Co-Constructing Meaning

Teachers as Protagonist In Meaning Making

"What does it mean to be in dialogue with technology? "

Carlini Rinaldi

Participants

Our Narrative Inquiry study, Playing in Digital Spaces: Creating Online Interactive Early Education Environments brought together educators and leaders from three states and five agencies including a Children’s Museum, Family Child Care Home, and Center-Based programs. Participants held multiple roles including classroom educators, directors, pedagogical coordinators, and all were classroom researchers working with children from one to five years of age.

Our collaboration included individuals who have worked in early childhood settings from two to thirty years. All participants shared a pedological approach based on the rights and competencies of young children as learners and the belief that early childhood educators are co-researchers was a central tenet in their shared work, along with the concepts of early childhood educators and children co-constructing knowledge, the importance of pedagogical documentation, and a pedagogy of listening.

Research Questions

Two educators from a progressive Reggio-inspired university began the journey to research:

As educators, how do we practice multiple and simultaneous ways of thinking through the 100 languages through digital technologies?

When using digital technology, how do we assure that the child is a protagonist in their own learning?

Where is the intersection between digital technology and the co-construction of relationships of the world through multiple points of view, respectful, reciprocal relationships, and playful, curious interests?

Figure 1

Guyon Cycle of Narrative Inquiry for Data Analysis

Collaborative Narrative INquiry Cycle

Narrative inquiry is a process of capturing and remapping or storying the experiences. During the process of retelling of stories/remapping, narrative inquiry researchers have the opportunity to experience the reliving of the retold stories, highlighting the shifting and changing personal and social nature of what is being studied. (Clandinin, 2007, 2013). Narrative inquiry cycles allow these retelling/remapped themes to emerge from past and current experiences while remaining flexible to future changes in educator/child engagement based on where learning takes place. We used Guyon's (2020) Cycle of Narrative Reflection as part of understanding teacher stories.

EMERGING THEMES

The themes that emerged were less about the digital and more about who participants were as early childhood educators. The participants' reflections focused on their own professional digital formation and digital identities. All of the educators describe themselves as social constructivists, using pedagogical terms such as layering, provocations, relationships, listening, relationships, co-constructing, co-learners, strong image of the child as capable and competent, not knowing, curiosity, collaboration, agency, integration, special rights, and materials to describe their multiple and simultaneous ways of thinking through the languages of the digital.

Be Brave

Theme 1: Building Relationships--child, educator, parent

Theme 2: Providing provocations for children to explore their wonderings with technology --cause and effect vs communications, technical vs magical

Theme 3: Layering the physical and the digital together and bringing them together

Theme 4: Understanding their humanity and exploring life with this new tool as a tool

How do I bring others on the journey?

Theme 1: Curiosity and co-constructing with children, teachers, and parents

Theme 2: Listening to children’s interests with provocations and materials/spaces

Theme 3: Relationships

Theme 4: Moving teachers into the unknown

Issues of Visibility

Theme 1: Strong value of the importance of anti-bias, special rights, and identity studies with children and teachers

Theme 2: Value of reuse materials and Remida

Theme 3: Using the digital to deepen children’s exploration

Theme 4: Border Crossings

How far can I go?

Theme 1: Teachers are considered and consider themselves to be learners just as much as the children are

Theme 2: Strong image of the child as competent and capable

Theme 3: Sharing documentation with the children and adults

Theme 4: Expanding ideas and provocations

“So Many Worlds We Live In” - coexisting

Theme 1: Value of introducing a variety of digital tools/experiences to young children

Theme 2: Providing provocations for children to explore their wonderings with technology --cause and effect vs communications, technical vs magical

Theme 3: Layering the physical and the digital together and bringing them together

Theme 4: Understanding their humanity and exploring life with this new tool as a tool

Maker-mindset

Theme 1: Relationships/ Connections

Theme 2: Strong Image of the Child

Theme 3: Overlapping Space Between the Physical World and the Digital World

Theme 4: Deeply Understanding Children’s Questions

Ethical Considerations

A Focus Group was held with the co-researchers and the participants to share stories, answer questions, and share our collaborative explorations. Out of the focus group conversations, the ethical considerations using technology emerged as an essential theme for the participants.

Figure 2

Participant Themes Ethical Considerations and Feeback to Themes

These ethical considerations were:

How to make technology accessible?
Using technology, what are responsive--culturally appropriate practices?
What is our responsibilities to recognizable ideas and creatures (the more than human)?
How do we protect children's images and ideas that are publicly accessible?
How to we assure that the children are active makers of meaning rather than passive recipients?

