Extending children's learning and thinking

[Nicola20]

Hi,
I am working on the next assignment in my level 3 course and wondered if anyone can help.
The question is "explain a range of strategies that can be used to extend children's learning and thinking, to include sustained shared thinking?"

I can write about sustained shared thinking but am struggling to find information on other strategies - any thoughts much appreciated.

[Ruthierhyme]

Hi, strategies for sustained shared thinking include

Planning so that adults feel able to support the children

Understanding the impact of child-led and adult-led: Playing to Learn by Di Chilvers. Quote from page 18: Sustained shared thinking occurs most often when the child or children have initiated and led an activity and the teacher has responded to this by using the children’s interests to shape the planning and the curriculum. This includes the planning of focussed activities and guided teaching,

Using open ended questions

Focussing on the ongoing process of an activity and what that involves - materials, colours, textures, shape, form, building, rather than tasking children to produce a finished piece or achieve a specific outcome.

Recognise how sustaining a shared thinking needs each individual to contribute to the conversation.

Page 243 of the level 3 CYPW (2010)

Engaging with a child to support sustained shared thinking

Sustained shared thinking could be thought of as an extended conversation with children that helps them to develop their ideas. While chatting to children can promote their development and so is good in many respects, using this style alone will not necessarily help children to develop the skills of problem solving and reasoning. This is because a 'chat-style' conversation with a child might be short lived or other unrelated topics of conversation may crop up. Sustained shared thinking helps children to reach conclusions and explore concepts at a deeper level. During this period, children are also processing information more effectively and often make connections with things that they have already learnt. This joining up of ideas and concepts is extremely valuable.

In order for sustained shared thinking to take place children have to be extremely interested in an activity or something has occurred. Although we can plan some activities that might enable this type of conversation to take place, we also have to be ready to follow up on things that children are finding fascinating or interesting. Recognising the potential for sustained shared thinking is therefore essential. We also have to be ready to spend sufficient time with a child or group of children.

Free sample pages on The Project Approach and buy on Amazon.co.uk

Hth xx

[Nicola20]

Thank you so much that is really helpful xx