Stage 4 - Dynamic Learning Circle
Transcript

Patty Obrzut: After a child has reached Stage 3, obviously they're ready to move on to Stage 4, which is that a child is ready for new challenges, which will lead to new awareness and new interest. But it can only do that under four conditions. And one of them is, that a child has to be given new sensory and motor activities. The second one is, the child has to be given new actions of others to imitate. And the most important thing about Stage 4 is that they can only learn about new activities, if the activities presented are at the child's developmental level. If you give them something that is way too hard for them, they're just going to shut down and not want to explore that new opportunity.

So, it's very, very important with Active Learning that all the activities be presented at a child's developmental level. And also, a child wants people to take interest in what they're doing. So, it's important for people in the environment to recognize what that child is doing. So, how do we turn this whisk from Stage 3, that they've completed learning with, into a new object or activity for them to play with.

So, it's simple. We're just going to add one thing. We're going to take a ping pong ball, and stick it inside the whisk. So, now what happens, is you've given this child a new activity, that's at their developmental level, because all you did was add a change to it, ever so slightly; which is a ping pong ball.

So, now their child goes back to Stage 1, which is why we call it a Dynamic Learning Circle. It's going to go from being aware, to acting, to learning, to completing learning, and being ready for a new skill. So, the new skill is now a whisk with a ping pong ball. They are aware of the object. They go to Stage 2 again. They start acting on that object. But this time you have a child go, 'Wait a second, that's not the sound I heard before, when I was doing it, without the ping pong ball.'

When you add the ping pong ball, and you start banging on it, it makes a different sound. So, now that child is experimenting and exploring with the whisk, with the ping pong ball, and comparing it to the memory that they had before of the whisk without the ping pong ball. And so, maybe, they bang on it and bang on it and bang on it. But now, maybe, they open up that finger that has cerebral palsy to figure out what's inside the ping pong ball. And if you're paying attention, they're learning a new skill, which is how to open up the hand. And maybe they take those fingers and they start to play with it, where the ping pong ball falls out of the ping pong ball whisk.

Now, what they need is an adult to take the ping pong ball and put it back in the whisk, so that that child can repeat the activity that they just learned. Before, they only pushed the ping pong ball in the whisk. Now they're opening up the hand and taking something apart. OK. But most children only learn to take apart, before they learn to put together. So, they have to repeat and repeat and repeat, over and over again the taking apart skill, before they've learned all they can learn from taking apart, and being ready for a new skill, which is maybe putting together.

So, they need the help of an adult to put the ping pong ball back inside the whisk. And it may take them 150 times. It can take the 2,000 times, but that's what they need to repeat and repeat, to learn all they can from this activity, until they're ready to move on to the next one. So, l maybe the next activity is going to be, instead of a ping pong ball, maybe I'm going to add a golf ball. Because a golf ball weighs a lot more than a ping pong ball. And when you pick it up, or you put it in your hand, it's heavier. And a ping pong ball is lighter. And, if you can see, in just a short period of time, how I'm taking you through the Dynamic Learning Circle with a whisk, a ping pong ball and a golf ball.

What happens if I add plates and cups? Or maybe a child learns to grasp the toy, and they start banging the toy on their hand, or using two hands. That's how you get a child to continuously learn new skills throughout their life. And what is almost important for the adults that are working with children with multiple special needs, is you have to recognize where things go wrong in the Dynamic Learning Circle, so that you make adjustments, and make an environment that's enriched, that children can learn from. And we're going to talk about that in the next topic.