In this section I examine some models of effective play-based pedagogy which are highly relevant to the pedagogical approach to creative group music making taken in this study.
4.3.1 Integrated approaches
Play is now broadly acknowledged as central in young children's learning and
development. A more contentious area, however, is the nature and function of play in educational contexts, because of the tension between the traditional commitment to freedom and spontaneity in play versus the necessity to guarantee progression and the achievement of good quality learning outcomes through the educator's action.
A pedagogy of play can be defined as
the ways in which early childhood professionals make provision for play and playful approaches to learning and teaching, how they design play/learning environments, and all the pedagogical decisions, techniques and strategies they use to support or enhance learning and teaching through play. (Wood, 2009, p.27)
Contemporary research on play, learning and teaching in early childhood education is providing substantial evidence about what an effective play-based pedagogy looks like. In the UK, a detailed answer is offered by a study on Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (Siraj-Blatchford, Sylva, Muttock. et al., 2002), informed by sociocultural theories and based on an influential government-funded longitudinal study on Effective Provision for Preschool Education (http://www.ioe.ac.uk/research/153.html). This study
proposes a pedagogical model which can be useful to conceptualise curriculum design. In the model, the pedagogical framing refers to the wider contextual decisions about the structure and contents of the curriculum (including planning, organising and arranging spaces and resources, implementing, and assessing/evaluating); the pedagogical interventions refer to the actual face-to-face interactions which the educator engages in, and the techniques and strategies they use in their teaching. In the most effective settings, practitioners could strike a balance between proactively offering appropriate learning environments and structured directions, and providing opportunities for children to benefit from instructive play activities.
Siraj-Blatchford et al. (2002) visualise a model for curriculum design through a diagram (p.26; further elaborated in Siraj-Blatchford, 2009, p.l49), which I fuse with Wood and Attfield's diagram (2005, p.139) and present as in Figure 6.
The main organising principles are pedagogy and curriculum, visualised in the diagram as intersecting continua defining different areas. The degree of pedagogical framing refers to how much initiative and control either the teacher or the children can have. The curriculum refers to the learning contents, the knowledge and skills which children are meant to learn, and it can be conceived of as ranging from structured and defined to open and flexible. In the programmed approach the activity is highly teacher-directed and their intentions prevail over children's intentions; the learning contents are mainly structured and pre-given for the children to acquire. In the open-framework approach there is still a strong framing, in that the overall curricular goals and the learning environment are set by the teacher, but children have more freedom to make choices and are scaffolded by the teacher in their interactions with the contents and materials. In the child-centred approach
Structured curriculum (work) Educator's intentions strong pedagogical framing Open curriculum (play) Programmed approach Open-framework approach Child-centred approach Children's intentions weak pedagogical framing
Figure 6. A framework for play-based curriculum design
it is the teacher who follows and supports children's independent intentions and open- ended explorations. The issue is, clearly, how to balance these three different
approaches to curriculum design with regard to a single session of work as well as over longer periods of time. Siraj-Blatchford (2009) makes a case for adopting stronger framing and curriculum principles in early childhood, based on the premises of
sociocultural theories and on the experience of exemplary practices which refer to those theories. None of the single approaches described above – programmed, open-
framework, or child-centred – seems in itself to be sufficient as a model for teachers' curricular and pedagogical choices. They need to be integrated in diverse ways. Indeed, the major findings of Siraj-Blatchford et al.'s study (2002) are that an effective pedagogy
provides challenging yet achievable experiences
includes a variety of teaching strategies, such as modelling, observing, asking questions, interacting verbally with children, providing differentiated opportunities for play, and organising learning environments
values both teacher-directed work and free child-initiated yet potentially instructive play activities
regards the teacher's main role as guiding and scaffolding children – without dominating their thinking – whereby learning is a process of co-construction which involves 'sustained shared thinking'
views cognitive and socio-relational learning as complementary and mutually influencing each other (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009, p.156).
The findings of this research suggest that, in terms of the model presented above, it is necessary to reconsider the role of the early years practitioner and to shift teaching practices towards a balanced integration of different pedagogical approaches.
A similar model by Dockett and Fleer (adapted by Briggs and Hansen, 2012, p.67, see Figure 7) visualises the relationship between adult-led play, where the role of the adult is that of a 'manager' who organises resources, time, and space, or leads programmed instructional activities, structured/guided play, i.e. activities which involve guiding, supporting, and mediating children's choices within an open framework, and child-led play, in which the adult engages as co-player and play tutor, following children's ideas. The concentric circles represent the fluid roles of the adult, extending from providing input to responding to children's initiatives, and stress the centrality of the child's self-directed activity as the focus of the educational interaction.
Wood (2010) proposes a model of integrated pedagogical approaches in which the play- work tension is resolved in favour of a combination of adult-directed and child-initiated activities. I report the model here (see Figure 8) because it appears to be particularly illuminating in interpreting the pedagogical approach taken in the study.
Figure 8. Wood's (2010) model of integrated pedagogical approaches
Within the practical constraints of the particular context in which they are working, practitioners are involved in iterative cycles of planning, interacting with children in the
CHILD-LED