. Octopus Books
- Schön D. A. (1991) The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. Ashgate Publishing