Figure 3

Themes from Intentionality of the Work

Intentionality in the Work

A strong image of the child was fundamental to the construction of the classroom. How a society views children’s capability profoundly impacts how children are educated (Moss, 2018). The research showed that reframing learning communities in this way acknowledged that the early childhood classroom is a community (defined as a social unit) where children and early childhood educators lived a portion of their lives together both in physical spaces and through digital engagement. Digital culture emerged from the communities’ shared norms, values, and customs.

Early childhood classrooms that used technology emerging from the children’s interest engaged in developmentally appropriate engagement through the exchange of ideas that allows a fluidity of thinking to occur. The pedagogy of listening (as highlighted in the strong practices of documenting children’s learning) scaffolded the children and adults search for meaning and understanding in what they did, what they encountered, and what they experienced.

The Archetypes of Teachers in the Digital

As social constructivists, each of the participants described their individual approach to dialoguing with the digital in unique metaphorical terms that represent the collective experience of thinking through the languages of the digital. These digital identities included the Risk-taker, the Journeyer, the Engineer, the Mediator, the Cartographer, and the Border Crosser (Figure 1). Participants emphasized needing a “framework to guide exploration” and each participant interlaced the languages of social constructivism and the digital in sharing their stories of exploration, risk-taking, engineering, mapping, border crossing, and mediating in their personal identities.

The cartographer

Observation and documentation as a (roadmap = metaphor) cartographer
Concept of playing with ideas with co-teachers
Social constructivist: layering 2.0, collaboration, co-constructing, co-learners, strong image of the child as capable and competent, provocations
Perspective-taking
Technology with children offers visible traces of memory
Sharing documentation with children

The Journeyer

How do we take risks together? (metaphor = journeying)
Not knowing
Sees technology as an opportunity to illuminate the metaphors in children's learning
Know how to ask open questions when children know more about technology than adults (co-learners)
Social constructivist: listening to children's interests, relationships, curiosity, co-constructing, provocation
Stories we tell
The journeyer

The Engineer

Bringing the digital and the physical world together
Technology as a tool
The role of materials and blurring the boundaries between
Social constructivist; layering, relationships, strong image of the child, listening to children's questions
Stories we tell
Analog and digital
How do things come together? (Metaphor = engineer)
Concepts of playing with ideas and materials
The engineer

The MEdiator

Framing and presenting
Technology's ability in perspective taking
Open windows into other worlds
Opportunity to explore culturally diverse experiences
Value of presenting diverse digital tools
Explore wonderings with children
Technical vs magical
Social constructivist: provocations, layering
Metaphor = open windows paradigm shifter

The Risk Taker

Children don't take risks if teachers don't take risks
Not knowing
Need a framework to guide exploration (metaphor = holding space for exploration)
Social constructivist: layering, provocations, relationships
Magical vs tech
Bringing the digital and the physical world together
Technology as a tool
Analog and digital
Co-explorer and risk-taker

The Border crosser

Adult roles in the digital-supervisor, teacher, practicum student and intersection of relationships
Digital learning curve
Children's digital agency
Strong value of diversity
Value of reuse materials
Using the digital to deepen children's exploration
Border crossings
Social constructivist; agency, integration, special rights, antibias, identity studies, materials

Reflections

One question that continued to arise in the interviews was, “How did educators infuse digital spaces with more opportunities for social learning?” Social constructivist preschool and infant/toddler centers have digital spaces for learning, but more specifically, these are spaces for social learning. With a foundation in relational learning, the role of the early childhood educator and administrators of centers was focused on building community in addition to offering digital literacy.

There were no one-size-fits-all best practices for building a learning community between physical and digital engagement. The key failure of adult online learning has been its attempt to duplicate, replicate, or simply dump the content and strategies of on-ground learning. It is important to recognize that online learning uses a different platform, builds community in different ways, demands different pedagogies, has a different economy, functions at different scales, and requires different curricular choices than does on-ground education. Even where the same goal is desired, very different methods must be used to reach that goal (Strommel, 2018).

There were several areas that we identified to create a baseline of knowledge to support relational spaces using digital technologies. The study examined connections between technology and physical classroom spaces materials that reveal children’s learning potentials across environments when early childhood educators have scaffolded experiences. All participants mentioned mentorship and collegial relationships as critical to making meaning in the space. Further themes of the use of materials and how to scaffold experiences emerged. Skill development and use of materials were identified as key barriers to engagement. The interactive and visual nature of the work led to the development of a website that is freely accessible to the public.

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