Description
The paper is based on my ongoing PhD study titled ‘Reconceptualising professional development in early childhood education and care’. This research, funded by The Froebel Trust, aims to contribute toward an understanding of early years professional development and learning that is firmly grounded in Froebelian principles, values and practices. Froebel saw training and development as a way to enable early years practitioners to achieve their purpose of becoming rational beings (Froebel, 1906). This presentation is focused on considering the different constructions of in-service Professional Learning and Development (PLD) for early years professionals through a Froebelian lens. A Froebelian lens can be explained as looking at practitioners in a holistic way, not seeing current practice as serving primarily an economic or political agenda. In this way, PLD is interpreted as a system building on Froebelian principles of like mindedness, autonomy, and fostering companionship. This understanding allows for a discussion around concepts such as community of practice within PLD (Wenger and Lave, 1991). During the presentation I will examine the current offering of professional learning and development opportunities for early years practitioners in the UK that can provide a perspective into some of the preliminary data collected for the research in order to discuss notions of practitioners’ identity and understandings of professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care. The preliminary data will be used to start a discussion about the possibilities for reconceptualising PLD strategies and practices using Froebelian understandings over the value and importance of lifelong learning for Early Years’ practitioners.| Period | 8 Sept 2018 |
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| Event title | International Froebel Society Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 8 |
| Location | Hiroshima, JapanShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |