Learning Stories
Empowering stories for early learning educators, children and their families
This mini e-course introduces early learning educators, caregivers, and students to learning stories that capture, lift up, and share the everyday yet extraordinary learning of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and young children in their programs.
The power of stories in children’s lives is enormous. Story characters have the power to shape children’s perceptions and knowledge of their world.
But what if stories were even more powerful to children than this? What if stories were not always about others – real and imagined – but rather about them? What if children heard stories about them that let them know that the everyday moments of their lives were important enough to be seen, held up, and valued?
Learning Stories – empowering stories for early learning educators, children and their families, explores how adults in children’s lives can:
- observe children with curiosity
- seek insights into children’s learning
- use these insights to program plan future activities and experiences
- write learning stories to children
- deepen relationships with children’s families through learning stories
Learning Story Examples
Learning stories are used and valued highly by educators around the world. They are especially relevant in communicating with parents and guardians who are shut out of program spaces because of pandemic protocols. Learning stories get to the heart of what parents care about the very most – their child’s learning and well-being. This course includes an example of creating a learning story, as well as an opportunity to write your own learning story.
This course includes:
- 23 minutes of video lectures
- Case study video (2:30 minutes)
- Reflective activities
- Step by step process and guidelines for writing learning stories
- Invitation to apply course material to write your own learning story to a child
- Additional resources
Course Content
Ratings and Reviews
Ashley Johnston
I’m a pedagogical leader in the daycare centre that I work in. I was looking for a more in-depth course on learning stories for new perspectives when breaking down how to write learning stories to new employees. This is a good break down step-by-step of how to actually write a learning story.
This course explained some important factors of a learning story that may be overlooked when writing a typical story about a picture or series of pictures. I like how it underlined the importance of this as a learning tool for the child, family and the teacher.
Respecting young children and speaking to their need in a way specific to that child is HUGE! The needs of fulfillment and, sometimes, about scary situations are very real for a child's development. Not everyone knows how to teach children with stories, but Susan Ramsay does. She shows us in this course how we can develop teachable moments for children that may just set a life direction for them.