The audio recording is conducted during an indoor playtime and was engaged using cue cards, relating to the best interest topic of the focus child, to better enhance the communication. The purpose of this work is to analyze the pedagogical significance and quality of interaction which could potentially affect an infant or toddler’s learning outcomes. “Pedagogical documentation is a process that helps educators, families, children, and communities to understand and value children’s learning” (Arthur et al., 2018). After a thorough observation of the audio recording, a plethora of potential learning outcomes through pedagogical teachings and dialogical weaknesses has been identified in multiple areas throughout the process. With the purpose of this analysis allows further support from the EYLF outcomes and supporting articles to better improve the teaching strategies and being more aware of the wrongdoings.
The Pedagogical Significance
When interacting with the toddler during play, an intentional teaching approach has been integrated into the conversation. EYLF (Outcome 4.0) Children are confident and involved learners. Infant and toddlers are constantly involved in continuous learning, through different aspects such as play, conversation with their peers and daily observations. The intentional teaching that I had scaffolded into the play found in this dialogue are purposeful and spontaneous by applying techniques of open questioning and shared thinking. The reason for this is to expand the toddler’s curiosity, have better recognition, a clearer understanding of how things work and recognizing the differences, especially when relating to the topic that suits their best interests. For instance, the conversation involved the learning of colours [L1 – L3], introducing different modes of transportation and pronunciation [L8 – L12] and, also the work of a transport [L17]. According to VEYLDF (2016), integrated teaching and learning approaches are effective early childhood practices used to encourage children in sustained and shared interactions, making more sense in their play and develop ideas on what they have encountered every day in both social and natural manner. Other than that, I was actively responding to the toddler’s cues, showing interest in the play by paying full attention on the approximation of words and respecting his responses, [L1 – L24], reflect on the learning with real-life observations [L13 – L19] and recognizing his knowledge [L9 – L12]. EYLF (Outcome 3.0) Children have a strong sense of wellbeing. DEEWR (as cited in Cheeseman, Sumsion & Press, 2015, p.41) mentioned that being responsive towards children is crucial for educators in determining a child’s strengths, interests, abilities and, ways of knowing and learning in order to design an appropriate teaching strategy and learning environment. Along with that, is the use of appropriate verbal tones when responding to the toddler’s reply via the stressing of words on vocabularies and combining with sounds (mimicking the sound of an airplane) together with high and low pitches. EYLF (Outcome 5.0) Children are effective communicators. Infant and toddlers are active communicators, expressing their emotions through verbal and non-verbal interactions. These approaches enable toddlers to notice the emotions I am trying to convey and better recognize the importance in areas of teaching that has been pointed out, adopting a broader understanding of what they have already known. Not only does that help with an ongoing distribution of knowledge, but also to initiate a positive learning space for the toddler to enhance their self-expression, building a meaningful relationship and making play more exciting. “Interactions are thus not merely sent or received language exchanges but can be thought of as emotional events that are characterized by consciousness in dialogue with one another” (White, Redder & Peter, 2015, p.286).
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
Identified Weaknesses
The main weakness for this critical analysis research is partially due to limited access to the information contained from the audio recording. I have lost a huge opportunity and exposure that is available in the video which could only be seen and not heard; also, making it difficult to provide a detailed and quality transcription to analyze and observe the learning that has taken place with the toddler. EYLF (Outcome 1.0) Children have a strong sense of identity. Having the ability to recognize our own and toddler’s emotions, non-verbal interactions, body language, and eye contact is of utmost importance to determine the effectiveness of these pedagogical approaches, how the relationship is built, and whether attention is given between teacher - toddler during the conversation. White et al. (2015) stated that eye contact plays a huge role for infants and toddlers as social participants, giving and receiving in mutual dialogues. Not only that, the emotions and actions that have been conveyed together with the toddler acts as strong support to cover up the missing gaps in the audio dialogue [L4 and L8] as it could sometimes sound misleading for others. For example, the tone heard from a recorded audio “no..” in the conversation may sound like a boring respond with an unimpressed tone when it was actually a gentle respond with a smile on the toddler’s face [L2 and L14]. What is more, the “toddler no response” during an audio recording can possibly be non-verbal cues such as smiling at each other, approaching an object, nodding/ shaking head, etc. Infant and toddlers at this age use a lot of body language to connect with their peers. Therefore, it is essential for us to recognize the actions and do the same by offering infants and toddlers a sense of trust, comfort, and attention; displaying a feeling of agency and recognition, making them feel important and valuing their participation in learning. Berthelsen and Brownlee (as cited in Degotardi & Pearson, 2014) explained that involvement is broadly referred to as participatory learning and it could only be formed through the presence of educator and child’s trustful, open and reciprocal communications. Not only that, it impacted my personal self-reflection as well because as I could not analyze and criticize the strengths and limitations of gestures, positioning of body or facial expressions during the face-to-face interaction with the toddler. As stated by Tobin and Xiao (2018), reflecting on personal video is extremely helpful in identifying and recognizing the perceived mistakes which can then be avoided later in the future. Other than that, another weakness that has been identified is on the quality of dialogue presented. When transcribing, I have noticed on certain areas of the dialogue was just repeating after the toddler’s words [L6 and L24] instead of using the words to assist myself in structuring a new approach. In this case, singing a song related to bus or extended questions such as “how fast can a train go?”. This mistake could eventually lead to a loss of interest and attention in the toddler, hence making the learning less meaningful. As I recalled, during that few seconds interval, I was trying to be responsive and at the same time initiate a more captivating open question to keep up with the conversation [L13 and L20]. As the conversation was meant to be spontaneous, however, it is quite challenging to form good quality dialogues in such a short period of time.
Areas of Improvement
There are multiple areas and techniques that I would need to take into consideration for further improvement and, best deliver my services and responsibilities to better enhance the learning experiences for infants and toddlers. As a pre-service teacher, it is essential for me to know the type of responses I would want to receive that brings the best out of an infant or toddler’s capabilities; such as, the quality of the answers provided, infant and toddlers reaction in return, what learning are available through this pedagogical teaching and whether the questions initiated could extend their existing knowledge. According to Dominic & Parker (2013), the opportunity of including pupils as active participants in dialogue and boosting children’s connection to ideas is crucial for educators. In order to better cater infants and toddlers in their learning, it is best for me to implement a pre-planning task such as brainstorming on relevant questions or altering the dialogue that encourages unlimited exploration and curiosity from different perspectives before engaging in quality conversation. Having back-up questions or hint points whilst engaging on a specific topic enables me to confidently distribute my knowledge and, reducing the time wasted on hunting around for new ideas and approaches. Furthermore, this technique acts as a purpose of guidance and would encourage a smooth, informative and extensive conversation; creating a sustained shared thinking between teacher and child. MacNaughton and Williams (as cited in Cohrssen, Church & Tayler, 2011), “Sustained shared thinking underpins a range of techniques used in teaching young children, such as co-constructing understanding, philosophizing, and scaffolding their learning, amongst others”. Besides, another area that I would need to improve in the future is on motivation. The purpose of the teacher to being more motivated is to bring about an infant and toddler’s enthusiasm in learning. By establishing a positive and creative teaching environment, it could assist children in freely expressing their emotions, triggering their excitement in learning and, also to be more attentive when involved in the curriculum. As mentioned by Dominic & Parker (2013), children have the ability to learn better when they feel motivated to learn. Lastly, I would continue to provide support on their explorations and acknowledging their interests, allowing them to take the lead. According to Degotardi & Pearson (2014), the joint attention of educators on the object/ object of interest can be established when the child is leading, shaping a pathway for a more coordinated and reciprocal interaction.
In conclusion, an in-depth review of the audio recording is an efficient technique to deeply identify the various potential aspects and weaknesses during the engagement with the toddler. However, it would be beneficial with the availability of video together as it could assess on a non-verbal context between the teacher-toddler interactions and better linked to the meaning contained in the dialogue. It is vital to include the study of body language, eye contact, and gestures to verify the effectiveness of pedagogical teachings and how these are carried. Other than that, infants and toddlers are the centers of learning where their responses need to be heard and acknowledged in order to further support them towards achieving a purposeful and meaningful education. This reflection had given me a broad understanding of how emotionality, trust, and teacher-child relationship could drastically impact on children’s learning outcomes. Giving infant and toddlers continuous encouragement and motivation to create spaces for unlimited exploration. In addition, not only does intentional teaching help to widen an infant or toddler’s existing knowledge, having children as a lead could also result in better coordination and reciprocal interactions. Therefore, as a pre-service teacher, I would reflect on all the disadvantages and weaknesses to better build and enhance my teaching strategies, implementing a different scope of teaching that encourages creativity and freedom in infant and toddler’s uses of knowledge and, to be more aware in the future.
Stuck on your essay?
