Learning stories and dispositional frameworks in early years religious education

This paper presents an initial report on a longitudinal project in which 30 teachers are tracking their students’ learning in religious education in the early years’ utilizing a dispositional framework (as opposed to a learning and teaching framework) in two Victorian dioceses. Dispositional frameworks place emphasis on the processes by which students learn rather than on the achievement of learning outcomes, and reflects approaches to curriculum which are being used in early childhood contexts. The notion of learning dispositions in religious education are detailed, as is the notion of a learning story – the tool that teachers are using in this project to track their students’ learning. The voice-centred relational method used to analysis the transcribed interviews with early years’ classroom teachers in this project is also detailed. Four steps typically comprise this form of analysis, and each is detailed by considering the transcripts of two particular interviewees in this project. The analysis of these transcripts reveals the complexity of the participants’ experience in utilizing the learning story – a combination of frustration, struggle, and excitement.