Using ‘Slowmation’ for intentional teaching in early childhood centres: Possibilities and imaginings

Abstract

INCREASED NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL attention towards early childhood education has resulted in the development of an Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) called ‘Belonging, Being and Becoming’ (DEEWR, 2009) for realising agreed practice, principles and outcomes. The EYLF highlights the importance of educators using intentional teaching to deliberately promote many important elements of early education. These include children learning about conceptual development, skills and values. In this paper we show how a new teaching approach called ‘Slowmation’ (abbreviated from ‘Slow Animation’), a simplified way for children to co-construct a stop-motion animation, can be used to support intentional teaching in early childhood settings. We present the outcomes of two exemplars, which used video and field observations to document how scientific concepts become conscious to both children and preservice teachers as they co-constructed Slowmation creations. In drawing upon cultural-historical theory, we argue that Slowmation provides a mediating context where a system of interdependent concepts can be held constant, while the relations between a particular everyday concept and scientific concept can be interrogated through action and thought. Slowmation is an innovative way of realising intentional teaching in early childhood settings as young children co-construct digital animations about science concepts.