INTRODUCTION

• The COVID-19 pandemic has presented some unique challenges for early years teachers as they move from physical learning approach to a remote learning approach. 
• Early years teachers need to embrace the chance to strengthen partnerships with children, families and carers, and learn more about their worlds – integrating their individual contexts and needs into planning for learning experiences. 
• On the professional learning front, teachers need to expand their own online teaching knowledge, skills and confidence for 21st Century learning strategies to an advance skills for the young people in anticipating what will be required for citizens as we head towards the 22nd Century with rapid technological and environmental change.

KEY PRINCIPLES IN MOVING TO REMOTE LEARNING MODELS

 The key principles for teachers to move towards a more remote or distance learning mode are as follows:

• View children as learners in all moments and environments;
• Engage young children as co-designers in online delivery platforms, embracing their capabilities and skills having been born into the era of digital technologies;
• Model a calm and caring approach to children and their family's individual contexts and needs to provide a stable influence and support emotional wellbeing;
• Avoid trying to exactly replicate the face-to-face learning experience directly to an online learning platform;
• Apply inclusive practices to ensure all children have access to learning and are actively engaged in learning; and,
• Educate young children and their families and carers on e-safety; that is, remaining safe online.

PLANNING LEARNING EXPERIENCES

There are some of the main things that early year teachers should keep in mind when planning lessons and learning activities. The learning outcomes should be kept central and the online platforms and tools should not let to dictate learning. Teachers need to design learning to support children learning in a whole range of modes especially for young children who have problems and cannot access to technology.

Below are some suggestions as suggested by Price for teachers to plan learning. They are:

• Design learning experiences which engage children through interacting with their natural setting and then bring this learning to online or paper-based learning;
• Apply techniques of the flipped classroom (i.e. children engage in learning experiences and collecting information, items, experimenting etc. and then share through online format), and blended learning (a mixture of online and offline activities);
• Encourage children to design inquiry questions that they want to explore in their natural setting and then share either online, by phone, with family and carers, or by post;
• Encourage pairs or small groups of children to design a shared inquiry question that they each explore in their own setting and then children collectively design approaches for sharing their findings;
• Schedule regular and short online sessions where there can be some explicit teaching, as well as children sharing their learning intentions, findings and learning, which accommodate their developmental attention span. 
• Design activities that integrate online interactions with physical movement – for example, going on a scavenger hunt, group stories, singing or music;
• Establish a consistent timetable for engaging in online platforms so that children and their families and carers develop a routine;
• Integrate a range of technologies available to young people, such as video, cameras and photos, voice recordings, digital drawings, and games; and,
• Provide children with a choice of activities so that they can be empowered in making decisions over the week, whilst ensuring a balance of activities across curriculum learning areas – for example, using a rubric to self-monitor progress.

RETHINKING RESOURCES – MAKING USE OF NATURAL SETTINGS

• Generally, in an early years learning setting, classroom and school environment, teachers can access to a variety of teaching and learning resources. 
• Price states that the move to remote learning may seem like a challenge, but there are many opportunities for authentic learning activities.
• Price also mention that children's natural settings are rich with resources that can be applied across other subjects such as Mathematics, English, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science, Arts (Music, Drama, Dance, Visual and Media), Health and Physical Education, Languages, Design and Technologies. This provides the opportunity to challenge children to see all the learning available in their interaction with the natural environment. 
• Here are some of the natural setting examples that teachers can apply as suggested by Price:

• Everyday household items – Mathematical concepts and numeracy surround children and are central to their world, including: timing devices around the home, for example, analogue and digital clocks, a stop watch, watches, and the oven timer; and measurement concepts such as weight, capacity of cooking ingredients, liquids, numbers around the house, and counting of objects.
• Nature resources – think about encouraging outdoor play and construction with materials including water, rocks and sticks; making artwork with nature.
• Commercial resources – some students will have access to card games, board games and technological games, and a range of sport and exercise resources such as trampolines, skipping ropes, balls and racquets.
• Art resources – consider making use of any household art, or musical instruments (including improvised instruments such as buckets for drums, and so on), and homemade play dough.
• Digital resources – digital assistants such as Google Home, collaborative online platforms, e-books, movies, tablet devices, phones, computers, watches, cameras, video games etc.

MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS AND A SENSE OF BELONGING

• Maintaining relationships with children and their peers, as well as the sense of belonging to their educational setting is important. It enables teachers to stay connected with each other during social distancing measures and the move to working from home. 
•  Here are some of the ways that Price suggested so that teachers can work to help children to stay connected during Covid-19 pandemic online learning. The ways are through the:

• Use of online platforms, such as Google Classroom or Zoom. It provides opportunities for whole class interaction and also break out rooms. Break out rooms can be used for both formal group tasks and informal conversations. For those students who do not feel comfortable talking in a class or group forum, chat forums are also available on some platforms. Allowing children to work on the same documents through Google Docs, can also be used to promote connectedness and a shared goal.
• Engagement in secure online games (allowing for fun interaction while being mindful of security and adult supervision), and,
• Setting learning tasks that engage children in interviewing or seeking information from family and friends can also help them to keep connected with significant others outside of their class peers.

COLLECTING EVIDENCE OF EARLY YEARS’ STUDENT PROGRESS

 Online assessment can include both formative and summative assessment. Below, are some ways of teachers (suggested by Price) collecting evidence of early years’ student progress.

• Observing children's engagement in online platforms, presentation of information, responses to questions;
• Online/posting/emails of documents, artefacts, images, photos, videos of learning;
• Teachers can design assessments through an online quiz, Mentimeter, Wordle etc;
• Online literacy and numeracy activities;
• Children can record journals of their daily activities and learnings – using images, writing, reading, and voice recordings;
• Seek out parent/carer/family perceptions and feedback; and,
• Collect children's self-reflections and perceptions.

CONCLUSION

Teachers play a significant role in working with parents and carers in nurturing the next generation. The early year children are important in laying the solid foundation during this pandemic. Continue working together with parents and carers to provide a calm and reassuring environment and responding to children as they question and learn about the current situation is critical. Thus, children’s feeling to be safe and supported is essential to their wellbeing and ability to focus on learning.

 Disclaimer: This piece of writing is only written for reading and sharing purposes. It has nothing to do with the Ministry of Education (MOE) policy.

Reference:

COVID-19: Practical tips for early years teaching and learning (Article). Dr Deborah Price, a Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education and Wellbeing at the University of South Australia's Education Futures academic unit and president of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association (ACSA) Rebecca Vukovic, teachermagazine.com