Books by Dr Dorothy Faulkner
Synopsis
How should we understand children's creativity? This fascinating collection of internat... more Synopsis
How should we understand children's creativity? This fascinating collection of international research offers fresh perspectives on children's creative processes and the expression of their creative imagination through dramatic play, stories, artwork, dance, music and conversation. Drawing on a range of research evidence from innovative educational initiatives in a wide variety of countries, Exploring Children's Creative Narratives develops new theoretical and practical insights that challenge traditional thinking about children's creativity. The chapters, written by well-respected international contributors: offer new conceptual and interpretive frameworks for understanding children's creativity contest conventional discourses about the origins and nature of creativity challenge the view that young children's creativity can only be judged in terms of their creative output explore the significance children themselves attribute to their creative activity argue the need for a radical reappraisal of the influence of the sociocultural context on children's creative expression discuss the implications of this research in relation to teacher education and curriculum design. This broad yet coherent compilation of research on creativity in childhood is essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in early childhood as well as for Early Years professionals with a particular interest in creativity.
Synopsis
"The study of collaborative learning has a relatively brief history, yet there have bee... more Synopsis
"The study of collaborative learning has a relatively brief history, yet there have been notable changes in the nature of the research being undertaken in this field. Initially, the primary aim was to determine whether and when collaborative learning was more effective than learning alone and there is a substantial body of empirical evidence demonstrating that, whilst not an educational panacea, it can have positive effects of social interaction for learning. More recently, however, interest has shifted away from considering just the outcomes and products of collaborative work, towards analysing the interactions themselves. This shift to a more process-oriented account of productive group-work has brought with it an interest in understanding the nature of productive talk and joint activity and researchers have attempted to identify interactional features which are important for learning and cognitive change. Researchers with different theoretical backgrounds and different methodological approaches have emphasised different facets of interaction with some highlighting the important role of conflict, others that of planning, negotiation, exploratory talk, transactive dialogue and so on. This book brings together contributions from researchers, working across Europe and North America, who have interests in collaborative learning. The work presented here is united through the contributors' shared desire to understand and promote educationally productive collaborative work, whilst investigating this in diverse ways, for example with respect to the particular contexts, learning communities and the age of the learners being studied..." (From the Introduction).
In recent years new translations and interpretations of the work of Vygotsky have generated consi... more In recent years new translations and interpretations of the work of Vygotsky have generated considerable research activity by developmental psychologists and educational researchers on the relationship between the social and cognitive dimensions of learning. Collaborative Learning aims to bring together, for the fist time in a single volume up to date and comprehensive research on collaborative learning and learning to collaborate from leading international workers in the field. The contributions converge around the questions of when and how peer interaction can facilitate understanding and learning, how we conceptualise the nature and quality of collaborative activity, how productive collaborative activity can be supported, and how children learn to collaborate. The book critically examines the ways in which psychologists and educational researchers conceptualise the nature and quality of collaborative activity and examines the different contexts in which such activity is studied.
From the Publisher
Richard Joiner is Research Fellow in the School of education at the Open University. Karen Littleton is Lecturer in the Psychology Department at the Open University. Dorothy Faulkner is Senior Lecturer with the Department of Education at the Open University. Dorothy Miell is Senior Lecturer with the Psychology Department at the Open University.
This edited reader explores the nature of interactions between children and their teachers in the... more This edited reader explores the nature of interactions between children and their teachers in the classroom. It emphasises the importance of such relationships for children's learning and for educational practice.
Part 1 looks at different cultural conceptions of the teacher-learner relationship, and how this relates to schooling, cognitive development and the aquisition of knowledge.
Part 2 takes a closer look at the role of language and dialogue in interactions between adults and children in classrooms.
Part 3 describes research by developmental psychologists on peer interaction and collaborative learning, and discusses how it has advanced our understanding of how children learn from each other.
Part 4 considers the implications of classroom-based collaborative learning initiatives and the potential for creating 'communities of enquiry' which change how we think about knowledge acquisition.
