Briefing Guidelines

EC722 The Early Childhood Curriculum

Part Two- Essay

Select one learning story from Kei Tua o te Pae which includes a range of subject content areas covered in this course. In your essay:
1. Examine the essential concepts of three subject content areas that children are exploring in the learning story.
2. Analyse the teaching strategies used by the teachers to support and enhance children’s learning of essential concepts in the relevant content areas
3. Based on an example of your teaching practice in your early childhood center, choose two subject content areas (preferably not discussed in part two, number 1) and identify possible links to children’s interests, including teaching
strategies that could be implemented to support learning.
Your essay should include:
• Links to Te Whāriki and The New Zealand Curriculum
• An understanding of how children in the different age groups learn about essential concepts in the relevant subject content areas
• Appropriate use of subject content language and demonstration of your subject content knowledge of the learning areas

Section 1 and section 2 should be combined in the first part of your essay, making up for around 1200 of the word count. Section 3 is separate from sections 1 and 2, but you should include a “linking sentence”.

For section 1:

• Choose any of the learning stories of the Kei Tua o te Pae resource.
•  Identify links to three content learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) in the learning story.
•  These content learning areas may be mentioned in the learning story or be recognized by yo

 The content learning areas are:

•  Language and Literacy, The Arts (Visual Arts and Performing Arts), Mathematics, Science, Technology, Health and Physical Education, and Social Science. Please have a look at the Learning Objectives of the strands of each learning area to familiarise yourself with the content of each learning area.
•  Click on the learning areas in the column on the left-hand side to open up the strands and learning
  objectives of the learning area.
•  The ‘essential concepts’ are the foci mentioned in the learning objectives.
  Include links to The New Zealand Curriculum as well as Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017), using your own words, rather than quotes. Also, include links to course readings.

For section 2:

• Identify which strategies the teacher has used and discuss these.
•  Avoid copying out exactly what has been written in Kei Tua o te Pae, instead analyze the strategies. Why are these particular strategies used?
• what other strategies could be used instead of or in addition?
  Show an understanding of which strategies are appropriate for the age group written about in the learning story.
•  Also show an understanding of how children in ECE learn about subject content knowledge (i.e., starting from the interest of the child/ learning through play)

For section 3:

• You are now looking at how learning of subject content happens in the center.
  Choose different content learning areas from the previous sections.
• Start with a possible interest you have observed in your center, which you can mention as an example. Avoid making this example too long.
• To show an understanding of different age groups you could choose a different age group from those examined in sections 1 and 2.
• Explain how the learning interest can be linked to the strands and learning concepts of two learning areas, how the teacher can draw out these concepts through conversation, and how this learning may be connected to home experiences and prior knowledge of the child. Explain how the learning of subject area concepts can be meaningful and at the child’s level. Additionally, what teaching strategies would be appropriate for the age group you are discussing and how would these strategies be different if this was a different age group?
•  Include links to The New Zealand Curriculum as well as Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017), using your own words, rather than quotes. Also, include links to course readings.