Panel
Members
Facilitator:
Dr Deb Moore
Research context Professor:
Associate Professor Anne-Marie Morrissey
Play-Co-ordinator, Wales Street Primary School: Luisa Kalejuk
Foundation teacher, Wales Street Primary School: Marie Apostolou
Outdoor classroom/Landscape Designer: Mary Jeavons
Host of webinar/chat: Dr Natalie Robertson
Deb Okay, so welcome everybody to webinar two, of the differentiated and play-based, inquiry learning program, that we've been working, on in association with, the Department of Education and Training.
My name is Dr. Deb Moore, I'm a lecturer at the Deakin University and also the facilitator of the webinar two, this afternoon on planning and implementing a play-based and inquiry approach.
So, before we introduce the rest of the panel, who are waiting here with great excitement, I'm sure, we would really like to acknowledge Country of where we are today.
So, we would like to show our respect and acknowledge the traditional custodians of Country throughout Australia on which our learning takes place and recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.
Thank you, Natalie (webinar host / chat host).
So the, the, the panel that we have for our webinar today, we're very, very fortunate, because we have two, of the, ,the teachers from Wales Street Primary School, that many people who, on the on the module Padlet that already talked about, with great excitement and appreciation for the videos that they've done and the things they've already said. People have said they've been inspired, Luisa and Marie, with the things that you've talked about. So that's really great. And we also have Anne-Marie, who is a lecturer, Associate Professor at Deakin University and Mary Jeavons who is a landscape designer and each one of them are going to talk about themselves and introduce themselves at this point.
So maybe we can start with Luisa if that's okay
Luisa Kalenjuk (Luisa) My name's Luisa Kalenjuk, I'm the PYP coordinator at Wales Street Primary School. We've been an IB school for eight years and part of the IB program, especially with the enhanced model, that they've launched in 2018 was to, to promote our play-based learning program from Prep to grade 2.
Deb Thanks Luisa, and Marie, would you like to follow on?
Marie Apoltolou (Marie) Okay. Can you hear me?
Deb Yes
Marie Yeah Okay my name's Marie Apostolou, I'm one of the Foundation teachers at Wales Street Primary School, I have been here for very, very long, long time. Yes, play-based learning is, happening at our school at the moment, but like I was telling Deb the other day, for all the teachers that have gone a little bit, "Ooh, I don't know how this works", play-based learning has been around for a very, very long time, it's just had different names. So, for all the teachers out there that are a little bit hesitant about having a go, please don't be scared, jump in there and have a go. Play-based learning used to be Discovery time, used to be inquiry time, we're loving it. The children are really enjoying it and we're getting lots out of it.
Deb Thanks, Marie.
Anne-Marie, would you like to introduce yourself?
Anne-Marie Morrissey (Anne-Marie) Hello, I'm Anne-Marie Morrissey, and I lecture at Deakin University. I work on the Master of Teaching, Early Childhood and Primary Early Childhood courses, and I also have a particular interest in play and play-based learning in my teaching and research. Thanks, thank you.
Deb Thank you. And Mary, thank you. Would you like to introduce yourself, if you can unmute? The trickiest thing of today? Not yet.
Mary Jeavons (Mary) I'm used to Teams, not zoom. Hi everyone, I'm Mary Jeavons and my background is in both play and I'm a landscape architect and redesign outdoor spaces for education settings. And I guess as far as we're concerned, play is learning and so the settings, whether they're specifically purposefully designed to connect to indoor learning settings, or whether they're for play out of doors in a school or early childhood setting, they're really designed to be, rich and diverse with lots of opportunities for play and learning and all the other outdoor opportunities that education settings need.
Deb Thank you, Mary.
OK, thanks everyone. Great panel that we have this afternoon for our webinar, and we've been really grateful not only for your attendance at the webinars but also working through the modules and the contributions to the Padlets that you have been doing over the last couple of months and please feel free to continue contributing comments and questions on the Padlets because we're still looking at those and, and answering your questions.
So I just wanted to say one of the comments that I especially loved reading, and I think Anne-Marie too, the other day was about the teacher who'd setup micro habitats in her classroom, which related to the students 'lived experiences', living close by the Murray River. And so, they had used play as a way to learn much more about the Australian bush and the river, and she was saying some quite incredible things that had happened through that play.
So the agenda that we have for the webinar this afternoon, Anne-Marie and I decided we would divide the, the afternoon into two different focus areas because this is partly because of the things you were asking on the Padlets and the sorts of comments that people were making and also because of the module content.
First focus is about, more about the implementation of play-based and inquiry learning and the sort of resources that you need. And very fortunately, Mary, Luisa and Marie being able to provide some, some beautiful photos to talk to you in a short while about those.