This edited collection explores children's social relationships in and out of the classroom. Chap... more This edited collection explores children's social relationships in and out of the classroom. Chapters focus on the growing importance of children's friendships and how these influence social participation and development later on in life. Issues such as peer rejection, bullying and adolescent development are analysed from both psychological and sociological perspectives. The book concludes with a re-examination of cultural concepts of childhood, child development and the nature of children's autonomy.
This edited collection contains source material for an up-to-date study of child development as i... more This edited collection contains source material for an up-to-date study of child development as it applies to major issues in child care and education. The emphasis is on studying early childhood in cultural contexts - in families and in preschool settings.
Part 1 elaborates a socio-cultural approach to early development, taking emotional attachment, communication and language and daycare as examples.
Part 2 considers how children's emerging capacities for empathy, inter-subjectivity and social understanding enable them to negotiate, talk about and play out relationship themes, both in the family and preschool.
Part 3 concentrates on early learning, with chapters on the way parents support children's acquisition of new skills, young children negotiating their role in learner-teacher relationships and toddlers learning to collaborate with each other.
Part 4 continues the theme of children's initiation into socio-cultural practices from a cross-cultural perspective, with studies drawn from such diverse contexts as Cameroon, Guatemala, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Papers by Dr Dorothy Faulkner
Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 2014
ABSTRACT Information and communication technology (ICT) and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact ... more ABSTRACT Information and communication technology (ICT) and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact on learning by supporting inquiry, literacies, collaboration and publication. Restrictions on the use of these tools within schools, primarily due to concerns about discipline and child safety, make it difficult to make full use of this potential in formal educational contexts. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10–11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills. http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/49Q7JAMqRzaSR2ZanYkj/full
The analysis presented in this article draws on Rogoff’s (2003) work on intent participation and ... more The analysis presented in this article draws on Rogoff’s (2003) work on intent participation and Dyson’s (2001, 2010) studies of children’s written compositions to identify the nature of peers’ contributions to meaning making, and cultural transmission processes claimed to occur when young children narrate stories to supportive adults. It draws on data collected during an evaluation of an in-service training programme that introduced UK-based early years practitioners to a version of Paley’s (1990) storytelling and story acting curriculum known as the Helicopter Technique (HT). The HT draws on theatre practice and drama to foster narrative development and literacy skills. Children tell a story to a practitioner trained to scribe this exactly as told and who assists them to identify story characters that can be acted out later with peers. The significance of adults’ contributions to these sessions is well understood, but less is known about the contribution of peers who may also be present. The evidence presented suggests that these peer-to-peer processes can be described as two-way transactions between more and less confident language users and may be particularly important for children with English as an Additional Language (EAL). Implications of these findings for practitioners supporting second language learners are discussed.
For an updated version of this paper go to Faulkner, D. (2014) Storytelling cultures in early years classrooms, He Kupu – The Word, 3 (5), 80 – 91, ISSN 1179-6812
http://www.hekupu.ac.nz
Memory for proper names was investigated using (i) a questionnaire and (ii) an experimental task.... more Memory for proper names was investigated using (i) a questionnaire and (ii) an experimental task. Subjects ranging in age from 20 to 80 years recorded details of naturally occurring retrieval blocks
for proper names. Age differences in the nature of the blocks were apparent. For the young and middle-aged partial information about the target name was usually available and non-target candidates were elicited during search for the target name. Elderly subjects more frequently experienced an 'empty gap', with no partial information about the target name and no candidate names. The experimental task required recall of names and descriptions from specially constructed
fictional biographies. There was an age-related deficit in recall of all types of information, but in all age groups memory for names of people was poorer than memory for names of places, occupations and hobbies. Some explanations for the difficulty of retrieving people's names and for the age effects are considered
Technology, Pedagogy and Education, Jan 10, 2014
Information and communication technology (ICT) and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact on learni... more Information and communication technology (ICT) and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact on learning by supporting inquiry, literacies, collaboration and publication. Restrictions on the use of these tools within schools, primarily due to concerns about discipline and child safety, make it difficult to make full use of this
potential in formal educational contexts. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the
broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations
of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions
around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10–11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills.
