Cafe Conversations in ECE

The speaker is Nikki Cuddy, the host of Cafe Conversations in Early Childhood Education. She discusses her experience with the Work Integrated Learning program, which was a pilot delivery in partnership with the Ministry of Advanced Skills and Education. The program allowed students to complete their studies while working in their respective programs. It emphasized the importance of children as teachers and co-creating content with instructors. The program also aimed to have a community impact by encouraging students to develop projects that would benefit their workplaces and communities. Overall, the program provided students with a sense of empowerment and self-efficacy. Hello and good morning. Welcome to another episode of Cafe Conversations in Early Childhood Education. I am your host, Nikki Cuddy, and today we are located on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen people, which are today known as the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations. And we are actually located, as we're recording, across from lands that we know very well, which are lands that the Fairfield Gonzales Community Association is located on. And I feel very fortunate to have spent time there with children. I was there for the first year of the implementation of an infant-toddler program called Huckleberry. And over the years that I was there, I really developed a lot of connection to place. And I'm thinking about some of the place names that children gave to parts of the land, such as the food forest. Well, I guess they didn't give that one, but the hiding trees, the waterworks, truck park. And so I feel lucky to be close and on these lands. It also coincidentally was the place that I met Saza Rose. Saza was working as a pedagogist at the time and was a constant source of inspiration for the development of our curriculum. And I feel very lucky to be continuing to work alongside Saza. Saza is now an instructor at Camosun College, a colleague of mine, and she's here with us today. So welcome, Saza. So we'll just tell our listeners a little bit about the Work Integrated Learning program. So the Work Integrated Learning was a pilot delivery in partnership with the Ministry of Advanced Skills and Education. And it was part of a larger incentive for the province, which was to integrate Work Integrated Learning pilots into post-secondary programs. And so you were with the Work Integrated Learning program from the very beginning. And so I'm just curious, in thinking about this program, what was it that made this program so special? I started as a student in Work Integrated Learning. So in January 2019, I think, I was approached by faculty at Camosun. I was teaching across the street at a three-to-five centre. And there was an opportunity for me to stay working in my program and complete my studies through Camosun to get required courses for my infant-toddler specialty. And once a week, my instructor would come to me, come to the program, and I still very much remember the first day. That's in summer semester, actually. So it probably would have been May, May 2019. And I had my guitar there. I was so excited. It was like the first day of school. I didn't know what to wear. And I was just so excited for the opportunity to have further professional development directed at my workplace. We would have a meeting with the instructor one-on-one. We'd walk for an hour. And it just was so meaningful to be treated as a professional, to be able to go off the floor, to talk about your practice, to talk about what excites you, to get a library card to go to college, and to be able to take out resources, and to talk about the emergent curriculum and have the outsider perspective to kind of highlight theories from you, particularly around land-based practice at that time, and thinking about mapping, and thinking about how we come to know the world. It's so funny you should start off today talking about some of those children's place names. This cohort was really small. I think there was four or five of us. And then on top of our instructor one-on-one visits, we'd meet once a week at Meagan, Meagan Hill, and we'd have our community of practice outside. And there was other educators also studying their infant-toddler and inclusive care specialty practicums. Then when I graduated from that term, I applied to teach at Camosun. So I started teaching at Camosun in September 2019, and then in January 2020, Camosun had received another grant to offer some work-integrated learning delivery courses. So with a cluster of courses, there's child development, health and wellness, professionalism, and community observations. And I worked with nine students that semester, just creating assignments with them based on what they saw in their programs. And as an instructor, you become incredibly familiar with the learning outcomes, and you see that it doesn't matter how you achieve the learning outcomes, just that you do. And what the work-integrated learning delivery does is it takes seriously the idea that children are our teachers. And I think it's something that people say, I learned so much from children, you're my teachers. But in this way, it actually flipped the whole classroom, flipped the whole way that we think about creating content and evaluating content that included children and families. I think as a student, it was particularly interesting because the risks you could take in a practicum, if you're only there for 14 weeks, you barely get to know the families, and you're asking so much of them. So it continues this extractive process of go, be a visitor, take, do, complete, assess, and you're done. Whereas I already had longstanding relationships with these families that I was working with as a student, and the assignment that I was creating were enhancing everyone's engagement, even my colleagues, because you have a lot more dedication than to writing pedagogical narrations to having collaborative dialogue. Yeah. And that's really interesting that you bring up the fact of sort of like that relationality piece, not only for the instructor and the student, but also the student as an educator, professional, and the relationship with the families. And so, you know, thinking about sort of the domino effect of that extractive nature, because I think about, you know, my time in the field and reflecting on students, and parents are almost exhausted by it. There