ECD Module 3

Learning Unit 4: Reflect on the ECD programme

 After completing this learning unit, you will:

• Have reflected on the ECD programme
• Be able to evaluate the design of activities. 

Reflect on the ECD programme

Reflecting on your ECD programmes is an excellent way to secure that you will always strive towards improvement. Bear in mind that reflections may take place before, during and after implementation of your programme.

Allowing for space, incentive, time, and means for ECD practitioners to reflect on their programmes and practice are all essential for an effective ECD centre. Without feedback and reflection time, ECD practitioners sometimes work mechanically (like they are on auto pilot) and without objectives.

Reflection allows you to build on the strengths of your programme, and to resolve weaknesses and problem areas. This means that the programme is always evolving, strengthening and improving. When you see the positive impact of your programme reflections, you should feel proud and resolve to carry on with renewed energy. Furthermore, the process of self-reflection can also become a vehicle for collaboration.

Make self-reflection a priority, and create space for it. Your own success and that of the ECD depend on your reflection. 

4.1 Obtain feedback from relevant sources on the value and success of the programme

When we want to reflect on the value and success of our EC programme, we have to start by obtaining feedback from relevant stakeholders (the sources of feedback). Let's begin by examining a mind map of who these stakeholders or feedback sources could be. 

 

a. Mentors, colleagues and other ECD practitioners
Your mentor or your colleagues in the ECD can give you feedback and help you to evaluate how well you are preparing and implementing programmes. You may want to set up regular feedback sessions while you are still building up experience as an ECD practitioner. Later, you could help to mentor or support other new practitioners. A peer feedback group also enables you to obtain relevant feedback from your peers.

b. ECD principal
The ECD centre director or principal will be a highly experienced practitioner, so she will be an excellent feedback source. She will also probably have a bird’s eye view of your playgroup so may see trends and possibilities more easily.

 c. Parents
There are many ways to obtain feedback from parents:

• Informal conversation when dropping or collecting children
• Telephone calls
• Home visits
• Parent meetings
• Questionnaires
• A notebook in the child’s bag that the ECD practitioner and parents use to correspond with each other

Usually, the ECD practitioner will use all of these methods to obtain meaningful feedback, both positive and negative. Remember: you are most likely to receive the best feedback during informal conversations with parents when they are feeling relaxed. Note down relevant suggestions and where appropriate discuss them further at a parent meeting or through a questionnaire.

d. Children
Children are good sources of feedback because they are usually honest and direct. They will tell you instantly if there are activities, routines or other parts of the programme that they do not like. They are also quick to show appreciation. Try to build regular reflection sessions with children. For example, after an activity or a story, ask them if they enjoyed it. Ask them what they learned. Write down their response on your activity template, so you can take their comments into account next time.

 e. Grade R or Foundation Phase teachers
Your ECD centre will probably be a feeder centre for one or two local primary schools. Build up a relationship with the Grade R Foundation Phase teachers. They will be in a good position to give feedback on your programme, as they can assess the children’s learning and development when they enter Grade R.

f. Community members or organisations
People outside the immediate ECD centre staff and the children’s families also have an impact on the success of the ECD centre. You can informally ask these individuals for feedback. If what they have to say is really relevant, you may invite them to a parent meeting and ask them to address your colleagues and the children’s parents. 

The feedback book:
Have a feedback book on hand at the ECD centre. This can either be your personal feedback book or you can create a book for all the ECD practitioners to use. Write down feedback as you receive it, otherwise you might forget before you have a chance to use a suggestion or share a compliment or complaint with your colleagues. You could also use a comments box or feedback book for those parents who want to remain anonymous. As trust grows, parents will feel more comfortable about speaking directly to you.

 4.1.1 Obtain feedback on the application of the activities

When you conduct evaluations, you collect and examine evidence in order to make judgements about something’s value. An evaluation is basically making value judgements about something by looking at the advantages and disadvantages of that thing. A value judgement is how effective or ineffective, good or bad, successful or unsuccessful something is. When you evaluate something, you want to assess whether it meets its intended goals. So, how does this relate to the evaluation of activities in an ECD playroom? You will have to make value judgements about your activities, their strengths and weaknesses and whether they meet their intended goals.

