Silkysteps early years forum - planning ideas for play

Quote:

Originally Posted by loulouw (Post 32042)

Right I know I keep asking about this part of 403 but I feel like Im going no where. Really struggling on K4d806:banghead: I can find loads of theorists but not sure on which ones to use and what to write. Im really struggling with the laissez faire approach Im using Jean Jaques Rosseu but not sure what to write because what I have wrote doesnt look like much in fact it looks pretty perfetic. This unit is really putting me off of doing my Level 4. Anyone that can help I would really appreciate it. Sorry to keep asking about it.

You may do better to at least borrow a book or buy a second hand book from Amazon such as 'How Children Learn' by Susan Pound. She has written 3 or 4 on the same lines. It will give you a little taster of some of the theorists she looks at and it's very easy to read, simple to understand and will help you do this unit no problem. I know people who do degrees that dip into a book such as this before delving into a more academic book.

Some of the theorists as you are finding believe this, believe that, and it can become quite confusing until you really read into their work, so everyone's opinion may differ.

Are you asked to look at certain theorists/theories or can you choose?

If you can choose, perhaps you could look at Piaget for schemas and you can follow up on this theory with up to date books with Chris Athey who studied schema and also Cathy Nut-Brown. Piaget's theory was that children moved through the stages when they had learnt something and then moved on to the next stage/level. He (this is very short and crude) believed that they had to attain this learning independently - although there are always 'ifs and buts' and he did acknowledge that a child's environment would greatly influence/affect a child's learning.
He believed that children learnt best in what they were interested in, and he called this learning schema. So if a child liked filling up a pram or tractor trailer with boxes or bricks and pushed it around from one place to another, the schema was known as transporting/ation, always wrapping things up i.e. dolls in blankets, stones in paper etc is known as enveloping(wrapping up). He also stated that you must not get fixed ideas of a child being a certain type of schema - as they move from stage to stage as they learn, so they can change from one schema to another; they could like transporting for a year or a day, then move onto another one and so on.

You could look at Vygotsky's book 'Thought and Language' where he believes that a child's drive to talk is to communicate with others, because he believes a child knows that to learn they need to glean information/knowledge from others, they learn a little by themselves, but a lot from listening and watching others and talking (if they can).
Vygotsky's believed interaction of the children helped them progress - known as social constructivist theory. Vygotsky's also beleived that adults/care givers helped children further by scaffolding - you help them by way of giving certain play situations or props to move their story on, you may suggest something to help them further, not taking over but a little help to encourage them to think further, to stretch themselves.

I'm going to leave it here as this is just scratching the surface with lots and lots left out and I could then link it into Bruner where he believes that a child must 'do' rather than watch to learn and so on- but can you see when you start to look at any theorist, they say they believe this and then say and this leads onto this which I call... and then if I add an adult in it is called.... and I don't want to confuse you. You will find that the theorists sometimes overlap their own belief with another theorist, but they don't agree on everything, but bit of their beleifs can be shared with many others - could be why you feel you are going around in circles. It really is very interesting, but I suspect you just want to get the unit out of the way!

Does your assessor want you to look at two theorists in depth, this might be more beneficial you learning a theory or two well, rather than just scraping the surface with scant knowledge - ask them.

I really cannot recommend the Susan Pound book enough to you. It will give you a much better synopsis on lots (I'm just writing this out of my head, so check!) and if you want to work in this sector, it will be of benefit to you always. I think she looks at about 18 theorists, it's laid out very well too.
I hope this helps.