International Journal of Early Years Education, Sep 9, 2013
This article offers a chronological account and critical appraisal of changes to early childhood ... more This article offers a chronological account and critical appraisal of changes to early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in England over the past 20 years. It describes the policy initiatives, educational interventions and research programmes introduced by successive governments that have effected significant changes to ECEC since 1990. The article covers four key areas: policies designed to reduce social inequality; the professionalisation of the children’s workforce and changing status of adults employed in preschool education and care settings; changes to early years pedagogy and the early years curriculum and finally how major research programmes such as the Effective Provision of Preschool Education project and the Millennium Cohort Study have informed our understanding of the effects of social disadvantage and the characteristics of ‘high-quality’ preschool provision that can alleviate this. There is now persuasive evidence that investment in state-maintained early education is highly cost effective, particularly for disadvantaged children. The current government, however, is shifting the burden of funding for professional training and high-quality integrated services for children and families from the state to the private and voluntary sectors. Time will tell if this is a backward step or movement in the right direction.
MakeBelieve Arts, a theatre and education company, have for over a decade worked with Vivian Guss... more MakeBelieve Arts, a theatre and education company, have for over a decade worked with Vivian Gussin Paley’s (1990) storytelling and story acting curriculum, and developed a programme of professional development based on this approach. This has come to be known as the Helicopter Technique. In essence Paley’s storytelling and story-acting technique involves children telling their stories to an adult who scribes them verbatim. Later the same day the tales are acted out with their peers on a taped out stage in the classroom. Despite widespread scholarly recognition of Paley’s perceptive accounts of child play, there has been relatively little research investigating her storytelling and story acting technique and arguably few practitioners in the UK are acquainted with it.
In early 2012, MakeBelieve Arts commissioned an evaluation of the Helicopter Technique (funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) in order to consider the history of their development of the technique and to provide empirical evidence of its value to children and early years practitioners. A team of researchers from the Open University, (Teresa Cremin, Joan Swann, Rosie Flewitt, Dorothy Faulkner and Natalia Kucirkova) carried out this evaluation. The evaluation also involved consideration of possible developments of the approach in order to make it more sustainable in schools and early years settings.
This study of the Helicopter Technique of storytelling and story acting, undertaken in 2012, aimed to evaluate:
• The impact on children who have taken part in storytelling and story acting sessions.
• The impact on practitioners who have received training from MakeBelieve Arts in this technique.
• The importance of this work in order to provide indicators of:
o How the model can be further improved and enhanced
o How it can be made more sustainable in schools and settings.
The Executive Summary and the Report itself can be accessed at the link given below. The Report offers a comprehensive history of Vivian Gussin Paley's work and how this has been instantiated through the MakeBelieve Arts programme. The report draws on classroom observation, interview and case study data across several UK early years settings in London and Kent and will be useful to practitioners interested in creative teaching and learning through story and in Paley's work.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Jun 21, 2013
Abstract Children with social communication disorders are
known to experience more problematic p... more Abstract Children with social communication disorders are
known to experience more problematic peer relations than
typically-developing children. However, detailed observation
of their behaviour and communication during interaction
with peers has not previously been undertaken. Microanalytic
observational methods were used to analyse the
audio-taped interaction of children (N=112) selected from
mainstream schools (ages 5–6 years-old) on a computerised
dyadic collaborative task. Comparisons were made between
children with average-to-high- and low-pragmatic language
skill as measured by the Test of Pragmatic Skills. Dyads were
composed of an average-to-high-skilled child plus a lowskilled
child (32 dyads), or of two average-to-high-skilled
children (24 dyads). Consistently with their pragmatic language
scores, low-skilled children were more likely to ignore
other children’s questions and requests than were average-tohigh-
skilled children. When average-to-high-skilled children
worked with low-skilled children, as opposed to with other
average-to-high-skilled children, they showed some sensitivity
and adaptation to these children’s difficulties; they
used significantly more directives, clarification and provided
more information. However, there was a cost in terms of the
emotional tone of these interactions; when working with
low-skilled children, the average-to-high-skilled children
expressed considerably more negative feelings towards their
partners than with another average-to-high-skilled child. In
conclusion, observation of the interaction of average-tohigh-
and low-skilled children suggests promise for peerassisted
interventions and specifies which communicative
behaviours could be targeted. However, care should be taken
to manage the affective climate of these interactions for the
benefit of all children involved.
