MEDAL - Making a difference: Educational Development to enhance Academic Literacy

Key Concepts/Threshold Concepts: using e-learning, working with large groups, changing investments in childhood, space, how children are valued, visual literacy, theory/practice, working with/for children/young people.

The module introduces first year undergraduates to key theoretical perspectives on the academic study of childhood. 120 students, many of whom are ‘non-traditional’, lack confidence and are not sure what to expect.

Aims

Issues

We predominantly employ these resources to increase student awareness of the ways in which settings and other places can embody the ideology of those child professionals who manage those spaces. In addition, we see the use of these images as having a role in improving visual literacy.

What we are trying to achieve

These starkly contrasting paired images depict child-related environments and different approaches to the care and education of the child, which also reflect very different views of the child. These images of settings/spaces and activities suggest very strongly the different ideologies around schooling and childhood that the two settings espouse.

Ultimately, we are trying to encourage the students to see how spaces reflect and embody professional values, and understand that this may have a direct impact upon children’s lives through the services they and their families encounter. Further, that the form of the activities that take place in them may also be reflections of the ideology of the staff, as the spaces suggest.

Learning Resource

The following set of images can be used as an ‘off-the-shelf’ resource relating to childhood environments that can be used in a variety of ways in their own teaching to develop students’ understanding of key issues, concepts or debates relating to childhood.

We have used the images as a PowerPoint presentation on Blackboard for individual students to respond to (with trigger questions, as outlined below). The PowerPoint presentation can be used as a stand-alone activity or feed in to large-scale lecture settings. For instance, one large group of students worked (in the session) on written individual responses to the images, which they then, working in small groups, compared with those of other students. What this underlined is the different values and expectations the students bring to these images, thus helping them to start to understand what ideological constructions they may carry themselves in relation to the settings and spaces of childhood.

What is flagged up above, and below, are the ways in which specific teachers use the images, as examples of the resources’ potential. This is aimed to trigger ideas for the possible ways in which you might want to use or adapt the images to use in your own context.

Sample Strategy

We ask students to look at the photographs of the two different settings (in which children aged 3-6 received care and education) and jot down what they see in relation to instructions and trigger questions (see below in relation to paired images 1) Entrance Halls).

The following boxes show both the trigger questions and one student’s written responses, taken from their notes made during the teaching session.

Describe what you see in both pictures of the entrance halls

Picture A. Children have drawn their own pictures of themselves. They have written their own names. The pegs have their own bags and coats on them, all of which are different. It looks disordered and colourful. There's a collage above on the wall done by children.

Picture B. Each name sticker is on a very symmetrical peg. Every sticker has been done professionally on card, they are all the same size and have a glossy image of an animal. Adults have written the child's full name on each, very neatly and properly. The pegs have got the children's coats on. Some bags are different, but most are peg bags made identically, in the same material the school uses for uniforms. It looks quite orderly. There are certificates on the wall.

How are they the same?

Both identify the children and name them as individuals. They are the space where children bring and leave their own possessions. Both have adult versions of writing

How are they different?

In the first one children have drawn and labelled their own space, and have done a representation of themselves to identify this. Emphasis on drawing rather than writing. They recognise their peg through a picture they have drawn themselves. The second one is not a picture of their own making. The first one has a jumble of different items, whereas the second one has a very similar set of items, that all look like school possessions. The first one offers the child a chance to develop their own space. But the second one is done by the adult.

What do you think adults in each setting would say are the reasons why they have developed their particular entrance area the way they have?

In the first one they want to encourage the children to bring what they have to the school, to feel a sense of belonging and be part of the school and to recognise their difference. To welcome diversity and recognise that you are an individual.
In the second the setting is saying this is how we do things here. These are the routines that help children to become part of this school. This is levelling the children, protecting them from difference and sharing the school identity and community.

What do you think the adults, in each setting, feel is important for children's learning?
In the first setting they value children learning about themselves as individuals, how they are different from each other, taking some measure of control of their space and environment, learning to value and recognise difference. They want them to practice emergent writing, but it's OK to have a go, even if it doesn't look perfect.
The second setting values conformity to the expectations of others, to learn that they are not special or unique, to view adults as giving a right model and to meet adults' expectations in school, to achieve high standards by learning from best examples, to follow an expert, that there is only one way that is right that you should strive to reach.

The trigger questions helped students move beyond simple description towards first-stage analysis, by encouraging them to identify the issues that begin to emerge when you consciously set out to compare and contrast different perspectives on childhood. This helped students begin to see that they were expected to recognise and apply different perspectives on childhood.

Advice to others thinking of using this resource

If you want to create your own equivalent package, rather than using the above images, it’s useful to bear in mind that starkly contrasting images work best.

To build further on this exercise we have found it valuable to encourage students to do some research and reading in preparation for the session, which they then apply to the images in class time. This allows students to see how theory can be applied and perceive the contrasts between theoretical viewpoints they might come across in their secondary reading. At first this needs to be fairly strongly prescribed to give students confidence. It also is a useful way of cluing them in to the literature a module tutor wants them to use, because of course different secondary literatures can be applied to the same images to highlight particular issues.