“There was something more in this”: Assessing children’s learning and focusing on their well-being

Abstract

This article describes a collaborative action research project performed in a preschool in one of the neighbouring municipalities of Reykjavík. Participants were five staff members in one classroom and a school director, along with the authors of this article; a master’s student; and an associate professor at the University of Iceland. The aim of the study was to explore the assessment methods used in one preschool and develop methods to assess children’s well-being and learning in line with the National Curriculum Guide. Three participants were qualified preschool teachers and three were not educated in the field of preschool practice. This was a three-year project, the main data gathering taking place in one school year, from September 2016 to May 2017.

The data comprised interviews, research diaries and documentation and was analysed with the purpose of showing the processes of collaborative action research. A further aim was to explore children’s involvement in play and other activities and aspects of the teachers’ working methods by reflecting on their views and actions in the preschool. The objective was to gain answers about what kind of methods would work to assess children’s learning and well-being; whether or how the participants’ views had changed during the research period; what assessment methods were developed in the preschool; and the value for the teachers of taking part in collaborative action research seeking diverse assessment methods.

Before the research started, methods used in the preschool to assess the children’s education were mainly influenced by personal folders made for all children. Specimens of children’s artwork and photos from their activities in the preschool are collected in the personal folder which is supposed to show the progress of the child’s thinking and abilities, and also document major events in the child’s life; birthdays, holidays and special events at the preschool. Another formal method used in the preschool was the SMT (School Management Training) which aims to support children´s social competence by tackling inappropriate behaviour and encouraging positive behaviour. The SMT ideology presents positive enforcement of positive rules. Negative behaviour is documented and the information used to change its patterns is enforced by the same methods used by all staff.

The data describes the views of the participants in the beginning and the end of the school year, regarding children’s learning and well-being. The data revealed that assessment methods in the preschool were not systematically planned; rather, issues were discussed in passing and mostly focusing on children’s behaviour, including behaviour problems. The participants’ ideas developed over the course of the research period. The preschool teachers and assistant teachers created methods to observe children’s play, to reflect on and document Learning Stories, originally developed in New Zealand, showing children’s abilities and interest in play and other activities. In the middle of the research period, the preschool participants discovered that they had not documented stories about all the children. Some children seemed to be “hidden”, they had not caught the staff’s attention and thus no Learning Stories had been developed for them. To pay closer attention to these children the preschool teachers and the assistant teachers decided to map the social situation of children in the preschool by focusing on their strengths by documenting their Learning Stories. At the end of the research period they had documented stories about all the children and were able to better understand all the children’s welfare and ways of learning and interacting in the preschool.

During the research period, regular visits were made by the master’s student who supported the preschool teachers and the assistant teachers and followed the progress of the research by generating data. In these visits the master’s student and the participants in the preschool discussed the process of the children’s learning and the challenges they meet with in developing the Learning Stories. Also they reflected on the Learning Stories and the experience became an encouragement to continue documenting children’s stories, gaining insight into children’s play and learning and being part of the research team.

As the participants in the preschool reflected on the documentation the focus on children’s well-being became stronger and at the same time less attention was given to behaviour problems. The preschool teachers were able to use their professional experience and education to make their work with the children more meaningful. The assistant teachers, not having been trained in the field of early education, gained new experience through participating in this research. Their views and methods became closer to the professionals’ ideas and seemed to have deepened as had their awareness of the children’s views and their well-being. This encouraged change in the preschool practice, as the staff paid more attention to the children who had been “hidden” and were able to support their wellbeing and involvement in the group of children.

Thus, the Learning Story Approach gave the participants in the preschool a new insight into the children’s world and they were able to pay closer attention to the learning and well-being of all children