Learning is not a passive procedure; real, significant learning is not something that can be inflicted from the outside or clinically delivered to a recipient. For learning to be successful, for it to have meaning, the learner must participate actively in the process of learning and 'own' what happens. The learner must make sense of it and understand what it means to them as a person. This means taking learning to its limits, defining it and exploring what it means, how it can be used and applied to the every day. This learning - active learning - embeds the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful in the 'real life' of the learner.
The notion of 'active learning' is identified in the EYFS review by Dame Clare Tickell as one of the strands of 'Effective Learning and Teaching'. It identifies, focuses on and describes the skills and attributes that active learning constitutes and further contributes to a broader picture of the critical aspects of pedagogy that practitioners need to support and facilitate.
ACHIEVING MASTERY
Active learning incorporates key characteristics that arise from the intrinsic motivation to achieve mastery - to experience competence, understanding, and autonomy. In Annex 8 of the EYFS Review 1, these characteristics are described as:
- Being involved and concentrating, which describes the intensity of attention that arises from children concentrating on following a line of interest in their activities. It also supports the deep-level learning (as explored by Ferre Laevers) which should be a goal of early education: 'In enhancing children's thinking, it is more important to aim at depth and not breadth. Deep understanding is more important than superficial coverage' (Evangelou, 2009: p8)
- Keeping on trying, which refers to the importance of persistence even in the face of challenge or difficulties, an element of purposeful control that supports resilience
- Enjoying achieving what they set out to do, which refers to the reward of meeting one's own goals, building on the intrinsic motivation which supports long-term success, rather than relying on the approval of others.
MOTIVATION
A critical starting point for any learning is the presence of motivation. Wanting to do something, having a reason, a purpose for finding something out, achieving a goal or learning a skill, far outweighs the potentially daunting challenges that achieving this may present. Natural motivation, the desire and impulse to achieve and 'do', is hardwired into all children as part of their instinct to survive and succeed.
Activity, support and challenge that tap into this and build upon it are likely to be more successful and meaningful, as they start with the irrepressible cognitive energy of desire and enthusiasm. Children know that mastery of skills and knowledge will equip them with the necessary tools to progress and realise their aims and goals; motivation drives the possibility of this. Tina Bruce identifies this as one of the ten principles of early childhood education: that 'intrinsic motivation, resulting in child-initiated, self-directed activity is valued' 2.
OWNERSHIP
Ferre Laevers explores the difference between real learning and what he terms 'the appearance of learning'. 'Real learning' is meaningful, useable and relevant; the 'appearance of learning' is shallow, irrelevant and instantly forgettable. Approaches that strive to 'cover curriculum content' at the expense of children really understanding may fall unwittingly into this trap.
A crucial component of engaging children with the process of learning is the child's knowledge and understanding that this is significant for their own use and not for the external affirmation - however pleasant that may be - this might bring. If children are not aware of how information and skills benefit, support and empower them, then 'learning' becomes unconnected to their lives and will fall from their consciousness, as it will be unused.
CHALLENGE
As learning is not a passive process, neither is it a stationary one. Learning and development are continuous and constant, progressively making more connections with existing knowledge and skills, continually finding new ways of understanding, applying and making meaning. Taking children out of their comfort zone, into what Vygotsky describes as their ZPD (zone of proximal development), is a critical and unconditional responsibility for all practitioners.
If children's learning is not challenged and extended, learners stay in their warm, predictable 'comfort zone', repeating and reproducing what they already know and can do. If this happens, then not only do they miss out on the opportunities of new, exciting and life enhancing possibilities, but the complacency that this creates prevents them from trying things out, taking risks, making mistakes and reflecting on their own learning.
These vital aspects of supporting learning and development and the ability to extend and challenge what is known or understood lie at the heart of effective, responsible practice and provision.
PERSISTENCE
There is a saying that 'nothing worth knowing reveals itself easily'. A challenge, something just beyond reach, can be something daunting, frustrating, seemingly impossible and frightening. But being able to 'power through' these invisible obstacles equips learners with the life skills of persistence, concentration, perseverance and defiance.
'Staying power' and the quality of not giving up when challenges seem insurmountable will enable deep significant learning to take place. Effective learners will try a range of strategies, asking for support when necessary, taking time to think and act things through when a solution is required. Seeing a process or an activity through to the end, however difficult and cognitively untidy this may be, leads to inevitable satisfaction of having transcended difficulties.
SELF-REGULATION
There is also a maxim stating that 'short-term pain secures long term-gain'. Linked to the quality of persistence is the understanding that encountering and 'seeing through' something difficult and challenging can lead to greater rewards in the future.
