How do we know that children learn?

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

 

In Finland, children learn through play and we don't score children!

"Preschool educators must now ensure that cognitive, social-emotional and academic curricular goals are met within the context of children's play."

Curriculum learning areas and learning objectives guide the planning of playful activities with the children. But we don’t test how well they have reached each skill or objective.

Instead, new means and methods for formative assessment are required across the whole learning process. We want to understand how children develop and guarantee the quality of children’s learning. As well as engage families and gain their confidence. 

 

Pedagogical documentation, portfolios, and formative assessment give children a voice and reveal their thinking

Pedagogical documentation also known as portfolio learning is an essential working approach in early childhood education and care. 

 It is a continuous process where learning objectives, observations, documents, and their interpretation in interaction create an understanding of the pedagogical activity. 

Simply, pedagogical documentation is observing children’s play, projects, discussions, ideas, and inventions via taking photos, making notes, writing down explanations as well as tricky questions, saving artwork, videoing action, recording voice…and using all the documents purposefully.                             

Pedagogical documentation produces concrete and versatile knowledge about the children’s lives, development, interests, thinking, learning, and needs. Individual observations make it possible to examine the children’s development and learning together with the children and families

Formative assessment of the knowledge and skills now made visible is used as a basis for planning further activities. 

 

The use of modern technology is a prerequisite for a professional learning process and efficient pedagogical documentation

With Kindiedays Portfolio, preschools can manage the whole learning process in line with the curriculum of choice. Educators can now ensure that the learning objectives are met within the context of playful learning. Kindiedays is a great tool for the educator to document the child’s learning in detail with pictures, videos, comments, and other information in the learning moment – not afterward. Documentation of activities is also directly tagged to the curriculum’s learning objectives. Check Kindiedays video!

 

The educator makes observations stored in journals and shared them with families in real-time.

Pedagogical planning for future activities is smooth when each child’s real-time journal clearly shows what they have been playing and learning during the past weeks.

Kindiedays is also great for keeping close contact with the families, it is easy to share documents of the activities and ask, “Is your child playing this game at home too?”. 

 

Automatically collected reports and statistics support children's learning and give families confidence

Childs Portfolio makes learning visible and illustrates the progress

Benefit from Child Portfolios to view, share and store the child’s learning journey, including pictures, videos, notes, and learning objectives.

 

Learning Report shows the child's progress in each learning area

Use Learning Reports to get feedback on the child’s engagement and progress in the curriculum’s learning objectives. Locate possible needs and guarantee a chance for holistic learning.

 

Curriculum Reports guarantees holistic education in your center

Follow Curriculum Reports to review statistics on how efficiently the curriculum has been applied, to guarantee that all the learning areas are in balance, and to plan future learning.

 

Now it is time to put theory into practice

A modern curriculum defines the framework, guidelines, and objectives of how to work with small children.

Kindiedays offers great tools to transform the theory into practice following the learning process in a consistent way across all lessons.

Now preschools and childcare centers can:

  • Support children’s learning
  • Show proof of learning to families, and gain their confidence
  • Provide high-quality early childhood education services in increasingly competitive markets.

Check our compact FREE VIDEO COURSE about Finnish Early Childhood Education and Pedagogical Documentation presented by Kindiedays Co-founder and CEO Milla Mikkola.

Happy documenting!

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