"This study investigated the behaviour and communication of seven- to eight-year-old children dur... more "This study investigated the behaviour and communication of seven- to eight-year-old children during a dyadic computer task. The children participating were identified by peers as: (1) initiators of bullying (‘bullies’); (2) defenders of those victimised (‘defenders’); and (3) those who generally do not take on a consistent role in relation to bullying (‘non-role’ children). Children were videotaped during the task and the
interaction was coded, 34 dyads participated. Defenders used significantly higher levels of supportive communication such as explanation and guidance than bullies. The task performance of dyads consisting of defenders with non-role children was significantly superior to that of dyads comprising bullies plus non-role children. The behaviour of the non-role children was influenced according to whether they were working with a bully, a defender or another non-role child. The study suggests that the roles that children adopt in relation to bullying influence their behaviour in other, non-bullying contexts."
This chapter introduces the edited collection, Exploring Children’s Creative Narratives that offe... more This chapter introduces the edited collection, Exploring Children’s Creative Narratives that offers fresh perspectives on children’s creative narratives and that explores what these perspectives reveal about their imagination, their thought processes and how they understand the world. The chapter argues that ethnographic case studies, naturalistic observations, conversations and playful interactions with children ranging in age from two to eleven years allow the development of theoretical insights that challenge traditional accounts of creativity and narrative. It also argues that a proper understanding of creative narratives has to be an interdisciplinary endeavour if it is to do justice to the rich, complex, multi-modal and embodied nature of the children’s thought processes as revealed through their drawing and story-telling, music making, dance, drama and imaginative play. Interpretation of these processes draws on socio-cultural accounts of creativity and creative development that challenge more traditional accounts of creativity as an attribute or talent that belongs only to certain gifted individuals. The chapter (and contributors to the collection) maintains that to understand the situated nature of children’s creative activity it is important to examine the social, affective and cognitive processes that take place when children are immersed in such activity. This re-conceptualisation of children’s creativity challenges conventional educational practice and suggests that formal educational training programmes should offer teachers more sophisticated cultural discourses and experiences which will allow them to gain a more rounded understanding of children’s creative narratives.
For Reviews of this collection see files below.
This chapter offers an evaluation and interpretation of the creative thinking and collaboration t... more This chapter offers an evaluation and interpretation of the creative thinking and collaboration that took place in a class of five year olds in an English primary school during the academic year 2004–05. This school was committed to developing itself as a creative learning community by participating in a creativity-training programme, Synectics, more usually employed in an adult business context. This school wanted to develop its capacity for creative teaching and learning. This intent was in tune with national and international developments in education where strenuous efforts were being made to extend the reach of creative education which had for a long time been more or less exclusively associated with the arts. The chapter offers an outline of these developments to set the research in context. The research described is a case study and second phase of an evaluation of the project EXCITE! (Excellence, Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Education) and was carried out by researchers from the Open University. Previous research suggests that when children first start school, they are already competent creative thinkers and storytellers and that both creative and narrative modes of thinking involve abductive rather than deductive inferential reasoning. It is argued that although children may need training in paradigmatic (deductive) modes of thought, they do not necessarily need further training in narrative modes of thought. The examples of young children’s thinking discussed in chapter support this argument. The Synectics creativity-training programme does not claim to ‘teach’ creative thinking per se. The evidence presented suggests that when teachers use Synectics tools and techniques to inform practice, these allow them to create a positive, emotional climate that allows young children to use analogy and metaphor to construct creative explanations and narratives through collaborative discussion.
