4.1 Chapter 4: Summary of Key Takeaways

188 | Quality Early Learning

children, families, and educators in the ongoing process of making learning environments is critical to boosting a sense of belonging and adopting shared responsibility to sustain learning improvements. There is no single correct layout or architectural material that proves to be the best in all circumstances. The pedagogical use of authentic local resources and support for innovative teaching methodologies make quality learning environments possible. Therefore, learning environments that positively affect children’s development are a result of innovative space design sustained with innovative teaching and learning practices (Mahat et al. 2018; Young et al. 2019).

Drawing on this perspective, establishing effective ECE learning environments requires consideration of five key principles at the practitioner, management, and policy levels to develop different mechanisms and strategies. Implementation of these five principles requires regulations, technical orientation or guidelines, specific programs, professional development opportunities, and communication strategies. Furthermore, it is a dynamic process as children, educators, and families change through time and as theoretical and empirical knowledge grows.

Table 4.1 reviews the takeaways presented in this chapter.

Table 4.1 Chapter 4: Summary of Key Takeaways

Overall safety: Minimal protective conditions for learning

• Children’s and teachers’ safety must come first; without it, there can be no learning. • Safe physical learning environments protect children, teachers, and communities; and they have explicit protocols and codes of conduct that promote a sense of care within the community and safety awareness among teachers, families, and learners. • Making overall safety possible involves the active participation of children, families, and teachers.

Pedagogical organization: Spaces that promote exploration, interaction, and collaboration

• ECE centers’ physical environment should be planned to motivate teaching and learning opportunities. • With low-cost and locally available materials, walls, windows, and organized play zones or corners can become playful and stimulating learning spaces. • ECE learning environments should be organized so that all children can access learning materials and experiences that promote exploration, interaction, and collaboration.

continued next page

Creating Early Childhood Education Environments | 189

Table 4.1 (continued)

Spatial flexibility: Adaptable places for flexible learning

• Flexible spaces can encourage more effective teaching, teamwork, and planning among educators, as well as self-reliance among children to undertake initiatives and work collectively in groups. • Multifunctional and open environments that are grounded in the three A’s (adaptable, agile, and attuned) are more effective at promoting children’s exploration and collaborative learning than rigid teacher-centered arrangements based on the three S’s (static, safe, and sanitary).

Empowerment and authorship: Creating opportunities for cocreation

• Giving children, teachers, and families opportunities to personalize and change learning environments promotes a sense of belonging and ownership and offers opportunities for cocreation. • Empowering environments are not finished spaces. Instead, they offer children and teachers ongoing learning opportunities to rethink and complete them.

Child-centered design: The right space, class size, and child-adult ratios

• ECE learning environments should be child-centered in design, reflecting children’s developmental characteristics, social and cultural practices, and everyday interests. • Spaces and resources that are scaled for and accessible to children, and child-adult ratios and class sizes that allow personalized and playful interactions, promote early learning.

Putting policy into practice: Creating the right learning environment

• Situation analysis. Whether learning environments in a country respond to young children’s needs can be better understood by conducting a situation analysis using the five principles as a benchmark. Understanding where a country is with regard to quality is helpful to the design of strategies to improve quality over time. • Strategies to create ECE environments that promote early learning.

Implementation of the principles in this chapter calls for different strategies: – Safety and child-centered design. These principles are best implemented through the development of standards, norms, or regulations. – Pedagogical organization, spatial flexibility, and empowerment and authorship. These principles can be implemented through guidelines, programs, professional development, and communication strategies. • Setting realistic goals. Improving quality is a slow and costly process that requires setting realistic goals that are achievable and affordable. Conducting regular monitoring and providing support for the achievement of goals can help create spaces that promote early learning.

Source: Original table for this report. Note: ECE = early childhood education.