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Identity Professional Early Childcare Education

EDU40003 Identity: The Early Childhood Profession(al)

Assessment context

This assessment requires you to articulate your philosophy of teaching. Your practice is influenced by your values and beliefs; therefore, it is important to reflect on your teaching philosophy, particularly at the beginning of your teaching career. A philosophy of teaching statement is a valuable document that will guide your future teaching practice and communicate your vision and beliefs to others, including families, professionals and prospective employers.

Brookfield (2009) defines a teaching philosophy of teaching as: “a set of values, beliefs, insights, and convictions about the essential forms and fundamental purposes of teaching. Embedded in it are criteria for judging how far your practice exhibits features you feel are essential to good teaching and a set of purposes towards which your efforts are geared. When you consciously hold to such a philosophy, you have an organizing vision of what you are trying to do, how you are trying to do it, and why doing it is important (pp.255-256).”

This assignment is designed so you reflect on the role of an ECE professional and articulate some of these ideas in a practical document. Reflection is a vital skill in knowing and understanding who you are in order to better position yourself within the context of teaching and working within educational settings.  

Related unit learning outcomes

This task is assessing your ability to demonstrate that you meet the criteria for the following unit learning outcomes. Students will be able to:

4. Describe how engaging in reflective practice and ongoing learning contributes to a culture of professional growth in the early childhood workplace.
5. Critically reflect on their own professional identity, including strengths, challenges and uniqueness and articulate what it means to be a professional.

Assessment details 

Your philosophy statement will be based on professional knowledge and contemporary practice; however, it should also reflect your personal values and will therefore be unique to you. Use first-person writing to express your views, and use third-person writing to support these views with relevant literature. Your writing should consider your potential audience, including children’s families, early childhood education professionals and prospective employers.

Your philosophy of teaching statement will:

• identify and articulate your values and understandings about children, learning and teaching in early childhood education and address your pedagogical approach to teaching
• show how theories/perspectives/practices/readings and research influence and guide your teaching
• explain particular approaches and teaching strategies that underpin your practice and how you aim to continue to learn and contribute to the profession.

This assignment has three parts: that you will submit as two documents

Part A: Philosophy brochure – This will be approximately 600 words  

The brochure requires clear design elements and information for stakeholders that includes:

• Your name and a heading/statement outlining what the brochure is
• Six visionary statements based on your beliefs and values about education and care for the stakeholders of an early childhood education setting including, children, colleagues, families and community (In total 24 statements)
• Design and creation of a two page, one-fold or three-fold brochure template format.
• Clear and concise statements that are suitable for a wide audience
• Professional graphics, images and/or design features that support your beliefs Referenced quotes, questions or poetry that align with your philosophy.
• Ideas that define the personal and professional qualities of who you are as an early childhood professional teacher?

Part B: Philosophy strategy statements – This will be approximately 600 – 800 words  

The strategy statements are not written for the stakeholder as the brochure is designed as a short, snappy overview for this purpose. This part of the task is designed to assess your ability to put some of your visionary ideas into practice:

• Describe how you will bring your visionary ideas into practice for each of the four stakeholders.
• Give examples of pedagogy and practice that describe how you will implement your ideas
• Include examples/strategies for each stakeholder group that show what each of your philosophical statements looks like in practice
• Integrate a range of in-text references to support your ideas and pedagogy

Part C: Critical reflection statements – This will be approximately 300 words  

• Describe how reflection demonstrates an insightful understanding and awareness of the unique aspects of the role of early childhood professional and particular challenges of a teacher
• Articulate key features of your identity and role as an ECE professional
• APA 7^th Reference list with a minimum of ten references (Not included in the word count)