So, Anne-Marie's going to start each of the focus topics and give a very brief overview of the module content about that focus. And then we'll go to each of the members with some questions and responses. Many of the questions were, again, as I said, from the Padlets that you asked. So, thanks again for that. And then if you've got other questions that you think of during the webinar please do add those to the chat function.
And Natalie, who has been brilliantly working behind the scenes there.is going to pass those on to us as well to be able to ask and answer the panel members too.
So, to start with, Anne Marie, would you like to just briefly discuss a bit more about the focus one, topic of implementation of play-based and inquiry learning. Thank you.
Anne-Marie Hello, hello everybody, and welcome to Module two. So, I've just got a few thoughts about, in introducing this module and before our wonderful guest speakers, come and talk to you. Your students will already be playing in the classroom, seeking to play in the gaps inside and outside the curriculum that you've organized. What we hope that you find in module two, are ideas and resources that can support you in organizing your classroom. Further informing your teaching for play and inquiry learning and helping your students become great players.
Play and inquiry can become contexts for achieving learning objectives, supporting relationships, creating feelings of belonging for children, and giving students a sense of agency and achievement. Think also about how inquiry learning involves playful thinking. Where learners are questioning, investigating, experimenting, and flexible in their learning.
In this module and today's webinar, you will hear of useful ideas for organizing and research in your classroom indoors and outside to support play, and inquiry learning. This can be done with quite simple, open-ended, readily available resources. You will notice how your students are developing and learning through play. We are sure you will see the benefits of incorporating play and inquiry learning into your curriculum. Remember, a play-based and inquiry approach also includes the visual arts, music, drama.
Thinking about the rich and open-ended resources you can provide to support children's creativity and expression of their ideas. For example, thinking about supporting and resourcing the development of children's dramatic play skills, which can then develop into drama and dramatization of stories, which research has linked to literacy skills. If you are new to using play and inquiry learning approaches, we feel sure that the benefits will become apparent.
If you are already using these approaches, we hope this module can give you further ideas.
Thank you, Deb.
Deb Thanks Anne-Marie
So, we're going to move on to Luisa now. Thanks Luisa. And much of what Luisa is going to talk about in this part about implementation and resources is how they originally set up at Wales Street, with the notion of play-based and inquiry learning. And so maybe we can start, Luisa, with where you found the resources and the type of resources that you used when you were setting up?
Luisa Yeah. Thanks Deb.
So, we began our play-based learning, our journey in 2019 but like Marie said, we've been doing it under different umbrellas for 30 years, so it has had different umbrellas. But in terms of the stance we took in 2019 was to have to teach our kids, or to have play brought in through our PYP lens and have it brought in through our approaches to learning. The teachers were really, I started by giving the teachers lots of watching lots of presentations and watching kids just play in their natural environment and through this our Prep team, were really inspired and said, "Let's dive in". With very minimal resources, they just had a go. We had a look at what was in and around the school. We were very creative. We looked at maths resources around the school. And we looked at...we grabbed the things from before and after school care and really dived in. So, I was very grateful for our teachers for diving in. We then reflected and, and wrote lists about what we'd like to then implement and purchase in terms of bringing in more resources or just...We also decided that it would be great to contact friends and family. To raid our school fete. We have a school fete once a year and we know that lots of parents are getting rid of, you know, what is someone else's junk was our treasure. So off we went and collected lots of things from the fete, I found beautiful puppets that were being thrown out. And so, it's just amazing what other people were actually giving away. I had my, I've got two daughters of my own...So we discussed how maybe you don't play with these any more, wouldn't it be great to give it to the Wales Street kids? And they did love it, actually, they just love the fact that someone else is going to be playing with them. And so, through that big collection of stopping and thinking, where can we get resources from? We then developed a great bank of resources and just sharing them amongst different year levels as well. And sharing them amongst teachers was a great idea. Just so we could split the resources around the school.
Deb Thanks Luisa, actually speaking of sharing resources, one of the teachers on the Padlets mentioned also that, or suggested, that sharing amongst schools, the local schools having some sort of roster system, almost, of different resources which I thought was a great idea. Okay, Thank you.
Natalie, would you like to show the first photo please and Luisa might like to speak to the photo if that's ok? If Natalie's there? Natalie? Well, while we're waiting for Natalie, Luisa do you want to talk a little bit more about...Oh no,... Here she is Thank you. (Photo 1 provided at end of transcript)
Luisa So this is so as I've said, we've implemented a play-based learning program from Prep to grade 2, and our grade 2 students...have got the least amount of toys, as you can see. So they had to be really creative, so I did show the grade 2 teachers a video of what can be done with boxing...boxes, and masking tape and off they went to create these amazing constructions. And we only had the one space. So teachers would then rotate. And share the one space, which, you know we started thinking, well, okay, how...what can we do, maybe kids might get possessive over their boxes and their constructions, but in fact, students didn't and they were quite happy for other students to play in their own construction and then make it their own. There were shops, there were rockets. It's amazing how imaginative they were with their constructions. And just to see them, their getting-along skills and all their social skills, develop, developing.
