Promoting young children’s learning in practice
Introducing the foundational elements of Finnish ECEC pedagogy
Promoting young children’s learning in practice free download
Introducing the foundational elements of Finnish ECEC pedagogy
How to promote learning in early years?
Finnish early childhood education is known for exceptionally stress-free and child-centered approach that seems to produce outstanding learning results as well. How to apply this joyful and play-based pedagogy in practice?
Finnish early childhood education implements child-centered pedagogy. Child-centered pedagogy focuses on children’s needs and interests; the child has the right to learn things according to their own potential. Furthermore, children are seen as active agents who construct their own knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is not transferred as such; children build, or construct, it themselves.
Knowing the child’s development and supporting the child according to their developmental age is a part of child-centered pedagogy. Adults’ role is to support and nurture the learning process.
Children learn things from each other and adults through interaction. Playing, discussing and engaging with others, comparing different views and expressing their own thoughts help children process things more deeply and from multiple perspectives. In addition, children learn social skills and to work constructively with other people.
In Finland play is the most important pedagogical activity with young children. Children learn multiple different abilities through play: they learn a wide range of skills, develop their social abilities, imagination and creativity etc. For the child, play is a natural way of being, acting, perceiving, and interpreting the world around them. In addition, educators have the opportunity to use play as a pedagogical tool: they can intentionally create learning environments which aim at advancing the child’s learning.
This online course introduces the Finnish approach to promoting learning in early years: e.g. diverse working methods, collaboration, physical, social and psychological dimensions of the learning environment, learning through play etc. Examples are mainly from ECEC, but the same principles apply to primary education, too.