Research with children: Perspectives and practices (2nd ed.). Christensen, Pia (Ed.); James, Allison (Ed.); pp. 10-39. New York, NY, US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group,
"(from the chapter) States some of the key issues for anyone working in psychological research wi... more "(from the chapter) States some of the key issues for anyone working in psychological research with children: about the appropriateness of applying principles of experimental design and laboratory measurement as tools for understanding and shaping children's lives; about the constructions of childhood associated with various kinds of psychological enquiry, as these compare with other disciplinary approaches to research with children; about the importance of enquiring how children themselves construe the research context, the tasks set and the interactions initiated by the investigator; about power relationships between researcher and researched that are implicit within scientific procedures of psychological testing, systematic observation, controlled intervention and evaluation; about the ethical dilemmas raised by this kind of child research, especially research that involves experimental procedures and may involve a degree of deception about the researcher's purposes; and more broadly, about the status of children who are the subject of a scientific discipline primarily concerned with the description and explanation of psychological and developmental processes through objective observation, experimentation and explanation. Also discussed in the chapter is the children's role and status in 2 respects: within the research practice and within the theories of child development that inform that research.
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Books by Dr Dorothy Faulkner
How should we understand children's creativity? This fascinating collection of international research offers fresh perspectives on children's creative processes and the expression of their creative imagination through dramatic play, stories, artwork, dance, music and conversation. Drawing on a range of research evidence from innovative educational initiatives in a wide variety of countries, Exploring Children's Creative Narratives develops new theoretical and practical insights that challenge traditional thinking about children's creativity. The chapters, written by well-respected international contributors: offer new conceptual and interpretive frameworks for understanding children's creativity contest conventional discourses about the origins and nature of creativity challenge the view that young children's creativity can only be judged in terms of their creative output explore the significance children themselves attribute to their creative activity argue the need for a radical reappraisal of the influence of the sociocultural context on children's creative expression discuss the implications of this research in relation to teacher education and curriculum design. This broad yet coherent compilation of research on creativity in childhood is essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in early childhood as well as for Early Years professionals with a particular interest in creativity.
"The study of collaborative learning has a relatively brief history, yet there have been notable changes in the nature of the research being undertaken in this field. Initially, the primary aim was to determine whether and when collaborative learning was more effective than learning alone and there is a substantial body of empirical evidence demonstrating that, whilst not an educational panacea, it can have positive effects of social interaction for learning. More recently, however, interest has shifted away from considering just the outcomes and products of collaborative work, towards analysing the interactions themselves. This shift to a more process-oriented account of productive group-work has brought with it an interest in understanding the nature of productive talk and joint activity and researchers have attempted to identify interactional features which are important for learning and cognitive change. Researchers with different theoretical backgrounds and different methodological approaches have emphasised different facets of interaction with some highlighting the important role of conflict, others that of planning, negotiation, exploratory talk, transactive dialogue and so on. This book brings together contributions from researchers, working across Europe and North America, who have interests in collaborative learning. The work presented here is united through the contributors' shared desire to understand and promote educationally productive collaborative work, whilst investigating this in diverse ways, for example with respect to the particular contexts, learning communities and the age of the learners being studied..." (From the Introduction).
From the Publisher
Richard Joiner is Research Fellow in the School of education at the Open University. Karen Littleton is Lecturer in the Psychology Department at the Open University. Dorothy Faulkner is Senior Lecturer with the Department of Education at the Open University. Dorothy Miell is Senior Lecturer with the Psychology Department at the Open University.
Part 1 looks at different cultural conceptions of the teacher-learner relationship, and how this relates to schooling, cognitive development and the aquisition of knowledge.
Part 2 takes a closer look at the role of language and dialogue in interactions between adults and children in classrooms.
Part 3 describes research by developmental psychologists on peer interaction and collaborative learning, and discusses how it has advanced our understanding of how children learn from each other.
Part 4 considers the implications of classroom-based collaborative learning initiatives and the potential for creating 'communities of enquiry' which change how we think about knowledge acquisition.
Part 1 elaborates a socio-cultural approach to early development, taking emotional attachment, communication and language and daycare as examples.
Part 2 considers how children's emerging capacities for empathy, inter-subjectivity and social understanding enable them to negotiate, talk about and play out relationship themes, both in the family and preschool.
Part 3 concentrates on early learning, with chapters on the way parents support children's acquisition of new skills, young children negotiating their role in learner-teacher relationships and toddlers learning to collaborate with each other.