seems to be a lot of homework for parents. You know, please participate in the family engagement project. And it does feel very checkmark, you know, when you think about engagement, you know, what is meaningful engagement? And so meaningful engagement of relationship over time is kind of like an unforeseen implication of the work integrated learning. And so thinking about like that relationality piece, you sort of mentioned in your experience with students, and then also as an instructor, that there was the opportunity to co-create. But my question is then if you're co-creating something with your instructor, what does that process look like? How are students invited into the process of taking ownership, I guess, over their learning outcomes? I guess this is where principles of inclusive care become true and lived. And I guess I'll speak first my experience as a student. So I was an incredible keener, taking lots of notes all the time, doing lots of provocations all the time. And for me, I'm a writer. So I think through writing. So I'd have like long documentation, long pedagogical narration, lots of resources, because again, I was just reinvigorated, passionate again about the field. So reading so much theory, that's when I was introduced to common world framework. So it was really seeing how that could, it was just feeding me back and forth. And then our, so for that term, I think largely our assessment was a capstone. So it wasn't too much aside that aside from the community of practice, and a capstone. And our capstone, we all worked together to create a provocation studio. And that really showcased how different each of our assignments were. So as I was a writer, and I had a ton of writing, other people were more looking at metaphor and symbols. One person had her provocation in the studio was a mannequin with different props for the image of the educator. And so we're not measured against one another. We were actually, you had the opportunity to be met where you were at and supported to grow based on your own goals and based on your own observations. So I think that really changes how we experience education. It's not competition against other people in the room. It's incredibly personal. As an instructor, I don't know if you want to talk about capstones now. Yeah, so I'm thinking when you mentioned capstone, it made me think of the capstone that was also part of the work integrated learning just in the last year. So it was sort of like a cumulative project, where it was a, it was an assessment piece for three different courses, worth quite a bit in terms of like percentage of mark, but the students were really encouraged to think about their communities in which they're working directly. So really thinking about that reciprocity piece. So how can we really make an impact or a difference in our respective workplaces? And I think that's really interesting because it relates a lot to design justice principles in a way where education is transcending the classroom and it's impacting the community. So what are the communities actually benefiting from education? And I'm thinking about a few students, you know, some of the capstone examples were, I think one of the students was really thinking about kindergarten readiness and transitioning children from very intimate care settings to larger sort of schools and really wanting people to recognize children for their unique gifts. And so she created a online tool to kind of support children in a holistic way, like this is the story of this child moving between room to room and then the idea is that the story would follow them into kindergarten. Another capstone was the development of a sit spot activity where the, you know, the guided sit spot. Yeah, the guided sit spot. So thinking about like developing relationships with land and supporting educators to make this part of their practice. So thinking about the capstone assignment, what do you think the, you know, besides this sort of community impact piece, what do you think it gives to students in terms of self-efficacy and like empowerment? Do you think it works? Yeah, I think it's interesting and I guess like my mind's kind of bouncing all over the place because I'm also thinking about how it changed my understanding of what an assignment was. Yes. So it's not an assignment that's just there because and it's not something you do and you give to your instructor and that's where it ends. And the capstones became an opportunity for people to really evaluate their own program, to identify the gaps. Right. So that's huge to be a professional and have this ongoing process. We're constantly reflecting on your program, addressing the gaps and reassessing your program in that cycle. So you're supporting students to do that work. It's a little tricky because as you said it's housed within three different courses. You're working with like 12 different learning outcomes and in that way you, it solidifies this idea that learning is holistic whereas in academia these learning outcomes are divided as though a child could have healthy, holistic development without families, without health and wellness. So those three courses, although they're distinct on paper and have these distinct grades, they all complement each other. So the capstone process allows you to replicate what's more honest of the earlier setting and what you're going to do as a professional. Yeah. There's not any siloed learning outcomes. And then also the evaluator isn't your instructor. The evaluator or the evaluation process determining whether or not it was useful or that becomes a lived document. Were the children interested? Were the families interested? Did it support like ignite any conversations with your colleagues? So it becomes very, it's not up to a singular person who is in a position of power to determine whether or not it was effective. And so as an instructor we just kind of join a circle of people who are looking at what was created and assessing whether or not it was, it met the intentions and then deciding how it could be built to change. And that is a process that's entered my teaching practice. So now I'm at the college this term, teaching in a regular face-to-face cohort, and that just has unsettled me. I don't want to create assignments that are just to go back and forth between instructor and student when they could have such wider implications and that would actually feed justice. If we're