Why do you need to evaluate the activities you design? Because an evaluation allows you to assess your current teaching practice and improve your future teaching practice. Evaluation gives you the opportunity to:

• Learn from your mistakes
• Identify your areas of strengths and your areas of challenge
• Make sure that you are being effective
• Check how appropriate things are
• Ensure that what you do matches the purpose
• Improve
  
• Identify ways in which you can change and growEvaluation forms an important part of your ongoing professional growth and development as an ECD practitioner.

Evaluations of activities in an ECD playroom have to meet a number of criteria. The evaluations you conduct must:

• Reveal the activities” strengths and weaknesses in relation to their purpose
• Be consistent and systematic
• Draw on feedback, observations and/or reflections
• Assess the contribution of the activities to the ECD”s aims
• Let’s look at each one of these in more detail. 

a.  Evaluations must reveal the strengths and weaknesses of activities in relation to their purpose
When you design your activities, they always have a purpose which is linked to the developmental outcomes. For example, the purpose might be to develop fine motor skills or to encourage children to share. The purpose is the intended goal of the activity. So, one of the things that you need to evaluate is whether an activity achieved its purpose. You can assess the strengths and weaknesses of an activity in relation to its purpose. The strengths will be successes, the advantages, the effective parts of an activity, what worked. The weaknesses will be the aspects that were not successful, the disadvantages, and the ineffective parts of an activity, what didn’t work.

You can learn from both the strengths and weaknesses of an activity. The strengths of an activity teach you what is effective so that you can use those aspects again. The weaknesses provide you with opportunities to change what didn’t work so you can improve next time you do that activity or when you design another activity.

b. Evaluations must be consistent and systematic
A consistent evaluation is one that always looks at the same criteria. A systematic evaluation is one that is orderly and well planned. So, how can you make your evaluations consistent and systematic? A useful way is to develop a checklist of the criteria that you need to evaluate. Then you can be sure that you are always assessing the same criteria in an orderly way.

The activity plan that you used to describe your activities can form the basis for the checklist of the criteria that you need to evaluate. The table below gives you a checklist based on the Activity Plan:

 

The comments/evidence column is for comments explaining the rating or evidence to justify the rating. Evidence can be any proof that supports a rating such as a child’s comment, an observation about a resource that broke or the products that the children produce in an activity. The Comments/Evidence column is there to avoid rather meaningless generalisations about activities "going well" or "being a disaster". An evaluation must be specific about how and why an activity is being judged as effective or ineffective.

 c.  Evaluations must draw on observation, reflection or feedback
When you conduct an evaluation, you can use three ways to gather information about the value and success of an activity: These three ways are:

• Observation
• Reflection
• Feedback. 

Let’s look at each one of these in more detail. 

Observation
You learned about doing observations when you were evaluating the learning resources you adapted. To recap, observations are about watching the children doing the activity. During an observation you are watching carefully to see whether the purpose of the activity is being achieved and to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the activity. Observation needs to be about what was said and done during the activity. The observation is a good time to complete the checklist. The checklist will help to record the observations and allows space to note down examples to illustrate comments.

Observation is part of an ongoing cycle: you observe the children during the activity, record your observations, evaluate the activity and then you use these evaluation comments to help you to improve your activity and design new activities. Then you implement (do) your improved activity or your new activity and the cycle starts again. In this way, your observation and evaluation inform your practice (that means that your practice is based on your observation and evaluation).  

  

Reflection

Feedback
Feedback is information about a performance that leads to action to affirm or develop performance. The "performance" in this case is the activity. So, how is feedback different from reflection? Both are based on observation but reflection is usually self-reflection, it is what you think and feel about the activity. Feedback usually comes from other people such as your colleagues, the children in you playgroup and their parents. In a way, you could say that reflection is your own feedback on an activity and feedback is other people’s reflections on an activity.

Feedback gives you the information you need to reinforce the effective things you are doing and to identify areas where you can improve. When you get feedback, it should motivate you to improve yourself as an ECD practitioner. Feedback is an essential part of your own learning. It helps you to maximise your potential, raise your awareness of your strengths and weaknesses, and identify actions you can take to improve your performance. Feedback helps you to plan productively for the next activity.

