Dialogising Pedagogies for the Early Years

This course is intended for anyone interested in critically exploring diverse pedagogies and their impact on young learners (akonga) across the first 8 years of their educational experience. Utilising dialogic methodology as a pathway to understanding, students will embark on a comprehensive and critical examination of selected and highly influential pedagogies at play in and for Early Years practice. The course will pay particular attention to pedagogies that are embedded in the Aotearoa Early Childhood curriculum - Te Whariki. Students will therefore draw from Kaupapa Maori and Moana a Kiwa approaches to teaching and learning, alongside other philosophical orientations borrowed from other parts of the globe (e.g. Froebel, Malguzzi, etc). The course will support students to see akonga (conception to age 8 years) as dialogic partners in learning with their own strategic orientations, priorities and ways of expressing these in culturally relevant ways, utilising the central tenets of dialogism to do so. Students will critically evaluate the professional practice of themselves and others accordingly, ‘dialogising’ ascribed pedagogies, their origins, and the tensions that arise in their applications in real-life contexts for learning.