Part 4 continues the theme of children's initiation into socio-cultural practices from a cross-cultural perspective, with studies drawn from such diverse contexts as Cameroon, Guatemala, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Papers by Dr Dorothy Faulkner
For an updated version of this paper go to Faulkner, D. (2014) Storytelling cultures in early years classrooms, He Kupu – The Word, 3 (5), 80 – 91, ISSN 1179-6812
http://www.hekupu.ac.nz
for proper names. Age differences in the nature of the blocks were apparent. For the young and middle-aged partial information about the target name was usually available and non-target candidates were elicited during search for the target name. Elderly subjects more frequently experienced an 'empty gap', with no partial information about the target name and no candidate names. The experimental task required recall of names and descriptions from specially constructed
fictional biographies. There was an age-related deficit in recall of all types of information, but in all age groups memory for names of people was poorer than memory for names of places, occupations and hobbies. Some explanations for the difficulty of retrieving people's names and for the age effects are considered
potential in formal educational contexts. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the
broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations
of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions
around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10–11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills.
In early 2012, MakeBelieve Arts commissioned an evaluation of the Helicopter Technique (funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) in order to consider the history of their development of the technique and to provide empirical evidence of its value to children and early years practitioners. A team of researchers from the Open University, (Teresa Cremin, Joan Swann, Rosie Flewitt, Dorothy Faulkner and Natalia Kucirkova) carried out this evaluation. The evaluation also involved consideration of possible developments of the approach in order to make it more sustainable in schools and early years settings.
This study of the Helicopter Technique of storytelling and story acting, undertaken in 2012, aimed to evaluate:
• The impact on children who have taken part in storytelling and story acting sessions.
• The impact on practitioners who have received training from MakeBelieve Arts in this technique.
• The importance of this work in order to provide indicators of:
o How the model can be further improved and enhanced
o How it can be made more sustainable in schools and settings.
The Executive Summary and the Report itself can be accessed at the link given below. The Report offers a comprehensive history of Vivian Gussin Paley's work and how this has been instantiated through the MakeBelieve Arts programme. The report draws on classroom observation, interview and case study data across several UK early years settings in London and Kent and will be useful to practitioners interested in creative teaching and learning through story and in Paley's work.
known to experience more problematic peer relations than
typically-developing children. However, detailed observation
of their behaviour and communication during interaction
with peers has not previously been undertaken. Microanalytic
observational methods were used to analyse the
audio-taped interaction of children (N=112) selected from
mainstream schools (ages 5–6 years-old) on a computerised
dyadic collaborative task. Comparisons were made between
children with average-to-high- and low-pragmatic language
skill as measured by the Test of Pragmatic Skills. Dyads were
composed of an average-to-high-skilled child plus a lowskilled
child (32 dyads), or of two average-to-high-skilled
children (24 dyads). Consistently with their pragmatic language
scores, low-skilled children were more likely to ignore
other children’s questions and requests than were average-tohigh-
skilled children. When average-to-high-skilled children
worked with low-skilled children, as opposed to with other
average-to-high-skilled children, they showed some sensitivity
and adaptation to these children’s difficulties; they
used significantly more directives, clarification and provided
more information. However, there was a cost in terms of the
emotional tone of these interactions; when working with
low-skilled children, the average-to-high-skilled children
expressed considerably more negative feelings towards their
partners than with another average-to-high-skilled child. In
conclusion, observation of the interaction of average-tohigh-
and low-skilled children suggests promise for peerassisted
interventions and specifies which communicative
behaviours could be targeted. However, care should be taken
to manage the affective climate of these interactions for the
benefit of all children involved.
interaction was coded, 34 dyads participated. Defenders used significantly higher levels of supportive communication such as explanation and guidance than bullies. The task performance of dyads consisting of defenders with non-role children was significantly superior to that of dyads comprising bullies plus non-role children. The behaviour of the non-role children was influenced according to whether they were working with a bully, a defender or another non-role child. The study suggests that the roles that children adopt in relation to bullying influence their behaviour in other, non-bullying contexts."
For Reviews of this collection see files below.
Due to copyright restrictions, this file is not available for public download
Request a copy from the OU Author.
