(EYLF) Learning outcome 4

Children are confident and involved learners.

Children’s learning is holistic, combining children’s sensory perceptions, body movement, actions, thinking and emotions. When children have sound wellbeing and feel safe, they have the confidence to experiment and explore and to try out new ideas, becoming active and involved participants in learning. Children are more likely to be confident and involved learners when their funds of knowledge, and their family and community funds of knowledge (experiences and understandings), are recognised and included in the early childhood curriculum. This assists children to build on what they already know and make connections to make sense of new experiences. 

Children use active mental processes such as exploration, experimentation, questioning, collaboration and problem solving across all aspects of curriculum. Thinking and learning are interrelated and developed through interactions and experiences with others, materials, objects and places. Such learning and thinking processes assist in the development of executive function and neuro-connectivity in the brain. Knowing about how their brain works, the language of learning and strategies to develop a growth mindset assist children in life-long learning. 

Developing learning dispositions such as curiosity, persistence and creativity enables all children to participate in and gain from learning experiences. Effective learners can transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another and locate and use resources for learning. In a supportive active learning environment, children who are confident and involved learners are increasingly able to take responsibility for their own learning, personal regulation and contribution to the social environment. Children’s knowledge expands where educators and children share ideas and knowledge through shared sustained thinking. Connections and continuity between learning experiences in different settings make learning more meaningful and increase all children’s feelings of belonging. 

Children develop understandings of themselves and their world through active, hands-on investigation. A supportive active learning environment encourages all children’s engagement in learning, which can be recognised as deep concentration and complete focus on what captures their curiosity and interests. Children bring their being to their learning. They have many ways of seeing the world, different processes of learning and their own preferred learning styles. 

Active involvement and engagement in learning builds children’s understandings of concepts and the creative thinking and inquiry processes that are necessary for lifelong learning. They can challenge and extend their own thinking, and that of others, and create new knowledge in collaborative interactions and negotiations. Children’s active involvement changes what they know, can do and value and transforms their learning and thinking. 

Educators’ knowledge of individual children is crucial to providing an environment and experiences where all children can participate and will optimise their learning and thinking.