Design effective lessons and activities for young children

Name: Design effective lessons and activities for young children
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How to design and implement quality ECEC lessons and educational activities for young children the Finnish way

Created byLearning Scoop

Last updated 6/2024

English

What you'll learn

Understand quality early childhood education lessons, learning situations and educational practices.
Gain insights into the Finnish lesson planning and educational activities.
Learn how to design quality ECEC educational activities and learning situations.
Learn how to implement quality ECEC educational activities and learning situations.

Course content

6 sections • 10 lectures • 45m total length

Introduction to the course2:55
Welcome to the course!

Pedagogically planned learning situations2:49
In Finnish ECEC teachers do not teach subjects or lessons. They apply the educare model: education happens during the everyday activities. However, teachers can consciously plan activities or learning situations around the learning areas. Activities and learning situations should be pedagogically justified and promote children’s learning and development. Learning situations can include different phases that have different functions in a learning process.
Grouping and warm-up7:33
Group building and getting children acquainted with each other has an important role in learning. It is also important that the students feel safe, as it makes the student unable to learn successfully if they are anxious or afraid. Warm-up exercises are a good start for grouping.
Orientation and mapping pre-existing knowledge4:06
One significant thing from the learning perspective is what the learner already knows, or at least think they know, about the subject being learned. Orientation and mapping pre-existing knowledge are good ways for preparing children for receiving and processing new information.
Acquiring new information4:44
The purpose of the learning situation is often to help learners acquire new knowledge. There are at least three main possibilities of obtaining new knowledge, which are explored in this lecture.
Activating and practicing4:16
If you want children truly to learn something, they have to be active themselves. Activating can be done in various ways, which are explored in this lecture.
Reflection6:08
Reflection means thinking about and analyzing one’s own learning. Through reflection, new knowledge sticks to one’s knowledge structure and is more easily remembered afterwards. There are different ways to promote reflection, which are explored in this lecture.

Requirements

Interest in education.

Description

Finnish education is known for research-based and innovative pedagogy. Finnish education is a combination of stress-free and child-centered approach and excellent learning results. In teacher training Finnish teachers are taught how to design engaging and motivating lessons and educational activities that truly promote learning.

Designing lessons and educational activities beforehand helps create meaningful learning situations. The teacher can always be flexible and change plans but planning lessons in advance is helpful for building further developed and more beneficial educational activities for young children.

The purpose of beforehand planning is to enhance learning the best possible way. That is why planning is based on the latest scientific research on learning and how it can be fostered. It is vital that teachers acquire a strong foundation of what learning is and how it can be promoted. Furthermore, it is essential for teachers to get a versatile “toolbox” of different methods and pedagogical practices for choosing the most suitable pedagogical solution for different children, groups and situations.

This course shows how to design and implement quality ECEC lessons – the Finnish way. Themes of this course include smart pedagogy based on latest scientific research, factors promoting learning, pedagogically smart structure for lessons, examples of designed learning situations etc. Examples are applicable to ECEC and primary education.

Who this course is for:

Anyone who is interested in Education development, particularly early childhood education.

Design effective lessons and activities for young children

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction1 lecture • 3min

2. Smart pedagogy for small children1 lecture • 4min

Educational activities1 lecture • 7min

Pedagogically planned activities and learning situations6 lectures • 30min

Reflection of the course and implementing the methods1 lecture • 2min

Learning assignment0

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: