Early Childhood Curriculum

Claire McLachlan is Professor of Education and Head of School, Te Hononga School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato, New Zealand. She has lectured on early childhood education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, at Auckland University of Technology, Massey University, Auckland, and the University of Waikato, Hamilton and Tauranga, as well as having had various roles as a teacher and manager in early childhood centres. Claire has a longstanding interest in curriculum, particularly early literacy and physical education, and over a 200 publications on various aspects of curriculum, assessment, and planning, including nine books. Claire is a member of the UNESCO-IBE Early Reading Panel and the New Zealand Ministry of Education Early Childhood Research Policy Forum and Teacher Lead Innovation Panel. Claire was also a member of the writing team for the update of Te Whāriki (2017). Marilyn Fleer is Professor of Early Childhood Education at Monash University, Australia. She has been a teacher in long day care, preschool and school. She has also been an adviser and curriculum officer for the Ministry of Education in Western Australia. In 2002 she was appointed as a Research Fellow for the Australian Government (then named the Department of Education, Technology and Youth Affairs). Having graduated 21 Ph.D. students, she has been honoured twice with commendations for post graduate supervision. She has published nearly 350 works, 32 of which are scholarly books and 28 that are professional books. She is the immediate past President for the International Society for Cultural Activity Research. Susan Edwards is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, where she directs the Early Childhood Futures research group in the Learning Sciences Institute Australia. She has practised as an early childhood educator in long day care, occasional care and preschool settings. Susan has been actively involved in researching early childhood curriculum, particularly issues associated with teacher thinking, digital technologies, theories of development and the role of play in learning. She has published several key books and articles in these areas of research and practice.

1. Introduction; 2. Theory, research and the early childhood curriculum; 3. Play, learning and development: how views of development shape how curriculum is framed; 4. Curriculum as cultural broker; 5. Interpreting early childhood curriculum; 6. Cultural-historical curriculum in action; 7. Curriculum as a conceptual tool: observation, content and programming; 8. Assessing children and evaluating curriculum: shifting lenses; 9. Content knowledge: science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); 10. Content knowledge: language and literacies; 11. Content knowledge: the arts and health, wellbeing and physical activity; 12. Conclusions.