all here for children and to enhance the lives of children and families, then and we depend on them. I think that became really clear to me too. You depend on children in programs to get your accreditation, accreditation, whatever it is. And that came up in the closing circle for the work integrated learning cohort. A student addressed how grateful they were to children and families because they didn't understand that children and families were also entering the educational process with them for two years. So they thanked them. And that's something that still needs to be massaged out in our regular cohorts because students have to do three practicums. They're required to do this work, which means children and families are engaging with their work, and educators and the community. So how do those different stakeholders benefit from the work? You know, as I'm listening to you, my mind is also kind of jumping around. There's a lot of ideas that I want to kind of circle back to. One of them was this idea of, you know, the capstone assignment being something that doesn't fit into boxes. And the first thing that kind of came to my mind was this idea too of sort of decolonizing the institution. So thinking about holistic care, holistic well-being. We talk about holistic sort of practices in early childhood education settings, but that can be applied to post-secondary education as well. Because really, if we're trying to cultivate the next generation of educators, why would our educational practices at the post-secondary level not reflect what is in practice on the community level? And so when you really think about that sort of decolonizing piece and that holistic piece, it becomes more about, like you said, less about the power of the educator or the instructor over the student, but more in community and walking alongside. Which, you know, when you think about the design justice principles, a lot of the role of instructor then is more of like a facilitator with like a certain amount of responsibility, for sure. It's not easy to facilitate a room like that. But I just think about how, you know, everything is so nuanced because, again, that is based on relationships. So the community that you're building within partnership with the students, the students are building that relationship and partnership with the children and families. And, you know, the hope is that that work is going to continue on. It's going to outlive the institution. And so when you think about next steps or, you know, because you talked about the impact it's had on your own teaching practice when you're going back to more traditional settings. And so I'm curious, you know, the, you know, Camosun College does have a commitment to sort of thinking about decolonization, indigenizing curriculum. Do you think that there is a future in work-integrated learning, or what do you think some of the next steps might be? Yeah, it's kind of a complicated question. I think I'm in this place of really questioning the role of colonial institutions in decolonization. There's the quote by Audre Lorde, you can't dismantle the master's house or the master's tools. So while these projects exist, and they support us to learn, ultimately, they kind of question the positionality of academia. And by illuminating the way academia is expecting these products from children and child care, it's kind of highlighting an area that I don't know that we're prepared to venture into. Next steps for the college, I think one of the things is it takes a lot of resources from the college. So unless the college is designating a regular base-funded cohort that is designated to work-integrated learning, then it seems like it's resources that we actually don't have to give outside of what we're already offering. I think it offers a lot of possibility for thinking about post-degree certification, and that's something that the college is looking at, rather than just offering a two-year diploma program, creating this bundle of courses that supports people who have their ECE from somewhere else to enter back into education and participate in this way. I think in that way, that's the area I think it has a lot of potential to live with post-certificate. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting, because when I also was invited in to teach in the work-integrated learning, just for the last eight months there, you know, I really thought, oh, this is great for retention, if we're really thinking about it from the lens of trying to keep educators in the field, trying to keep people who are already working as responsible adults and work towards that professionalization piece. But as, you know, going through the experience of teaching, all of these sort of intersectionality of breaking down barriers really kind of came to light, and so that's what I find very interesting about this delivery. And so, you know, I would like to hope that there would be more opportunities for this kind of delivery, and if that means, you know, maybe helping educators become IT educators or get their special needs certification, because it really is, I guess, like quite a lot of work for educators to be working full-time and doing all of their courses as well. It's a very dedicated bunch. And so, thinking about the sustainability, too, of what we're trying to ask people to do. And so, I'm just wondering, as we kind of wrap up today, I just wanted to really thank you for your time. You've been such a mentor to me, and I think, you know, it's interesting how the opportunity to teach in these kind of ways really does have ripple effects, like not only in the community, but also in our future teaching practices. And so, I'm just kind of inviting you to think if there's kind of anything, like when you look back on the whole experience, do you have any sort of final thoughts or reflections? I think it really draws into question, what is the purpose of education? And one of the things, if the purpose of education is to create an educated populace of critical thinking people, children deserve that. So, if we understand that the field is flooded with people who don't have access to education, we need to remove barriers, make it free, and offer it and continue offering it. And then there's this beautiful relationship forms between children and the institution, and it really creates a third space, like an unimagined future where children are actively a part of education.