Deb You can really see how engaged children are the students are, in... that they were...
Luisa They were so engaged...our program starts with an overall arching goal, so the students.in this instance, were told, or given, the goal of sharing an idea with friends. So they were, you know, having to construct something, and then share the idea with a friend and then get their friends to join in. And play. And they were just so engaged. The teachers talked about, you know, the, the noise level was through the roof, but the kids were just so engaged in their play. They really had a great time.
Deb Yes. And the learning was really quite apparent, so even though it may have been louder than normal, it wasn't that they weren't learning.
Luisa and their reflections... So our grade 2's do a written reflection at the end and their reflections just so rich you know the, the language and the vocab that was there...and even your more reluctant writers were just able to write a paragraph without hesitation because they had just lived that experience.
Deb Beautiful, that sounds great. Ok, thank you Luisa.
Marie, are you ready to, to join in? Thank you. You might change that photo Natalie if that's ok, to the next one. So, Marie, you are going to talk a bit, to start with, about how you... We'll talk about the photo in a moment. But just, talking a little bit more about how you organize time for play-based inquiry learning within your curriculum. (Photo 2 provided at end of transcript)
Marie Okay. We, we actually there's 4 Foundation grades and it's in double portables. So myself, I'm Prep D there's, so myself and Leslie, work together, she's Prep C, and Maria and Toby, the other side of the Preps. We open up the doors. And so we work together as a double grade. We base most of our play-based learning around our unit of inquiry at the time. So at the moment we're doing how the world works and learning about our world, about, through investigation and observing. So when we set up our classroom, we have other things like that photo you just saw before. We have maths tables, we have tables with crafty things. With our unit of inquiry one, the other day we had set up a table where children could smell different things. So that when we're talking about senses now, so when we plan it we at the moment we're doing it Tuesday afternoons because that works for Leslie and I. So it's a double session. And then we do Friday as well. There are times we work it into our maths rotations, the same sort of thing...It's all play based. We do rotations. even though I call them rotations because the way we set them up on tables, but children can move around to practice their different skills.
Deb So even though they're maths tables, Marie they're actually integrated with a whole lot of other...
Marie I'll give you an example...and this is where some teachers get a little bit worried about assessment. During play-based learning, you'd be surprised how many opportunities you have to incidentally assess the children. Like at the moment we're doing lots of sorting out patterns... working with showing numbers indifferent ways. So the other day or a couple of weeks ago, I had a table and I literally had just, and this is what I'm talking about with resources, I just went into the back room, and I took out things like Teddy Bears, tent frames. We had pegs in there, I had Uno cards, some abacus. Well what other things did I put out there? I put some paper, I put some pencils. And the kids played games with them. They made up their own games I didn't give any direction. What they were going to do with all that, all that stuff that was on the table. They created games they were making patterns. So if you go okay, so there's a skill that we've been working on. So they've bought it into their play. So I just I walk around and I ask, "What are you doing over there?" And they're like "We've got a pattern, see, with this, this and this." And then as a teacher, you go "Oh, which part's the pattern?" "That part." "How do you know that's the pattern?" "That's the part that repeats." So there's your assessments. For all those teachers who're a little bit worried about, well, how can you asses how can it still cover the curriculum? That's the way you can do it that way. And can I just elaborate on that? I don't think you've had happened before. Now sometimes we set up things and we place them around the table, around the table around the rooms. And this I find helps with children that are little bit. Here you'll have your children. Some children will only play Lego, or will only play with the train set. If you take them out. And they just stay right away from things like, you know what, we've got on the screen. They'll stay away from...We have felt boards...They'll stay away from that. So what we do before we start is sometimes we'll put these out, and we do like a gallery walk where children walkaround and they have a look and see what's actually out. And then we come down as a group and we have a discussion. "What did you see? What have we got out? How can we use it?" And it's really fun If we have a look at the photo (Photo 2) and I'll give a perfect example, how children are a lot more creative than us adults are, with that box that's there those bags that are on top, I actually wasn't going to put them there. I thought "Oh they're bags, old bags no one...What are they going to use it for?" Well, let me tell you. So the bags were used as shopping bags, when they went to buy their fruit and veg, there were dress ups there and the children came up with ideas. It was like "We can dress up!" Someone can dress up like the chef. Someone can dress up like the person that works on the register at the front. People that serve you at a cafe, that piece of equipment there, plus I had a little register, there were children writing there were children drawing. I was asking what they were writing, and they were writing, some were writing recipes, some were writing menus for their cafes...And I was like, but how are you writing? And some children, some were having a go at sounding out words. Others were drawing pictures and just labelling, they'd make little lists of shopping. So they'd send off their workers to go to, the supermarket with the bags they collected things they came back... so I was able to have a look at lists they'd made up. Their sounding out. So you go "Ok, great "Because we do, do explicit teaching with sounds in the morning, so for me, I look at that during play-based and I think, "Oh wow, they're actually understanding the sound, like their labelling, all their pictures. "Some were having a go at actually writing a sentence. Some were doing, you have a list of breakfast, lunch, and dinner when they were doing their menus. They were going up to the chef talking, taking orders. The register, they had their money. You know they were talking about. Some would say "That's $5" and they'd give them whatever and they'd say "But you have to give me change!" So all that language, it's all part of math. And I'd think "Those bags? I wasn't even going to put in there. And they've turned it into this amazing play with so much learning. The vocab, even when they talk to each other, some have got amazing vocab and this is like, what's changed? What do you mean by that? Yeah. So yeah.