How should we understand children's creativity? This fascinating collection of international research offers fresh perspectives on children's creative processes and the expression of their creative imagination through dramatic play, stories, artwork, dance, music and conversation. Drawing on a range of research evidence from innovative educational initiatives in a wide variety of countries, Exploring Children's Creative Narratives develops new theoretical and practical insights that challenge traditional thinking about children's creativity. The chapters, written by well-respected international contributors: offer new conceptual and interpretive frameworks for understanding children's creativity contest conventional discourses about the origins and nature of creativity challenge the view that young children's creativity can only be judged in terms of their creative output explore the significance children themselves attribute to their creative activity argue the need for a radical reappraisal of the influence of the sociocultural context on children's creative expression discuss the implications of this research in relation to teacher education and curriculum design. This broad yet coherent compilation of research on creativity in childhood is essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in early childhood as well as for Early Years professionals with a particular interest in creativity.
"The study of collaborative learning has a relatively brief history, yet there have been notable changes in the nature of the research being undertaken in this field. Initially, the primary aim was to determine whether and when collaborative learning was more effective than learning alone and there is a substantial body of empirical evidence demonstrating that, whilst not an educational panacea, it can have positive effects of social interaction for learning. More recently, however, interest has shifted away from considering just the outcomes and products of collaborative work, towards analysing the interactions themselves. This shift to a more process-oriented account of productive group-work has brought with it an interest in understanding the nature of productive talk and joint activity and researchers have attempted to identify interactional features which are important for learning and cognitive change. Researchers with different theoretical backgrounds and different methodological approaches have emphasised different facets of interaction with some highlighting the important role of conflict, others that of planning, negotiation, exploratory talk, transactive dialogue and so on. This book brings together contributions from researchers, working across Europe and North America, who have interests in collaborative learning. The work presented here is united through the contributors' shared desire to understand and promote educationally productive collaborative work, whilst investigating this in diverse ways, for example with respect to the particular contexts, learning communities and the age of the learners being studied..." (From the Introduction).
From the Publisher
Richard Joiner is Research Fellow in the School of education at the Open University. Karen Littleton is Lecturer in the Psychology Department at the Open University. Dorothy Faulkner is Senior Lecturer with the Department of Education at the Open University. Dorothy Miell is Senior Lecturer with the Psychology Department at the Open University.
Part 1 looks at different cultural conceptions of the teacher-learner relationship, and how this relates to schooling, cognitive development and the aquisition of knowledge.
Part 2 takes a closer look at the role of language and dialogue in interactions between adults and children in classrooms.
Part 3 describes research by developmental psychologists on peer interaction and collaborative learning, and discusses how it has advanced our understanding of how children learn from each other.
Part 4 considers the implications of classroom-based collaborative learning initiatives and the potential for creating 'communities of enquiry' which change how we think about knowledge acquisition.
Part 1 elaborates a socio-cultural approach to early development, taking emotional attachment, communication and language and daycare as examples.
Part 2 considers how children's emerging capacities for empathy, inter-subjectivity and social understanding enable them to negotiate, talk about and play out relationship themes, both in the family and preschool.
Part 3 concentrates on early learning, with chapters on the way parents support children's acquisition of new skills, young children negotiating their role in learner-teacher relationships and toddlers learning to collaborate with each other.
Part 4 continues the theme of children's initiation into socio-cultural practices from a cross-cultural perspective, with studies drawn from such diverse contexts as Cameroon, Guatemala, Italy, Japan and the United States.
For an updated version of this paper go to Faulkner, D. (2014) Storytelling cultures in early years classrooms, He Kupu – The Word, 3 (5), 80 – 91, ISSN 1179-6812
http://www.hekupu.ac.nz
for proper names. Age differences in the nature of the blocks were apparent. For the young and middle-aged partial information about the target name was usually available and non-target candidates were elicited during search for the target name. Elderly subjects more frequently experienced an 'empty gap', with no partial information about the target name and no candidate names. The experimental task required recall of names and descriptions from specially constructed
fictional biographies. There was an age-related deficit in recall of all types of information, but in all age groups memory for names of people was poorer than memory for names of places, occupations and hobbies. Some explanations for the difficulty of retrieving people's names and for the age effects are considered
potential in formal educational contexts. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the
broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations
of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions
around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10–11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills.