The life skill of 'delaying instant gratification' is a critically important one that is often a strong influence on choices made and their subsequent consequences. Learners need to see 'beyond the immediate' and what might be possible if they are able to successfully resist following the most prominent emotion. This ability to summon 'inner strength' when faced with a dilemma, and see the possibility of an outcome that is currently invisible, enables learners to take a greater control of their achievements and exercise an understanding of personal responsibility.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS
The skills and attributes described in active learning are critical for lifelong success and they secure approaches to learning and learning behaviours that extend far beyond purely academic outcomes. Indeed, it could be argued that curriculum 'knowledge' is highly dependent on possession of these attributes in order to have impact and meaning.
There can be a tendency to assume that these qualities are innate, or not; that young children can concentrate, be motivated, respond to challenge and self-regulate, or they cannot. It is sometimes assumed that genetics and environment establish this propensity very early on and practitioners merely work with the consequences of this.
In fact, there is a strong body of opinion that challenges this, and asserts that these skills are in fact 'learned' and 'learnable' behaviours. Skilled practitioners can support and scaffold strategies for children to use so that these attributes and the benefits they provide are realised. An effective EYFS setting provides multiple opportunities to offer what uniquely motivates individual learners and ensures that challenges and new possibilities occur naturally as part of the provision. Effective adult interaction demonstrates and conveys how the skills of persistence and the importance of ownership can be managed and internalised successfully.
As with all aspects of approaches to the processes of learning, rather than curriculum content, practitioners must ensure that they provide opportunities for children to learn skills, rather than teaching them in any kind of didactic way. Important too is that these opportunities are woven in to all aspects of everday practice and provision.
Equally, practitioners need to be confident in their own judgement and the knowledge of the children in their setting so that they can decide when best to intervene and when best to allow a child to work through a situation on their own, drawing on their inner resources.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR SUPPORTING ACTIVE LEARNING
Environment
Within the flexibility and open-ended nature of effective learning environments, practitioners should:
- ensure that they also include stimulating and challenging resources
- use their observations and assessments of children to identify those 'all-consuming' interests that drive children's motivation and build on these by creating opportunities to support the development of the appropriate skills and qualities
- introduce new and unknown resources to appropriate areas of provision with the implicit question of 'what can this be used for?' This will stimulate connections and possibilities for children's thinking
- provide, as appropriate, photographs, pictures and objects that link to children's interests, so valuing the importance of children's self-initiated activities and offering additional stimuli to explore them further
- take their lead from the children when judging when a project is 'finished'. This may not necessarily coincide conveniently with adult-defined routines, but practitioners should be prepared to be flexible, allowing projects to run over sessions, even days if necessary, as this will build motivation, ownership and perseverance.
Time
The prominent attributes in active learning are difficult to maintain in a fragmented routine, where children are 'stopping and starting'. This reduces their incentive to become fully involved in activities and develop the skills required. Within the principles of the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, it states that effective learning involves 'children having time to explore ideas and interests in depth'.3
The necessity for uninterrupted time, for children to dig deep into their learning, to establish what Ferre Laevers calls 'high levels of involvement', is a critical consideration for practitioners.
- Where possible, practitioners should maintain flexibility within set routines, carefully considering the balance between the need to stop for carpet time or story time and the levels of involvement apparent within the setting. This is a professional judgement that practitioners need to exercise, taking account of what will be most effective for children's learning and development.
Interaction
Sensitive and effective adult interaction enables early years practitioners to support and develop implicitly children's skills and abilities as active learners. The messages and cues that children will receive are vital to ensure that the 'inner strength' and self-knowledge required are allowed to flourish. For all early years practitioners, this means being acutely aware of how their behaviour will impact on how children come to understand the value of their own learning.
- Practitioners need to consider who the activity is for. If the language that practitioners use suggests that this is for the adult, the child will lose the control of its purpose and, therefore, its significance to them. Rather than saying 'Can you draw me a picture?', the locus of control shifts significantly simply when the practitioner says 'What picture do you want to draw?'
- Praising children is a critical part of raising their self-esteem and confidence, but praise has to be moderated carefully so that children generate intrinsic motivation and don't become dependent on adult affirmation. The learning achieved benefits the child, so this should be recognised by the practitioner. Hearing phrases like 'You've tried really hard, haven't you? You can really do that now! You must be proud of yourself!' is much more empowering to a learner than telling them that 'I'm really pleased with you.'