Feedback can be informal or formal. Informal feedback could be a comment from a child, a parent, or a colleague during or after the activity. For example, a child might say "I don’t like this glue. It doesn’t stick". From that feedback you would know that you need to improve the quality of the glue next time. A parent might say "I don’t know what you did but all of a sudden James can button his shirt. Thank you!" From that feedback you would know that the activities you’ve been doing to develop fine motor skills and putting on clothes are successful. A colleague might say "Your group was so excited at snack time. They couldn’t stop talking about what fun they had in the music ring. You must share that activity with me."

Formal feedback would be a planned event. For example, you might ask a colleague to sit in on an activity and make observations and then give you feedback. Or you could work with parents to address a specific need of their child and have a feedback discussion about whether the activities are helping or not.

Often formal feedback from a colleague is given by using a feedback form. Your colleague will complete the form while she is observing your activity and then use it as the basis to give you feedback afterwards.

The table below gives an example of a feedback form.

 As you can see, this kind of observation is much more open-ended than the checklist you developed for observation. But your colleague can also use the checklist as a guide to the sorts of things for which to look. As with the checklist, your colleague needs to provide evidence and examples in the comments that she writes on the feedback form.

Your colleague will use this feedback form as the basis for the feedback session you will have. Usually colleagues evaluate one another so you will have opportunities to reinforce positive behaviours and strengths as much as looking at areas where improvement can be made. When you are doing a peer observation, you need to give as much attention to the evidence for effective performance as for ineffective performance. You need to give both affirmative and developmental feedback. Affirmative feedback tells your colleague what she did well. Its purpose is to encourage the person and to reinforce their behaviour. Developmental feedback tells your colleague what needs to be done better and how to do it. Its purpose is to help the person see how she could do better next time. The key to successful feedback is to give the person a manageable amount to go away with and put into practice.

When you evaluate an activity you will always use observation and self-reflection but you should also try to use feedback from others as well. This will give you a more balanced way to evaluate your activities. You may be too judgemental of your own activities or you may be unable to see any problems. Another person’s observations and feedback will help you to see the activity from another perspective.

4.2 Reflect to identify strengths and weaknesses of the programme

As an ECD practitioner, you need to know how to evaluate the activities you design. You must know how to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your activities. The purpose of finding out what works and what doesn’t is so you can improve and extend the activities you have designed. When you evaluate your activities you need to do so in a consistent and systematic way. You need to get feedback from a variety of relevant sources such as your colleagues, the children in your playgroup and their parents. You also need to do self-reflection and record the findings of your evaluation.

 4.2.1 Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the activities

A strengths and weaknesses table is a useful way to organise anecdotal feedback comments (that means, comments based on individual’s stories and comments). Use this table to do revision of your programme. Pay particular attention to recurring feedback, for example when you hear similar suggestions from the parents or from several different stakeholders. You may like to call on your mentor or a group of peers when you do programme revisions, to make sure you retain the strengths of the programme so that children feel safe and secure.

The following table is an example of an ECD”s strengths and weaknesses: 

 

How does the programme contribute meaningfully to the overall aims of the ECD service?

What are the overall aims of your ECD service? Usually these aims are stated in an ECD centre’s vision and mission. For example, let’s examine the aims of a typical ECD service. The ECD service below lists six main aims. It states that by participating in the ECD learning programme, children will:

• Develop confidence and self-reliance in themselves as learners
• Demonstrate curiosity and enjoy learning
• Develop the ability to focus their attention and complete structured activities
• Develop a level of communicative competence that is personally satisfying
• Acquire social skills and abilities which enable them to relate to other children and to adults
• Remain true to their individual natures, being free to develop to their own potentials.

This is a very useful set of overall aims. For you as an ECD practitioner, a set of aims like this can help you reflect and adjust your learning programme effectively. For example, you could use a rubric to help you check if your learning programme is matching the identified aims.

The following table is an example of a rubric to check how programme matches its stated aims:

 

4.3 Reflect to identify the extent to which the programme contributes meaningfully to the overall aims of the ECD service

Once you have made or adapted and used a resource, you need to reflect on how effective it was in achieving its purpose and whether any improvements or changes are needed. There are various steps in reflection that we will discuss.