In early 2012, MakeBelieve Arts commissioned an evaluation of the Helicopter Technique (funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) in order to consider the history of their development of the technique and to provide empirical evidence of its value to children and early years practitioners. A team of researchers from the Open University, (Teresa Cremin, Joan Swann, Rosie Flewitt, Dorothy Faulkner and Natalia Kucirkova) carried out this evaluation. The evaluation also involved consideration of possible developments of the approach in order to make it more sustainable in schools and early years settings.
This study of the Helicopter Technique of storytelling and story acting, undertaken in 2012, aimed to evaluate:
• The impact on children who have taken part in storytelling and story acting sessions.
• The impact on practitioners who have received training from MakeBelieve Arts in this technique.
• The importance of this work in order to provide indicators of:
o How the model can be further improved and enhanced
o How it can be made more sustainable in schools and settings.
The Executive Summary and the Report itself can be accessed at the link given below. The Report offers a comprehensive history of Vivian Gussin Paley's work and how this has been instantiated through the MakeBelieve Arts programme. The report draws on classroom observation, interview and case study data across several UK early years settings in London and Kent and will be useful to practitioners interested in creative teaching and learning through story and in Paley's work.
known to experience more problematic peer relations than
typically-developing children. However, detailed observation
of their behaviour and communication during interaction
with peers has not previously been undertaken. Microanalytic
observational methods were used to analyse the
audio-taped interaction of children (N=112) selected from
mainstream schools (ages 5–6 years-old) on a computerised
dyadic collaborative task. Comparisons were made between
children with average-to-high- and low-pragmatic language
skill as measured by the Test of Pragmatic Skills. Dyads were
composed of an average-to-high-skilled child plus a lowskilled
child (32 dyads), or of two average-to-high-skilled
children (24 dyads). Consistently with their pragmatic language
scores, low-skilled children were more likely to ignore
other children’s questions and requests than were average-tohigh-
skilled children. When average-to-high-skilled children
worked with low-skilled children, as opposed to with other
average-to-high-skilled children, they showed some sensitivity
and adaptation to these children’s difficulties; they
used significantly more directives, clarification and provided
more information. However, there was a cost in terms of the
emotional tone of these interactions; when working with
low-skilled children, the average-to-high-skilled children
expressed considerably more negative feelings towards their
partners than with another average-to-high-skilled child. In
conclusion, observation of the interaction of average-tohigh-
and low-skilled children suggests promise for peerassisted
interventions and specifies which communicative
behaviours could be targeted. However, care should be taken
to manage the affective climate of these interactions for the
benefit of all children involved.
interaction was coded, 34 dyads participated. Defenders used significantly higher levels of supportive communication such as explanation and guidance than bullies. The task performance of dyads consisting of defenders with non-role children was significantly superior to that of dyads comprising bullies plus non-role children. The behaviour of the non-role children was influenced according to whether they were working with a bully, a defender or another non-role child. The study suggests that the roles that children adopt in relation to bullying influence their behaviour in other, non-bullying contexts."
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Item Type:
Creative Partnerships (CP) was established in 2002 and is a ‘flagship creative learning programme’. It aims to foster innovative, long term collaborations between schools (often in areas of socio-economic deprivation) and creative practitioners. In particular CP states that it places young people ‘at the heart of what we do’ and claims that its programmes are most effective when young people are actively involved in leading and shaping them.
CP highlights three key areas: involving young people in governance (the design, delivery and evaluation of the programme of work); building and maintaining ‘positive relationships’ with young people; working as ‘co-constructors of learning’ with them.
The report maps existing youth voice initiatives in Creative Partnerships in those three areas. In addition, it considers the nature of the links between creativity and participation; explores issues of access to youth voice, such as patterns of inclusion and exclusion; explores what skills, experiences, identities and relationships are developed through participation. More broadly it attempts to understand, analyse and theorise youth voice, starting from"
Item Type:"
to a more process-oriented account of productive groupwork has brought with it an interest in understanding the nature of productive talk and joint activity. Consequently, much energy has
been expended in attempting to identify interactional features which are important for learning and cognitive change. This special issue builds on process-oriented accounts of collaborative learning and contains new empirical evidence relating to children's and adults' collaborative learning,