3. Learning strategies

What is CoETL?

The three EYFS characteristics of effective learning examples identified are:

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  Playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
  
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  Active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.
  
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  Creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
  

It covers the ways in which children should learn from their environment, their experiences, and their activities and how this is to be reflected in teaching lessons.
The EYFS characteristics of effective learning examples describe the different ways in which young children learn.
PLAYING & EXPLORING
Exploring gives toddlers and other early years children an opportunity to build up important motor skills. This builds up their independence and competence in lots of tasks, meaning that they’ll gain an immense amount of confidence.
Children will realise that they’re capable of things they never thought they could achieve, and be proud of themselves when they accomplish difficult tasks. 
By allowing children the freedom to explore, it’ll see that little ones are getting plenty of necessary physical activity.
Play helps to give children a sense of adventure. Through this, they can learn essential skills like working with others, sharing, problem-solving, and much more.
When young children are left to their own devices, they’ll likely learn best through their own discoveries and inquisitive minds.
By interacting with their surroundings, observing their environment and peers, and obeying their instincts and impulses in a safe, educational space, children can craft their own education.
ACTIVE LEARNING
Active learning, as a part of these EYFS characteristics of effective learning examples, young children can become engaged through hands-on experiences and discussions.
By being active learners, and through sensory motor experiences, children can become engaged and get a lot more out of their learning environments.
Active learning as a part of the characteristics of learning examples promote a deeper understanding of the material they’re learning. This is because they’ll be actively engaging with the content instead of listening to somebody talk about it.
This helps to keep children’s attention and concentration, in a way that forms pathways toward skills that are of a much higher level, such as critical thinking and active reasoning.
Active learning, as a part of characteristics of learning examples, will foster active recall. This forces the mind to recall information without needing any clues to help it along the way.
This improves a child’s retention long-term and prepares them for anything they’ve not prepared for. Active recall cements knowledge deep down, which reduces the chances of them forgetting stuff.
Children will open up and enjoy sharing their experiences. This will provide practitioners with opportunities to expand on this conversation and find out more. This can prolong their interest in learning whilst extending their language development, too.
CREATING AND THINKING CRITICALLY
It’s important for children to be taught critical thinking skills. We use critical thinking skills in our daily lives.
They’re there to help us understand the consequences of the things we do, to make positive decisions, and to effectively problem-solve.
Thinking critically, as a part of these EYFS characteristics of effective learning examples, is the process of harnessing self-control, attention, motivation, and focus, to uphold goals.
Characteristics of effective learning examples, in terms of critical thinking, will include self-regulation, problem-solving, open-mindedness, interference, interpretation, explanation, and analysis.
Applying critical thinking helps children to make decisions that need lots of thought. Big, life-changing decisions are aided by critical thinking. They encourage people to make informed decisions through resource and finding the facts independently. It encourages objective logic to be chosen over emotional impulses.
Critical thinking, as a part of the characteristics of learning examples, helps children to form their own theories and conclusions for themselves. 
Not only this, it helps them to then showcase those ideas in both a systematic and persuasive way. They’ll be able to efficiently reason with others about the topic at hand with much substance.