Comment:
I am working developing children as action researchers, exploring themselves as learners and creating their own living,learning theories. The children are aged 6 and 7, years 2 and 3. They are amazing reflective thinkers,and we are learning and exploring learning together. Can you recommend any web sites we can look at together that would help the children explore other theories of learning in a child friendly way?
The children are keen to share their thoughts and ideas with a widder audience. A question that comes up frequently is why all the other theories we have looked at are written by adults about how children learn. My class view themselves as experts, how can adults write about what they think and feel better than they can themselves. Rather a thought provoking question when you really begin to think about it!

Joy

Hi Joy
See if any of these help


What I found was children researching in traditional forms of research:

‘Children as researchers is coming more to the fore with changes in social policy’

The Economic and Social Data Services
http://www.esds.ac.uk/aandp/create/guidelineschildren.asp writing of children as researchers concludes:


Researchers are beginning to address the issue of children and young people themselves as researchers which does raise a number of methodological, epistemological and ethical questions. However, it is a direction that does give children the opportunity to influence the research design, and, for the researcher, to gain access to other children which may have been previously denied. In this way, children's views can be expressed with greater directness than when they are interpreted via adult researchers. Young people can also influence how the research is used and disseminated, and what happens to the research data on completion of the project, affording them an even greater participatory role.


The Glasgow Centre for the Child & Society includes in its code of practice on research ethics the statement to be found on http://www.gccs.gla.ac.uk/pages/publications.htm



The GCCS encourages participatory research with children, which includes consideration of children as researchers, and supports research specifically directed at improving children’s lives.

The GCCS is committed to promoting and protecting children’s rights, which include the right of children to participate in and directly inform research.



Other humanitarian organizations involved with children such as the SOS Kinderdorf International http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org also promote children as influential researchers



‘We know from our daily lives that children do research. But children as "researchers" in a scientific spirit - is that possible? The SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy has coordinated a study that has delved into this question and has tested its practical implementation.’



On the world stage UNICEF promotes children as community researchers http://www.unicef.org/teachers/researchers and gives the pedagogical rationale:



It has long been recognized that learning is most effective when children are actively engaged in the creation of knowledge.


But for the most part the opportunities for children to enquire as researchers appear to have focused on their part as social researchers rather than as an opportunity to transform educational practice and engage children as collaborative enquirers creating valued knowledge. A few examples can be seen with the establishment of the Children’s Research Centre within the Open University childrens-research-centre.open.ac.uk

The only example of children creating their own living theory accounts of their own are those of Branko Bognar in Croatia. You might like to look at the videos with your children
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/Creativity-en2.wmv
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/AI2_0002.wmv
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/Validation.wmv

I will keep looking but let me know if you and your pupils find anything
Marie