How to involve children in planning Making children
- Slides: 6
How to involve children in planning
• Making children fully aware of the learning objectives and outcomes of a particular activity/lesson and involving them in planning their next steps enhances their learning.
Children taking ‘ownership’ • Essentially, involving children in the planning of their learning helps children to take ownership of their progress and achievements. • This involves guiding children in their decision making: but this is guided choice, and not necessarily free choice. • Child-initiated activities will lend themselves more easily to this type of child involvement than adult–led activities. • And, there always opportunities to involve children in discussing “what comes next? ”
How? • Every child is unique and the extent to which that child has achieved the expected outcomes will determine the next steps in his/her learning. • Clarke (2002) suggests “balancing the curriculum” to cover both the teaching of skills, concepts and knowledge and their application, and “sharing unit coverage throughout lessons and separating learning objectives from the context of learning” will help children to be more aware of the goals on which they need to focus and develop.
Opportunities for classroom practice • The responsibility is with the teacher to consider how ‘next steps’ can be effectively implemented (for example, through constructive questioning or inclusive dialogue). • For child–initiated activities, allowing time for the children to plan and discuss their activity in advance will bring greater clarity to the children’s’ thought process and will provide further opportunity for stimulating ideas. • There will be children who do not want to plan – these children should be allowed and supported to get on with the task in hand. • The High/Scope curriculum is founded on this type of activity and provides opportunity for children to do their own planning (guided/supported by their teacher).
Reflection • Having reflected on this session, how could you better involve children in planning their learning?
