Terra - Staff appreciation day

These mosaic tiles were designed and made in groups of 5-6 people who work at Terra. There are between 60-70 people working across Terra, including teachers for parents in school and the early childhood teachers, social workers, administration support and health professionals on site.

Team building and growing together through spending time together on creative projects strengthens relationships and creates a space for dialogue. I liked the idea of 'staff appreciation' rather than 'professional development'

ARCQE - Alberta Resource Centre for Quality Enhancement

I have met my Canadian 'soul sister' - Corine is her name. Corine is the Executive Director at ARCQE and is as mad about professional development as our team at Massey University. I have had some wonderfully creative and inspiring conversations with Corine about the future of professional development in Alberta - especially as there is a curriculum framework being developed for the province of Alberta at the moment. I have been sharing some of our learning from engagement with Te Whariki and hope to connect Corine with our Prof Claire McLachlan to be part of that ongoing dialogue.

http://www.arcqe.ca/

I am looking forward to continuing to talk with Corine and the team at ARCQE. 

University and Community Early Learning Centre - Professional development Kiwi style

On Friday I spent the day with the teaching team at University and Community Early Learning Centre. Louise is the Centre Director and had contacted me before I left NZ to see if I could spend some time with their team to talk about curriculum, assessment, learning stories and planning. I thought that the material I had prepared for other presentations would be suitable, however as the time came closer I realised I had some new thinking to share and some reflections to make visible. I wanted to take the teachers into our world in NZ through photography and stories. 
The day started well with a coffee from Starbucks....perfect beginning to a fun filled day and a message from their Board Chairperson that was stirring and empowering. How motivating is it when your chairperson sends an email to be read out at the beginning of the professional development day reminding the teachers of how important they are and how the committee see them as being the way to be the best early childhood service in Alberta? Have to confess I was moved by the tone of the email and support for the teachers. We started in the library and moved to the classroom - that is what many early childhood spaces are called - 'classroom' - there is something in this as the space is recognised as a place where learning happens just because it is called the same thing a space is a school is called....food for thought.We demonstrated our resourcefulness by making good use of a display board in the classroom for the projector.The teachers are interested in how learning stories and narrative assessment can strengthen their documentation and assessment. The teachers are very excited about some of the stories I was able to share with them from what we are doing in NZ. They like the Vortex too - seeing things as a connected system is helpful.

Dr Ana Kirova - University of Alberta

I was lucky to be invited to attend a workshop on Friday 2 May - organised by the MacEwen Early Learning and Childcare Centre. My amazing friend and host Mary Lynne has some amazing connections and the early childhood centre is also what is called a 'lab' centre. This means that they host many groups of visitors during the year and faculty staff have close connections with the centre. They have also been one of the development centres for the new Alberta curriculum.The workshop was a 'low key' dialogue about culture, specifically focused on celebrations. The teachers have been reflecting on the impact of celebrations throughout the year on the programme and the expectations this has created from the community.

Activity time:

We went through an exercise where we thought of a celebration and had to identify our not negotiable through to those things we can do without. We used the diagram below to select a celebration and as an individual - at the top we identified something about that celebration that was critical for you, then next two very important, three in middle as important, next two as could do without if necessary and that last one represented the feature that was not important at all.

When we got talking in groups with our diagrams, it became clear that the things in the middle row were typically a 'shared space'. It was a really useful activity to go through as we got to see the things that are important to others that we may not have identified as being so critical. It was interesting to see how much we shared as a 'important' and could see how this would be a great way to develop curriculum experiences around cultural celebrations. Ana shared how the three boxes at the top are typically those things that describe how we celebrate at home and are not necessarily as relevant for our work at the early childhood setting. I really liked this way of thinking about it as it can be difficult to 'practice the celebration in a shared space'.
We talked about how over time cultural celebrations get distorted through retail hype and the opportunity to 'make a buck' and mostly this was what was represented in the box at the bottom.
Did you know that in many cultures, birthdays are not important - your name is the reference for celebration and this can be in recognition of a saint or flower? I love this idea.

Discussion points:

• We discussed the importance of 'minimising' the significance of dominant cultural celebrations to make space for cultural celebrations of all children.
• Commercialism strips away culture - making a choice not to participate in a commercialised construct of a celebration.
• Political correctness is deadly to multiculturalism
• having mature conversations about culture with children

Quotes of the session - 
"It is not up to teachers to teach a child their [the child's] culture"
"It does not matter so much what we say - it is what we do"

Professional Development - Kiwi Style with Team Grant MacEwan Child Care

The team at Grant MacEwan Child Care asked to have a professional development session about some of the things we started to talk about on Friday. We have had a dialogue about learning stories, narrative assessment and planning - were keen to keep the conversation going especially now I have spent some time in the centre.

Link here for Grant MacEwan Child Care team presentation

These are our notes and thinking from the discussion about the VORTEX. This thinking maps so well on to the processes in the centre and I was so excited to share our VORTEX concept from NZ with the teachers. The team were getting tired and they hung in there for the discussion. I have introduced the teachers to Google Drive and shared some photos of our beautiful centres back home.
Please send me 3 photos from your centre that I can share with this centre to show them the diversity of ECE in Aotearoa NZ.

Teachers as researchers @ MacEwan University Lab School & Child Care

I spent some time at the centre today, reconnecting with some of the teachers while they were on their lunch breaks. I had been on a tour around the centre and was really impressed with the way the teachers document and display their research questions with pride alongside the children's learning and planning. 

 Above Jennifer is standing next to her display about dispositions. I could not share close up photos as there are many shots of children on display as part of the teachers learning. These research projects take months to work through.

 This service is a 'pilot' or 'research' centre for the development of the curriculum in Alberta and have been supported by Lee (Instructor in ELCC programme and Academic Coordinator for Curriculum Framework Development Project). The centre has been exploring the importance of dispositions as a focus of assessment and researching the impact of this on play.

 Meet Kayla - educator at the centre. The research project has involved a deeper look into culture and her own competence in this area. The discussions in the team have included the influence of celebrations on learning and teaching.

Making your learning as a teacher visible - inviting parents to engage in dialogue about the research.

This is what the curriculum planning looks like in one of the rooms - thinking about the research question and then considering possible actions to make progress towards the goals. The teachers are using learning stories confidently to observe children's learning and make it visible to the community. This is on display in the corridors of the centre and to family as they walk through.

The atelier

View of the Atelier at the International Centre - there are so many things to encounter

Here some decaying vegetation is presented in various phases of breaking down. The Atelier sets up the environment for the teachers to explore so they have recent hands on encounters with the materials rather than just presenting them to children

I love the idea here of exploring the repeating pattern of the cabbage - the drawing represents an observation of the pattern - 'the more you look at something in detail the more of the same you see'

Imagine children encountering this and exploring the drying and decaying fruit. The Atelierista is careful to present various stages of decay as well - this is so carefully thought out and presented to the children