Deb Thank you, Marie. Great examples, Thank you. Mary? Thank you, your time to have a turn?
Mary Thank you.
Deb We're going to talk to you a bit about what outdoor classrooms, were that's part of the range of design that you, you work on as a landscape architect. So would you like to, to talk about that at this point and then we can look at your beautiful photos as well.
Mary Oh, we'll look at that, we can look at that in the next session if you want to? Anyway, I suppose first of all I think that you can use whatever resources you have available, and a lot of schools don't have any purpose-built facilities that you might call an outdoor play and outdoor learning area. With new schools and a lot of the work we're doing at the moment. It's one of the kind of requirements to try and relate an outdoor learning space to an indoor learning area. So trying to take the play outside. So the outdoors is a really rich outdoor play setting. And then to me, therefore, a rich outdoor learning setting. And I think that there's this combination, I suppose, of a physical space, a physical setting, which ideally would have a direct relationship with an indoors, if that's physically possible. If you have the buildings that suit that design or layout, and if you are trying to run an indoor/outdoor program, which means maybe some kids are inside and some are out, like the pictures that Marie and Luisa showed with the cardboard boxes there's no reason why that couldn't happen outdoors on a nice day, I'm sure, except you gotta cart stuff in and out. But I think there are few things to think about. It's actually good to have, if you're going to do that sort of thing, good to have a bit of containment because the children might get distracted by something out further and disappear. So I guess that's up to you as teachers, I don't have that responsibility. So it's easy to say. It's also good to have a variety of perching, seating, working surfaces. And if you're doing something messy, it's good if those things can be hosable or cleanable if you want to do painting or something like that outdoors and to have a water supply, and even an outdoor sink, could be really handy for some activities, but they're often quite high-fallutin'. I reckon whatever space you have, it's really worth, if you can't have what you might call an 'outdoor classroom', it's really great to have a look at what your school environment already offers. And I guess one of my principles is that some sort of rich, diverse outdoor space, especially if it's got a diverse backdrop of trees and vegetation and some spaces not just all hard surfaces or all fake grass, will actually lend themselves to good outdoor learning spaces. And there's that principle that the some old textbooks in play, design for play talked about the combination of variety and complexity. So you might have a "fixed unit" as they put it, which might be a space or an arrangement of seats. But you might bring in some of the loose materials that Luisa and Marie have talked about, which would bring in like cardboard boxes or whatever and then you add another layer, which might be the pens or the menus or the writing or the...some pebbles and some shells and some stuff that might come out in boxes or baskets. So there's those layers of looseness. And I think, exactly like Marie and Luisa were talking about, they will then suggest all sorts of affordances to children who will then use them to a whole variety of degrees depending on their abilities. And that variety and complexity of the materials might help the child who's not usually engaged by the kind of sage-on-the-stage type teaching. But they might end up teaching another child something because they're really good at drawing and the other child might be really good at words or something. So having those looser settings, I think, enables a lot of pedagogy that probably might not happen if you're just all sitting in rows of desks and you're expected to behave. Storage and containment is really good for those loose things if in tubs or easily movable stuff will be really useful. I think. So sorry, that's a bit of a ramble...
Deb That's great. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. You've actually covered all of those questions we were going to talk about. Maybe would you...?
Mary Could I just add a couple more?
Deb Sure, another minute?
Mary A couple of things about nature...like if you've got trees, you've probably got leaves, you got twigs, you might have gum nuts or some other sort of fruiting things, flowers, whatever. I've been part of a workshop where a very skilled educator said everyone go and find a stick and tell me a story. What is your stick? And they made up these amazing rich, my stick is a river or mine's a house or, like, verbal stuff that can all come from what a thing suggests. So any kind of natural setting to me has this massive advantage. You can sort colours of leaves, you can collect petals, you can find out what tree this gumnut fell, there's a heap of play-based learning that can go on in natural settings. Resources don't have to be super expensive. Like once I was doing something, I just went and found a few branches in a park and stole them, took them home, and then I cut them up with a saw, and we made these little round disks of natural shaped timber and they were very useful for play with pipe cleaners and goodness knows what. And I think the value of itis really that you can engage children in ways that really weren't engaged in other...And you can really motivate them and find strengths that they have...And there's another thing which is about physical movement. A lot of kids find it really hard to just sit down. Harder nowadays because their core strengths often really bad. I hear. So if there's movement and stuff like that, I think that engages children in different ways as well. And it really encourages them to observe their natural world and think about what opportunities it has for them. How it might invite them to play and learn.