 Why reflect?
Reflection is about examining and reviewing a product or process. It is defined as: “to think, ponder, or meditate”.  We need to reflect on our resources in order to:

• Ensure that the resource supported the activity adequately and did not distract from the planned learning outcomes
• Identify whether it was useful, effective and appropriate for the activity and the developmental needs and interests of the children
• Identify its suitability in terms of an ECD context and learning programme
• Look at possible improvements as regards its safety, durability, bias and ability to meet any special needs of learners

We do not always willingly reflect on our work – we normally only do so when it is required of us and somehow feel that we are on the defensive. Unless we are honest in our reflections, we will never be able to improve on our efforts or the resources we have provided. There is a difference between being overly critical and being reflective. When we reflect we do so because we want to grow and learn. 

As an ECD practitioner, you will need to develop these skills and reflect on your practice so that you can develop yourself and your facilitation skills. You have to challenge yourself to become more creative and to grow. As you grow, so the children in your care will benefit and you will find that dealing with the challenges of each day in a school become easier.

Instead of seeing reflections and evaluations as a burden – see them as an opportunity.

Remember, “Attitude determines altitude”. 

4.3.1 Reflect on the extent to which the designed activities contribute meaningfully to the overall aims of the ECD service

As you know, when you reflect on something, you look at it carefully and think about it critically. Reflection is about examining and reviewing. When you are busy facilitating an activity you tend to make quick decisions to deal with any issues that arise. Reflection allows you the luxury of time to examine these decisions at your leisure and make further decisions about how you wish to respond should similar circumstances arise again. These decisions then become part of your activity when you do it again. Observation is done during an activity but reflection is done after an activity.

After doing an activity, it is important to stop and reflect on the activity. This is not so that you can indulge in self-congratulation or regrets, but rather so that you may have a basis for your own learning by reflecting on experience: this activity was unsatisfactory, what could I have done to improve it? Or: this activity was good, what was it exactly that made it good?

When you reflect you can ask yourself: "Did the activity go according to plan?" Although an activity that went according to plan will probably be effective, you also need to ask yourself whether the plan was a good one in the first place. A sensitive and flexible ECD practitioner will plan with different needs in mind and adapt to various changing circumstances such as the needs of the children.

You should try to reflect on an activity as soon after you have done the activity as possible. This is so your ideas and observations are still fresh in your mind. Your reflection notes don’t need to be long but you do need to write your thoughts down. That is why there is a section for reflection at the end of each Activity Plan.

Like observation, reflection is part of an ongoing learning cycle. In this learning cycle, you plan an activity and then you do the activity. After doing the activity you reflect on the activity and use that reflection to again direct your next action. That action could be to improve your activity, try something different or use something similar for a different purpose. Then you are back into planning and the cycle continues. 

4.4 Identify and note ways to improve upon the programme for future plans and programmes

As an ECD practitioner, you need to make sure that you evaluate your programme activities regularly. The best way to do this is to structure evaluation sessions and stick to them! Most effective ECD practitioners use an evaluation schedule like this:

ECD Evaluation schedule 

a. Daily evaluation
Write up feedback comments on Activity Plans and daily programme during the day. At the end of the day, take ten minutes to reflect and make simple adjustments.

b. Weekly evaluation
At the end of the week, take 15 minutes to reflect on the weekly programme. Notice any problem areas you experienced. Also, check the feedback book. Make any revisions to the following week’s programme.

 c. End of term evaluation
Meet with other ECD practitioners. Review the programme together. Check that the learning programme for different playgroups link well together. Ask questions like the ones in the checklist that follows. Discuss and implement improvements strategies.

Making an effort to improve your ECD service
How can you ensure that you provide a consistently good quality ECD service? You always have to make efforts to improve the quality of the service you offer. You can do this by identifying the problems and weaknesses in your ECD service. You can also build on your strengths and what you already have in place in your ECD service. Remember to work co-operatively with co-workers, families and the community. These groups know your ECD service well. They will have many ideas for ways to improve. They may also notice problems and weaknesses that you have overlooked.

