https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5945-0597
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ABSTRACT
This paper discusses characteristics of converged play for early childhood education. The characteristics were derived from a four-year study of teachers’ interpretation and use of ‘web-mapping’ as an explicit conceptual tool, designed to mediate teaching practices and learning outcomes according to a definition of pedagogy as the relationship between teaching and learning. Three characteristics of converged play were identified via detailed analysis of ten core converged play ‘episodes’ drawn from teacher exemplar cases. The characteristics were ‘multi-modal’, ‘global-local’, and ‘traditional-digital’. The characteristics of converged play presented can help teachers understand teaching and learning in the digital age, providing a starting point for an early childhood pedagogy in which children and teachers can engage in well-established opportunities for play-based learning alongside multi-modal, global-local, and traditional-digital activities in early childhood education and care settings.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the children, educators and families participating in this study. Contributions to this study by Dr Ana Mantilla, Pamela Lambert, Jacinta Bartlett and Timothy Katiba in project management, fieldwork and coding are gratefully acknowledged.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Susan Edwards
Susan Edwards is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University. Her research investigates young children’s learning with digital technologies in early childhood education and care settings, drawing on sociocultural perspectives on learning and development, and a critical constructivist orientation for understanding the relationship between technologies and society.
Ana Mantilla
Dr. Ana Mantilla is a Senior Research Fellow at the Deakin Child Study Centre at Deakin University. Ana has a Master’s degree and a PhD in Education from Monash University. She has expertise working in transdisciplinary teams on projects that co-design and deliver culturally appropriate and evidence-based programmes for children, families and teachers.
Susan Grieshaber
Susan Grieshaber is Professor of Early Childhood Education and Associate Head of Research in the School of Education. Her research interests are informed by a range of critical, feminist, and feminist poststructural theories that address social justice and equity, and include early childhood curriculum, policy, pedagogies, and women in higher education.
Joce Nuttall
Joce Nuttall is Professor at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University. Her research describes, implements and theorises effective interventions in professional learning in schools and early childhood settings, particularly in childcare. Most recently this work has focused on capacity building among educational leaders in early childhood and junior school settings, using system-wide analyses and actions.
Elizabeth Wood
Elizabeth Wood is Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses mainly on early childhood and primary education, with specific interests in play and pedagogy; curriculum and assessment in ECE; teachers’ professionalism and professional knowledge; policy analysis and critique. Professor Wood also examines the relationships between children’s interests, play and pedagogy in a multi-diverse early childhood setting.