Deb Thank you, Mary, you fitted a lot in there. Thank you. We might come back to Anne-Marie now and do a brief overview of focus topic two, in relation to the role of the teacher. And Mary I haven't forgotten your beautiful photo, we will take your advice and do that at the end. Thank you, so Anne-Marie we might have to do a very brief introduction to focus group two.
Anne-Marie Thank you Deb. Just a few quick thoughts. Remembering that in play-based inquiry learning. Teachers take on a range of roles. From observing what is happening to participating in and prompting play, right up to explicit and direct teaching roles with specific learning goals in mind. Thinking about there are two broad objectives. The first is to understand your students' play and support their play skills. And then the second is about using play and inquiry. It's contexts for achieving learning goals. Begin with observing and noticing, experiment with organizing, resourcing your classroom spaces and reflecting on the outcomes. Also think about the value of student directed play and making yourself familiar with what is happening in their play and how you can support this. And involve your students as collaborators in implementing your play and inquiry learning and enable their agency and decision-making. I really like this quote from educator Kath Murdoch about inquiry learning.
'Underpinning the art of inquiry teaching is a strongly held view of the learner as capable and curious, with the right to participate in decisions about what and how they learn. The corresponding image of the teacher is as a mindful, informed, and responsive partner in learning' Thank you Deb.
Deb Beautiful segue into Marie...Would you like to talk for just a few minutes, please about the role of the teacher as part of our next focus. And particularly how you see yourself as a teacher and the roles that you play in a play-based and inquiry approach?
Marie Yes, I'd like to think that I get a little bit more involved in the play. Not so much to do with explicit teaching. I, we have a journal, like a big diary that we keep, about our play-based learning in Foundation. At the beginning of the year when we started this as my, my role, I would come up with a goal that we would focus on. For example, today we're focusing on making new friends, and so, we talked about how do you make a new friend while you're playing? What do you do, you know how to ask each other our names... You know, if you're playing with somebody and you want something that they've got, what do you do? And so on and so on. So there's lots of talking as the year's gone on though, there's been, when it comes to the goals. The children actually come up with the goals themselves. So we have lots of discussions. And it's really interesting because they have made really awesome connections. One of our other inquiries about feelings and emotions. So a couple of weeks ago when we were trying to think about the goal, one of the kids actually said, we can actually find a new friend. So it's almost sort of playing with the kids next door, find a new friend and we can ask them, how they're feeling while they're playing and why are they feeling that way. So that was our goal. Today...we talked, we actually had play-based learning today... and with one of our learner profiles we're focusing on at the moment is thinkers, being a thinker so we had big discussions. And then one of the kids actually said, Well maybe we can think in creating, creating differently, looking at same sort of things that we play with, but creating, creating something that's different to what we've done in the past. So we had lots of talks about that. It's our goal today, it's on the board-to think creatively. So there was lots of that happening today. Now, as teachers, we get in there and we sit at a table, we'll have a chat, we play. As well. So then children will ask us questions, you know, why are you doing that? You know, we had the felt out, and children were doing stories, making up stories. Some children have really big discussions about the sequential of the story. We had the Little Red Riding Hood, the book, and lots of talk about "Oh yeah, but that that happens next and then this happens." And I said, "Well, what happens if we change the story?" And they were like "Whaa, we can't change the story." "Why, why can't we change the story?" And I was just looking..."Why can't we put the three little pigs in the red riding hood?" So just to give them that little bit of idea and then they just, yeah, they just ran with it and turned into this lovely silly story. So then I just walk away from that. I've created that little...throw in a little bit of an idea and then walk away and then go and do something else. Sometimes I have found that I'll put something out and no one goes anywhere near it. So I have sometimes, I've sat at a table on my own and I'll start to do something. So then children, sort of look at you, you know, you're teacher they walk in and think "What are you doing?" "I don't know, I found this. I found that here. I'm trying this" and they're like,"Ohh".That gets kids in because it was like "Hold on, we didn't know what to do with that..." but, you know, our teacher shows... but then they bring in their ideas. So then I actually show them as like, "Oh, I didn't think of that. That was your idea." Then they build on that and then they bring their friends in. So you move along. The café, I always sit down at a cafe, always have lunch or breakfast at the café, and they love that because they just think it's the best thing to actually… yeah.
Deb Can I ask you Marie, one of the questions that came up a couple of times on the Padlets was about the concept of direct or explicit teaching sitting alongside play-based and inquiry approach. And you have talked about that as well.