 Suggested ways to improve the quality of your ECD service

1. Do you recognise the individual needs of the child?
2. Are you accountable to the community and caregivers?
3. Do you provide experiences that challenge children, and are achievable?
4. Are problem-solving and critical thinking an integral part of the programme?
5. Do you provide opportunities for the child to develop in a holistic way?
6. Do you avoid stereotyping and bias?
7. Do you encourage integrated learning?
8. Are there many opportunities for experiential learning?
9. Do you insist on regular assessment and evaluation?
10. Do you encourage free play and unguided activities?
11. Do you plan in advance?
12. Do you spend enough time playing with the children?
13. Do you meet regularly as staff to discuss the children’s progress as well as the standard of care and education?

Now take a look at these opportunities:

1. Do you recognise the individual needs of the child?
All children are different and need to be treated as special. They acquire knowledge and skills at different developmental stages. As an ECD practitioner, you must take this into consideration when you plan your ECD programme. The mode of learning will not be the same for each child.

2. Are you accountable to the community and caregivers?
As a practitioner you need to be transparent and available to those who entrust their children to your care. The parent and caregiver community should be kept informed of and involved with what is happening in the playschool. We can no longer be practitioners in isolation. We need to work with the community and share expertise with colleagues. It is up to you to be well-informed and knowledgeable of ongoing developments in early childhood development.

3. Do you provide experiences that challenge children and are achievable?
As an ECD practitioner you take learners from the known to the unknown. Small children have had varied experiences. Which provide you with a starting point? Try not to under- or over estimate what a young child is capable of learning. Provide a stimulating learning environment where children can be challenged to reach their full potential. If you know your learners well, it will be easier for you to provide an enriching programme. 

4. Are problem-solving and critical thinking an integral part of the programme?
Problem solving is a process of thinking, identifying and finding solutions to everyday situations. This is a life skill that helps children to feel independent and builds their self-esteem. They learn that they have the resources to deal with situations that need answers. This realisation empowers the child to try out possibilities in a supportive environment. It implies that you should avoid stepping in before a child has had the chance to try something for him/herself. You should never interfere to the extent that you stunt (inhibit) their experiential learning.

5. Do you allow the child to develop in a holistic way?
The child should develop emotionally, intellectually, physically, socially, spiritually and creatively. Such holistic development can be achieved through interactive play, storytelling, listening to music, discussing feelings, drama and role play. Children also need to be exposed to an assortment of resources that they explore in a variety of ways.

6. Do you avoid stereotyping and bias?
You can encourage children to respect and value all human beings by helping them to understand and celebrate our different cultures, traditions, social customs likes and dislikes. You, as the ECD practitioner, need to have an unbiased approach to gender, race, language, physical ability and children’s special needs. You also need to be aware of other forms of bias that might influence your teaching.

Remember, the children will see you as their role model when they have to deal with their peers.

7. Do you encourage integrated learning?
Children learn best in an integrated environment rather than in isolation. The curriculum should combine all learning areas where possible and avoid fragmentation (breaking up the content into bits and pieces). For example, if "water" is the topic for the week, you could incorporate a story about water (e.g. the water cycle), measuring by using containers of different sizes and shapes, a song about water, uses of water in the home, experiments with water, stories about water the possibilities are endless. Literacy, numeracy and life skills as explained in the NCS documents can be focused on individual skills. However, they are all interrelated and occur throughout the day in the ECD environment.

8. Are there many opportunities for experiential learning?
A hands-on approach is worthwhile and valuable. Children learn best when they do and see, rather than from just being told. Active learning is far more effective than passive rote learning and memorising. You can promote active learning by using different questioning techniques, experimentation and wide variety of different learning materials. 

9. Do you insist on regular assessment and evaluation?
Plan your programme to include continuous assessment and evaluation. Ongoing observation and reviewing of the learners” skills and abilities is an integral part of the ECD practitioner’s day. This helps with the learning process and assists the practitioner when planning her or his programme. The concept of continuous assessment and evaluation is one of the philosophical pillars on which outcomes-based education is based. Do keep in mind that testing can be very stressful for young children, and that the results are not always reliable, because children also have good and bad days.

10. Do you encourage free play and unguided activities?
Informal play and games are very important for the child’s development because they promote curiosity, problem solving and co-operative learning skills. Not all activities should be guided. Children should be encouraged to experiment, discover and invent their own activities and rules.

