Designing online learning for educators in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

This EU-project aims to extend understandings of the competences required for working in ECEC settings, and aim to support the development of these competences technological. As part of the project three online courses are developed. The three online courses contains six modules each, and focus on different aspects of child-centred practice. One course present and discuss perspectives on child-centred practice from an embodied perspective. A second is focusing on Child-Centeredness thru stories. The pivot of the third course is the role and place of documentation in ECEC settings.

Developing a relevant and applicable online course is not a straightforward process. Inspired by different learning design methods the project participants co-create an overall learning design framework for the online courses. The aim was to design and develop learning outcomes, that can be shared, incorporated and adjusted to adapt local settings and routines where appropriate.

Each of the online training modules is designed for practitioners and to be completed in the small gaps of time and limited access to computers in their daily practices in the ECEC settings, which is one of the challenges designing for practitioners in this area.

At the conference we present the learning design framework developed and the primarily observations from a co-creative process where learning designers, researchers and practitioners is collaborating. The presentation addresses challenges in condensing theoretical work in short presentations, and discuss dilemmas and possibilities in ensuring coherence and progression in and between the online sessions.