Marie Yeah.
Deb Your response ….
Marie Yep. Well, one of them is one that we'll do is the shopping list and you get some of those children who'll say, "Well I can't write." So they've drawn and I go "That's a beautiful drawing. What, what, what is it?" And they'll say "It's a sandwich." And we'll go, "Okay, what are the sounds you're getting? What are the sounds you can hear?" S, s, s and so they'll say the sounds and I'll say "You know how to write that sound." So they have a go and they do a copy and you go, "Wow, Pinocchio, liar, have a look at that. You can sound it out. You can write." And so for them because they're playing, they don't understand that...they don't think that they're doing literacy or you're doing spelling or whatever, and I'll just say "Look, you can write." So that gives them, that builds up their esteem, then it's like, "Oh, hold on, she says I can write, and I can write." And you see them then they have a go because no one's correcting it. No one's looking over their shoulder. The same thing sometimes when I have got ten trains of teddies, some, some of the kids are just playing along and you've got teddies on a carriage and I'll say, "How many teddies are on your carriage?" and they'll say "Three." "How many more do you need to make to get to 10?" "I don't know." "So go on, have a look. How can you figure it out?" "Oh yeah, you look at the blank... "So lots of that. Like I said before, we're doing lots of things on patterns at the moment. So I'll even sit there and I'll play with them. And I'll say "I made a pattern." Some kids will say, "No, you haven't, that's not a pattern." "Why isn't it a pattern?" "Because it doesn't repeat it changes...."And just those discussion so for me, automatically, it's like, right. So you spotted that it's not a pattern. You're able to tell me straightaway why it's not a pattern. That's all learning, that's all explicit teaching in a play-based way.
Deb Yes Thank you, Marie. Luisa, would you like to take that concept up a little bit further from your position and perhaps talk a bit more about some of the challenges or successes of play-based inquiry learning?
Luisa Yes. So with our planning, with all our program of inquiry planners, we add in a section where we put in the student goals and the co-constructor goals that have been put in now. So there is this part of all our planners as, and as you quoted that beautiful quote from Kath Murdoch is part of the inquiry cycle, is that element of play. So now it's embedded in our, in our planners so there's a real space for it.
Deb Okay. Thank you. Yeah.
Luisa And also, sorry, did you want me to elaborate a little bit that the teacher role?
Deb That would be great. Thank you.
Luisa So we, we believe the teacher has that role to have, having a continuum, whether the kids are doing free play, guided play, Whether you're joining in in games or direct teaching. So it's a real continuum of that happening at any particular time, there's no, sort of fixed "This is what we're doing today." We've actually started the notion of observing the play and then looking at provocations and invitations. So really look at being provocations is something that you might want to put out because you've seen a real interest in it. Like we had a session in another class and one of the girls, like there was this real push for a classroom. So the next week we put in, when we set up their play, we put in a real invitation to have kids, having the teacher, we put whiteboards out and whiteboard markers out. So there was that real notion of, of a classroom setting within their play environment. And, you know, kids'll drip in and out of it. And it was amazing, the sort of teaching that was happening where students that you didn't think would pick up and read a picture storybook. Not reading, obviously all the words, but then explaining all the pictures and having the kids ask questions and just running this on their own was really amazing. But the idea is to, if we put out a post box because we want to encourage letter writing. Or you might see something that the kids are really wanting... there might be an interest in something in particular and therefore you would put out that as an invitation the next week. So all the teachers are taking anecdotal notes as well in terms of their assessment. And I like to keep this quite fluid in terms of every teacher likes to keep their own assessment records for the session and documentation, we're experimenting with a few different forms of documentation and are happy to get other suggestions but we're looking at, the ATL's, which is the approaches to learning in terms of the PYP. So looking at their social skills, their self-management skills, their communications skills, their thinking skills. So just breaking off into all those, writing little dot points and trying to take notes while we're observing the students. Which is, we're sort of just experimenting with those, that level of documentation.
Deb And this is something you discuss as a group? Do you come together, the Foundation teachers, and up to grade two, obviously, and beyond...
Luisa Yeah.
Deb You discuss it as a team, basically?
Luisa Yes. And this is where the idea...I brought in a few of these documentations, but it really needs to, like Marie stated, that she prefers to, to sort of take these anecdotal notes, they work for her. So different teachers like that different level of documentation in terms of what works for them and what they like to take notes of, and observe during that session. Whereas, maybe some younger teachers would like more of the guidance.
Deb For sure, yes,
Luisa So at the moment, we're just experimenting.
