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Putting a Focus on Social Emotional and Embodied Learning with the Visual Learning Analysis (VLA)

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Abstract

Research increasingly recognizes the importance of social emotional and embodied learning in early childhood, and yet few studies provide early childhood researchers and teachers with tools for documenting and interpreting the meanings made in these languages. At the same time, many early childhood teachers in Reggio Emilia-inspired programs and others take hundreds of photographs for documentation of children’s learning, and yet are uncertain about what to look for in them. In this qualitative study, which occurred in a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool classroom in the southeastern U.S., photographs from regularly occurring classroom activity were analyzed with a research method called the Visual Learning Analysis (VLA). The VLA revealed evidence of children’s social emotional and embodied learning and made visible the teacher’s value of children as capable of reflection and of making choices about materials and learning spaces. It offered an opportunity to discuss how children explored and used materials according to their own timeframes within authentic social relationships. Findings from this study indicated that the VLA is a useful tool for teachers and coaches, as well as researchers, to see more in photographs of children engaged in classroom activity and suggest that the VLA process can support early childhood teachers’ professional development.

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Notes

  1. In its early development the Visual Learning Analysis was called the Semiotic Photo Analysis Protocol (SPRP) and this term was used in early publications (Whitmore 2015; Chisholm and Whitmore 2016).

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge generous funding from the Lift A Life Foundation and the James Graham Brown Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Metropolitan State University of Denver, Campus Box 21, PO Box 173362, Denver, CO, 80217-3362, USA

    Kathryn F. Whitmore PhD

  2. Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

    Christie Angleton

  3. Community Coordinated Child Care, Louisville, KY, USA

    Jennifer Pruitt

  4. Keystone Learning Center, Louisville, KY, USA

    Shauntá Miller-Crumes

Authors
  1. Kathryn F. Whitmore PhD
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  2. Christie Angleton
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  3. Jennifer Pruitt
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  4. Shauntá Miller-Crumes
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Correspondence to Kathryn F. Whitmore PhD.

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Whitmore, K.F., Angleton, C., Pruitt, J. et al. Putting a Focus on Social Emotional and Embodied Learning with the Visual Learning Analysis (VLA). Early Childhood Educ J 47, 549–558 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00955-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00955-3

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