11. Do you spend enough time playing with the children?
Play is the most important activity in the lives of children. Sometimes it seems more important than eating and sleeping. This can be easy and fun and also involve trying hard to do something right.

Play is the work, the occupation of childhood.

Why is play important?

• Play is important because it helps children grow strong and healthy
• Play is important because children can learn about the meaning of things in the world
• Play is important because it helps children learn about people
• Play is important because it helps children learn and grow in a way that helps them feel good about themselves
• Play is important because it is practice for being grown-up
• Do you meet regularly as staff to discuss the children’s progress as well as the standard of care and education?

You as an ECD practitioner do not work in isolation. Meeting with one another to discuss problems will always improve conditions for the children. This not only supplies support to one another but allows you to help less experienced staff members to deal with issues and to maintain quality.

 4.4.1 Identify and record useful ways to improve upon and extend the activities for further use

If an activity does not work, it doesn’t mean you are a "bad" teacher. You are only a "bad" teacher if you don’t reflect on your activities and make the effort to revise the elements of the activity that did not work. The whole point of doing evaluations is for you to improve and extend your teaching practice. A good evaluation should highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of an activity. There are different ways to use evaluations to improve and extend activities. When you evaluate the strengths of an activity you are asking yourself questions such as "What worked?" "Why did it work?" The point is to learn what you are good at. Perhaps you can use this information to improve something else that didn’t work. Or you can extend that which worked for one activity when you design another activity.

When you evaluate the weaknesses of an activity you are asking yourself questions such as "What problems arose?" "Why did they arise?" "How did I deal with them?" The purpose of this questioning is not to focus on the negative. The point is to learn from what has happened. You can turn problems and weaknesses into opportunities to improve and extend your teaching practice.

A good evaluation probes beneath the surface of issues and does not quickly assume that the source of an issue has been located. This involves a willingness to keep asking "why?" and to consider alternative explanations. For example, was your playgroup "unresponsive" to an activity because they were bored or because it was too difficult or was it the specific time of day and they were too tired? You need to keep digging until you find a reasonable explanation for an issue.

When you discussed doing observations and giving feedback, you were encouraged to be specific. This will help you when you want to make changes to your activities. You can look at an activity and ask yourself questions about each aspect such as:

• What could I have done in my design to avoid problems?
• If I do this activity again, which specific areas need to be improved?
• How can I improve those specific areas?
• What extension activities can I do to help the children with needs and issues that arose from the activity?
• What follow-up activities can I do to consolidate the skills the children developed in this activity?

 A good evaluation will consider alternative approaches, which could be adopted in future activities. Your adoption of these approaches will be firmly based on the evidence from the evaluation of the activity. It will not just be a case of randomly trying something different. Teaching is a profession that requires constant introspection (looking at yourself and your teaching style) for serious growth and development to take place.

When you have decided how to improve and extend your activities, you need to record your decisions. The Activity Plan that you used to describe your activities has a section for evaluation where you can record your decisions. This section will be a summary of all the feedback, observations and reflections that make up your evaluation as well as the decisions you have made to improve and extend your activity based on that evaluation. You need to record these decisions to help you when you want to do the activity again or when you design another activity. You also need to record the decisions to help any other ECD practitioner who wants to use your Activity Plan. Keep your evaluations in the file with your Activity Plans. This file is an important resource to help you grow and develop as an ECD practitioner.

 

Summative Assessment

You are required to complete a number of summative assessment activities in your Learner Portfolio of Evidence Guide. The Learner Portfolio of Evidence Guide will guide you as to what you are required to do:

• Complete all the required administration documents and submit all the required documentation, such as a certified copy of your ID, a copy of your CV and relevant certificates of achievement:
• Learner personal information form
• Pre-assessment preparation sheet
• Assessment plan document
• Declaration of authenticity form
• Appeals procedure declaration form
• Place your complete learner workbook (with the completed class activities) in the specified place in the learner PoE guide
• Complete the knowledge questions under the guidance of your facilitator:

• Complete the other summative assessment activities in your workplace:

Once you have completed all the summative activities in your Learner PoE guide, complete the assessment activities checklist to ensure that you have submitted all the required evidence for your portfolio, before submitting your portfolio for assessment.