Deb Thanks Luisa. Mary, let's...Natalie would you mind putting Mary's beautiful photo up? And maybe Mary can talk to the photo? That would be great to finish off. (Photo 3 provided at end of transcript)
Mary Okay. This is something we really enjoy doing, which is getting children to give us guided tours of their outdoor play environments. And we just sort of tag along and they tell us stuff. And on this particular occasion... I'll tell you, on this occasion the children took us down around the edge of the oval. There are all these beautiful old gnarly tea trees. And they said, "Oh should we tell them about the shops?" And they went, "Okay." And so they told us about this kind of amazing game that they created, which was very inclusive across the whole school. Yeah, there we go, they are using this physical setting, which is this beautiful trees which had all these hollows in them and they were their shops. And they were sort of like caches. And then you can see the one on the left, if you look really closely, it's actually got gum nuts and probably the odd acorn in there and it turned out there's one oak tree on the site and a bunch, a few eucalyptus ficifolia which is the flowering gum with the big gum nuts, And the children had invented this exchange rate for acorns, and there was a 120 gum nuts. One acorn was worth a 120 gum, nuts.
Deb Wow! Exchange rate ….
Mary You can't tell me that's not learning and there was nothing to do with indoor classroom stuff. This was all at lunch time, their own time. So they had this exchange rate... they also had, the child on the far right, holding those, the little onion weeds the kind of less able kids or the younger ones, the daggy kids, whatever. They were sent off to dig up these onion weeds out of the oval, and they had less currency value, and then they had all this sort of language around it. They also raided each other's shops. So there was quite a social...Actually fights and things about them and stealing them from each other. But they sort of created this amazing language, this exchange rate based on scarcity. They had also these amazing, in the middle those little rocks. This is a sandy bayside school and there was no rock on the site but there'd been these building works happening and the builders had left these bits of crushed rock somewhere and so they'd found them and brought them into the currency so they had a different rate as well. And, um, they just had this extraordinarily rich play. And as far as what the message to me is, if you have all these loose materials and these lovely physical environments, it will be a prop, it will generate these kind of very rich learning, which will happen under our noses, I think, and they're very good at that self-directed stuff. So I think it's probably hard for you guys. I'm not a teacher. But you're out there and it's very hard work. But to really notice what it is they're doing at lunchtimes and playtimes because it can be very rich and you maybe could take that and build on it in the indoor sessions about what they were doing. Because you might find they've got a lot of abilities you might not have realized and...
Deb Maybe the resources that the children are finding themselves are the ones...
Mary Send them out to gather stuff!
Deb Yeah…
Mary And just one other little example just yesterday I was in a kindergarten and they were showing me this beautiful bit of research that they'd done about what children were doing in a sort of inquiry being outdoors. This is why I think nature's so important that a lady bird had landed somewhere and the children had gathered round this ladybird, they were looking at it and it developed into this whole little conversation about do ladybird beetles need privacy? So there's this whole thing about "Where do ladybirds live and should we put it in a bottle or not? Would it like to be in a bottle or probably not. So there's, and then they go off and use technology to research what it even is. Could it have been a caterpillar or any other bug? Is it going to bite me or not? Well, if it's a bee, what do bees do? And then they just can just launch off into this whole world of learning that you might not have thought of until the ladybird or the bee arrived. So sometimes the outdoors can deliver stuff for free.
Deb Yes, and as you say the inquiry topics that the students actually discover for themselves and are really interested and motivated in learning about.
Mary Yes, I suppose I'm arguing that you don't always need these really expensive purpose designed spaces. But you do ideally need to think about your general school environment because the play that's happening at lunchtime, which is supported by that rich environment, is also learning and that will benefit the kids indoors as well.
Deb Okay, Thank you so much, Mary, some really valuable ideas, there about resources, that you don't actually have to pay for And taking the student direction, which is another point that one of the Padlet teachers had commented about that the student perspectives, and how much they'd enjoyed watching the students learn in a way that they were so motivated within a play-based inquiry learning approach to do so.
Natalie, I'm wondering if anybody has asked any other questions in the chat or if at this point anyone would like to ask any of the panel members a specific question. We have a few minutes left for questions now. And maybe even if you want to raise a hand, you could, we could, Natalie, I'm sure you'd be able to unmute somebody with that, is that a possibility? If people would like to, to do it that way? That would be fantastic if you'd like to participate by asking question or perhaps not. That's okay. Nobody's raised a hand, that's fine. That's okay.
So, Natalie's suggesting a question from the Padlet...We've actually, generally speaking, we have discussed the most of the questions from the Padlet already. In particular, the one about explicit play sitting alongside play-based inquiry learning. The ideas around resources, and, and where to find them which I think everybody today has talked about that.
We do have one from Debra. Thank you. So who has said, let me just see if I can …The approaches to learning ideas that were discussed, where you can source them?
Debra, Do you mean in particular the… would you like to ask that question specifically about what resources you're referring to? Natalie, I believe, can unmute you.
Debra (registered participant) Okay. Can you hear me?
Deb Yes, we can.
