WOMAN: Good morning...Nova.
GIRL: Good morning.
When you notice that people are having a conversation,
what can you do?
What can you do?
You can maybe just wait a little bit, that's right.
Because normally we will notice if there's somebody waiting
and then when we're finished, we will turn to you.
My name's Zara Kaye.
I'm the teacher in charge at Rona Glynn Preschool.
The professional reading that we've done
to better understand how students learn
is a wide reading.
We're very interested, as a staff team,
in brain plasticity,
so we've been reading 'The Brain That Changes Itself'.
Norman Doidge has summarised a lot of great research in that area.
I would really like to work on - and work with you on -
looking at the research that we've been reading about
and looking at what activities can you apply.
Like, what activities actually apply to that research?
So if we're talking about the importance of music
and the impact it has on the brain,
how does that happen, but also then, practical...
Like, this music we could look at.
So, "What does this look like at preschool?"
So it's quite a direct link between
what we're reading as research
and evidence-based development for kids
and then what it looks like in the preschool.
Yeah. And match them up.
We are inspired by and implement in our practice
the writings and research of Dr Carol Dweck,
and her book 'Mindset',
which encourages us to be more authentic
in terms of our feedback to children about their learning.
I really like the way that you...
Yeah, you always seem so comfortable with the children
and you've always got time to actually talk with each child
and follow up on their interests.
Like, they're never left kind of not feeling noticed
or not feeling nourished
unless that's actually good for their development,
which also happens too.
So the activities that you'll see around preschool
are generally child generated.
And that's what we want.
If the learning is coming from their own experiences,
their own sharing,
then they're going to be more meaningful for them.
Have you been camping before, Kya?
Yeah? What happened for you when you went camping?
Scuse me!
Just wait one second while we listen to Kya
and we'd love to hear from you later.
Also, what was interesting was actually using questioning,
open-ended questioning.
My urge was to jump in
and to phrase what I thought she was thinking.
But actually, it was very different when I actually just listened to her.
And that's part of our practice as a teacher,
is to base our next step for a child's learning
on what we actually hear from them.
We have to practise really strong, active, patient listening skills
in order to better get to know our students.
And then we know more accurately what the next step for that child will be.
Tell me, where does your pterodactyl live?
In a cubbyhouse.
In a cubbyhouse! That's awesome. What does the cubbyhouse look like?
Pink.
-Pink. Great. -And purple.
Oh, fantastic.
Could you make that or draw that so that I can see it properly as well?
Great! That'll be really...
Is a hard-and-fast rule the best thing for children's learning?
Or do we actually need to reflect on 'rules' that we've come up with
as preschool educators
and see whether there's room to move
that might actually have some benefits for the children's learning?
Because as a lecturer of mine once said,
whoever is doing the thinking is doing the learning.
And if we've already pre-thought and pre-figured out
every possible challenge and safety scenario
for the children in our care,
well, we've done all the thinking,
and we don't need to be doing the learning at our age.
It's the 4-year-olds that do.