- Practitioners need to be judicious with the use of stickers and rewards. Penny Tassoni notes that 'there is a serious issue about whether, by giving children stickers, they become overly focused on adult approval. This could stop them developing their own self-belief and ability to self-evaluate - after all, an adult is doing it for them.' 4
Developing strategies
Key behaviours may need to be modelled, scaffolded and explicitly supported by practitioners. This means being able to identify the moments in an activity when supporting the development of that behaviour will make its benefits clear. As with many aspects of supporting children, it will be dependent on the practitioner's knowledge of how best to support the individual child.
- Practitioners need to encourage children to make their own informed choices about their learning and activities, discussing the implications openly and honestly and shaping the possibilities. Nancy Stewart suggests that practitioners should 'break down complex skills into subgoals where children can enjoy success and build motivation for things that are not immediately attractive' 5.
- Equally, support for developing self-regulation may need to be discussed explicitly - 'what would the consequences be of doing/not doing this?' This ability to articulate emotional literacy deepens and contextualises how children understand it.
- Challenges and possibilities may not be immediately visible to the child, so a critical role for the practitioner is to illuminate them for children subtly through simple questioning and suggestions, such as 'What would happen if ...? Have you tried ...? Do you think you can ...? Why would/wouldn't this work ...?'
- Encouragement for persistence should also be used carefully. Practitioners need to be sure that this does not culminate in more 'adult pleasing', but building a strength to see beyond what is immediately difficult.
Assessment
As with the other 'Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning', assessment of these will focus on the process rather than the content of children's learning, and there is no emerging, expected or exceeding judgement to be made. As part of the revised EYFS Profile, this information will form a narrative to enable the Y1 teacher to support the individuality of each incumbent learner appropriately.
For the characteristic active learning, practitioners will need to consider examples of children demonstrating how they learn in the following scenarios:
Being involved and concentrating
- Do the children keep focused on a self-initiated activity for a long period of time?
- Are they concentrating and involved in the activity without being distracted?
- Do they show care with what they are doing, taking their time to get things 'just right'?
- Do they demonstrate their concentration through silence or 'thinking loud'?
Keeping on trying
- Do children show persistence - not giving up when there are difficulties, even if it means starting again?
- Do they ask for help or support if they need it, and then continue without it?
- Do they discuss solutions for challenges with peers/adults, or work things through themselves?
Enjoying achieving what they set out to do
- Is there a sense of satisfaction and pride when they have completed an activity; do they want to show everyone and tell special people about it?
- Do they relish challenges and continually try to make things better/more complex?
- Do they evaluate themselves and try different things as a result?
- Are they 'intrinsically motivated', achieving things for themselves rather than adult praise?
ACTIVE LEARNING IN PRACTICE
Sam is in the sand area and has brought with him some small-world farm animals. He wants to keep them safe where the fox can't see them. Humming gently to himself and reassuring the animals that they will be safe, he puts them all in the middle and then starts making a wall out of sand around them. However, when the wall gets to a certain height it falls down and the animals are exposed.
He tries different objects as walls, notably the other resources in the sand area, but is not satisfied with these as they don't offer adequate protection. Eventually, he puts some small stones inside the sand wall and this strengthens it enough to stay up. He nods and smiles as he looks at the finished result.
In his self-initiated activity Sam demonstrates:
- intrinsic motivation to complete a self-directed activity that he has developed himself and exists within his own narrative about keeping animals safe from a fox
- high levels of concentration and involvement by maintaining undistracted focus throughout
- perseverance and persistence in overcoming challenges and obstacles; undaunted by the inadequacy of the sand walls, he tries different things to solve the problem
- a sense of self-pride and satisfaction when he has successfully completed his own task.
FOOTNOTES
1 The Early Years: Foundations for life, health and learning. Dame Clare Tickell (DfE 2011), Annex 8
2 Tina Bruce (1987) Early Childhood Education (Hodder Education), p38
3 DfEE (2000) Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, p20
4 Penny Tassoni 'Stick with it?' Nursery World, 23 January 2012
5 Nancy Stewart (2011) How Children Learn - the characteristics of effective early learning (Early Education), p107
FURTHER READING
- Daniel Goleman (1996) Emotional Intelligence (Bloomsbury)
- Charles Desforges (1995) An Introduction to Teaching: Psychological Perspectives (Wiley - Blackwell)
- Cara Flanagan (1996) Applying psychology to early child development (Hodder and Stoughton)
- Ferre Laevers (2004) Involvement of Teacher and Children Style: Insights from an International Study on Experiential Education (Studia Paedagogica, Leuven University Press).