Debra Thank you. Yeah. So just... I'm not certain if it was one of the teachers from the Wales Street, and they were speaking about how they assess the kids in relation to the approach to learning and like social planning, thinking, communication. I just wondered if that was a, something they created or if that's sort of a document source type of thing that we could look at?
Luisa The approaches to learning are part of the PYP, the Primary Years Program, so we're an IB school, Wales Street Primary School. And we teach the Primary Years Program. And as part of the Primary Years Program, It's not only an inquiry-based model, but obviously we teach the social emotional side as well. And part of teaching the social emotional side is to teach students about how they learn and about learning. So that is, that is a resource that comes with the Primary Years Program
Deb It's part of the general curriculum as well isn't it?
Luisa It is Yes, yeah. Really, actually, the approaches to learning marries up with the capabilities. Social, emotional...
Deb For sure.
Luisa Yeah. So really marries...So if you have a look at... I'll happily send you something on the approaches to learning, Deb, if you'd like that?
Debra That'd be great, that would be great.
Luisa That would give you a snapshot. And then you can have a look at marrying it with the Victorian curriculum and capabilities.
Debra Yeah. Yeah,
Luisa but we do use it as a good point to teach to set our goals. And then from there we co-construct goals. But they're a good starting point.
Debra Now, also too, you said you observe and then you look for provocations. And what was the third one, was it advocation?
Luisa So the provocations is something that comes...
Debra Like the kids using the kids?
Luisa Yes. Yeah so it's...Building on that? And an invitation is the other one. Invitation...comes from, it's solely teacher directed. So like in Marie's instance, with the shopping bags, she put the shopping bags there. She probably didn't think it was an invitation, but that was a true invitation to really get the kids putting the shopping in the bag. And then from there they went on to create, to create... it's like putting a puppet theatre out, if you put a theatre out, so you're...and that's an invitation that's come from you, you're inviting students to create puppet shows.
Deb Okay. Thanks Luisa, thanks Deb for that question.
We have another one, that another question to ask about the journals that Marie was talking about. But can I just add too, don't forget everybody that module is all about assessment in play-based and inquiry learning so many of the questions and, and wonderings that teachers on the Padlets have been saying is about assessment and I know that's going to be a burning topic so much of all of the next module that's about to be released. And the next webinar will be on, on assessment. One last quick question, from someone who would like to as I said know more about the journals...Marie, can you very quickly talk about that? If you can? Thank you.
Marie Yep. Yep .I've actually got my journal here so I can show you...be able to see it, but it's just one of those big, big black diaries you get from office works or whatever have you. So we usually put a page up like this. We have the goal on the top. So this one was to ask questions while they're doing, while they're involved in play-based learning. I take photos. So, I know it's a bit time consuming, so I walk around with the iPad and click, click, click. Sometimes I get the kids to go around with the iPad and they take photos. And what happens is at some stage, it depends how easy you can find things, I just plug it in, quickly print them up. So one of my kids goes and collects them. We put them up and then we have discussions. So I just randomly stick them on here. And then this goal was, for example, to ask questions. And we talked about what sort of questions did you ask your partner? And I just scribe them. I just write down what, what it is that they've done. But the other one that I thought was even more effective. The goal was to find out how your friends are feeling and why. Now this one here, if you have a look, it's all, I didn't do photos this time. But while they were playing, and having chats, I was asking them if they would like to come up and draw a picture about who they were playing with, how their partner was feeling. So they actually came up together and they drew little pictures about what they were doing at that time. And I scribed for them. Some of them had a go, though, at scribing themselves, just sounding out what they what they could. Yep. So that happened on the spot. So they would do their drawing. I would go I would sort of stand there, they'd chat about it amongst themselves. I'd talk to them and they'd tell me what they want me to write. And, at the end of each term, we have an open afternoon where the parents, come in to have a look at what's going on in our classroom and share portfolios for that question because I know it's asked for parents. And we have that out. So parents can flick through it and have a look and see what we've been doing. But we, we also revisit it with the children as well. Like, we look back and we go, "Oh, what did we do there? What was our goal? You know, what, what did we discover?" So yeah, it works, it's there. We look at it whenever we want to look at it, parents, look at it. Yeah. It's not...
Deb Wonderful.
Marie I can yes, we can look at it.
Deb Thank you so much Marie, and thank you Luisa and Mary and Anne-Marie, I have that hour has gone so fast, I cannot believe it...Just before we all do go, however.
But can I thank again Luisa and Marie and Mary and Anne-Marie for your contributions that have been so varied and so many, many stories that you've told and others I've heard off the screen. We could go on for a very long time I know. You are all magnificent advocates for play-based and inquiry learning, and we really greatly appreciate your expertise in this area. So thank you very much everybody.
Photo 1 (Wales Street Primary School)
Photo 2 (Wales Street Primary School)
Photo 3 (Mary Jeavons)
