Working with Two-year-olds

Developing Reflective Practice

Julie Brierley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138600621
• eBook ISBN: 9780429894855
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Working with Two-year-olds is an accessible and practical guide into the developmental pathways of two-year-olds. The book uses established research and environmental and cultural effects to provide an essential background on two-year-old development, while incorporating reflective questions and tasks to encourage self-reflection throughout.

Divided into three clear parts, this book covers useful and interesting topics on the development of two-year-olds, such as:

• Emotional and social development
• Language and communicating
• Disposition and mindset
• Playful learning
• Family life
• Physical development

Providing theoretical overviews alongside practical ideas, and consistently encouraging critical self-reflection on all topics covered, Brierley has created an informative and constructive manual for students on Early Childhood courses and for practitioners and childminders on continuing professional development courses alike.

PART 1

Getting started with reflection

1The reflective practitioner

While it may seem a bold statement to make, it is essential to acknowledge that reflecting on practice is critical when working with two-year-old children. In an ever-changing world, it is vital that early years practitioners continue to further their skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the children and families they work alongside.

Without reflection, it will be difficult, if not impossible to define and refine practice to ensure suitable responses to meet the individual needs of every child. Reflection forms a crucial role in our practice with two-year-old children. The ability to enhance practice with young children and respond to new initiatives has become a daily expectation of all who work with young children in the 21st century.

Reading about theory and child development is essential for developing knowledge, but done in isolation, it can be a mechanical approach to knowledge development. The process of reflection requires the ability to think critically and creatively, to construct and share a personal interpretation in response to a particular context or occurrence.

Findings from my own experience show how the use of reflection empowers individuals to make informed decisions with regards to their daily practice with young children. The process of reflection ensures we consider other options and ideas; to develop a greater understanding of particular situations.

Reflection can be used to look back on past situations, to ask questions, to ponder and wonder why.

An individual does not stop learning and developing once they have completed their initial training and become qualified … they need further training to enhance and develop their knowledge and skills, and to keep pace with new research and developments.

(Nutbrown 2012: 50)

Reflection has the potential to make a difference, supporting an ongoing learning journey for individuals alongside the opportunity for professional development. The challenge we face; how reflection can be embedded into everyday practice with those who work with two-year-old children, how to develop reflective habits.

Pause for thought

What are my beliefs about reflection?

How will it feel to reflect?

Why is reflection relevant to me, and my work with two-year-olds?

Participating in the reflective activities provided within this book will help to develop a reflective attitude and habit. Providing the reader with an opportunity to critically consider and question the beliefs, ideas and practices they follow when working alongside and supporting two-year-old children.

If you are looking for a book, that merely requires you to be a passive reader, this is not the book for you. This book requires a commitment and active engagement in the suggested activities.

The reflective journey

Exploring what it means to be reflective and introducing the concept of critical reflection, the chapter will illustrate how cultivating the habit of reflection results in better understanding. The knowledge and confidence required for supporting two-year-old children and their families increases.

Starting the reflective journey is not a difficult task; it does, however, require active participation. If we consider reflection as a substitute for our thought process, we can look back at events and start to ask questions.

Reflective questions help to identify what we already know and consider how we might want to improve or refine a situation. The words what, why, how, can, where, when and who are essential in forming reflective questions.

Pause for thought

Reflect on your time at work today.

What were you most proud of?

Where did you encounter struggle today?

How did you deal with it?

Reflecting on an event or situation provides the opportunity for more in-depth learning, evoking new ways of working. It is, however, essential to recognise that to reflect, means more than to think back to a situation. To reflect we have to be honest to self-assess our practice and competence (knowledge) at that given time.

Reflecting is an active and dynamic process; it is about taking ownership of the thinking process, looking for learning points, striving for a better understanding. To do this, we must be honest about our knowledge and understanding, and most importantly we must want to do it!

Reflection involves challenging and developing existing knowledge. In striving for a greater understanding, we begin to recognise our own capabilities, knowledge and values. Without reflection, we will continue to repeat and do the same thing again and again. There is a real possibility our practice will merely stagnate.

Point of note

Reflection is the key to reviewing and evaluating practice, it enables practitioners to question, agree, disagree and challenge practice and provision.

Looking for answers and possibilities

Formal reflection requires us to look further than our own assumptions and beliefs. It requires us to draw not only on our inbuilt understanding but also on current research, theory and practice. Formal reflection places us, the learner, in the powerful position of being able to seek new knowledge, ideas and understanding. Formal reflection provides the opportunity to further our learning, to ensure our practice meets the needs of today’s two-year-old children and their families. Importantly it becomes a process for continuing towards our professional development.

Perhaps some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings around reflection are due to the complexity of language and terminology that unfold as we start to explore the key ideas and definitions of reflection.

The following definitions provide an initial starting point for understanding the different reflective vocabulary:

Reflection: Is ‘an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it’ (Boud, Keogh and Walker 1985: 43). Put simply reflection is the processing of knowledge (Moon 2004).

Informal reflection: Draws on self-questioning; it develops an awareness of our assumptions. It sanctions the use of questioning to establish why we do what we do.

Formal reflection: Engaging with current theory and research promotes greater understanding and knowledge, empowering the possibility to think critically and creatively to construct a new and deeper understanding.

Reflective writing: Uses writing as a way to extend the thought process.

Critical reflection: Critically reflective practitioners can communicate and share the rationale behind their practice, explain why they do what they do! Knowing why we believe what we believe, happens when we question our assumptions and practices through the process of critical reflection.

Reflective practice/practitioner: The ongoing habit of critically reflecting on everyday practice and occurrences.

The following observation illustrates a snapshot view of a typical episode in the day of a two-year-old. The observation is followed by a reflective discussion to illustrate how reflection can be used as a tool to enhance knowledge and understand two-year-old children’s thinking and behaviour.

Observation

Tilly loved jigsaw puzzles; she would spend vast amounts of time completing jigsaw puzzles both at home and nursery. Tilly’s key worker suspected her interests in these puzzles demonstrated aspects of a containing schema.

Today Tilly was engaged with her favourite jigsaw, she placed the pieces in the correct place, seemingly with ease. She smiled as she placed the last piece. Her attention then turned to the shape puzzle. She emptied all the pieces from the frame and set about replacing the parts. The triangle shape seemed to be causing her an issue, she attempted to turn the shape, but still, it did not fit into the space.

Tilly pushed the puzzle from the table to the floor. The shape pieces bounced in all directions across the floor. Tilly walked away … when asked to come and help pick up the pieces Tilly was very reluctant.

Reflecting on Tilly’s play episode provides an opportunity to make sense of the situation, to formulate ideas.

We can mull this event over in our minds, take some time to think about it and devise an understanding of the incident. Reflecting on the episode provides the opportunity to recognise and question our assumptions and beliefs about two-year-old children and their expected behaviour.

If we accept actions based on our assumptions we may believe Tilly was behaving, as we would expect a two-year-old to behave.

If we adopt a more formal reflective stance the process of critically reflecting allows us to pose questions as to why Tilly responded in this way. Tilly is usua...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1: Getting started with reflection
• PART 2: The building blocks for learning: The how of learning
• PART 3: The environment for learning: Provision and practice
• References
• Index