Dr Sandra Cheeseman: Planning for learning with infants and toddlers
This session will celebrate the joy of working with infants and toddlers and recognise their enormous capacities to be participants in curriculum decisions.
Participants in this session will be encouraged to reflect on the way they use the cycle of planning with the youngest children and critically examine each step of the cycle as it relates to their work with infants and toddlers.
Participants will work through the cycle using examples moving from observation to planning and then assessment for learning and development.
The focus will be on ensuring that our approaches to planning with infants and toddlers:
- Notice their interests, ideas and invitations
- Respond to their agency and desires to lead their learning
- Create opportunities for rich and meaningful learning and play.
In this session participants will:
- Practice observation techniques that focus on young children’s
- learning agendas,
- Think about planning for learning rather than for activities,
- Explore ways to document the learning and development of infants and toddlers, working with the guidance of National Quality Standard in relation to QA 1.
Dr Sandra Cheeseman is a senior lecturer in early childhood at Macquarie University, Sydney. She brings to this role extensive experience as an early childhood teacher, director and senior manager. Her current research focusses on infants’ encounters with curriculum – in particular the implications of the introduction of a learning framework for children from birth.