Learning dispositions in the Early Years Learning Framework: two VET teachers’ experiences of walking the learning dispositions talk

ABSTRACT The Early Years Learning Framework guides the work of Australia’s early childhood educators and teachers, with Outcome 4 including a focus on children developing dispositions for learning. In this article we report on an investigation how two vocational education and training (VET) teachers who taught the Diploma of Early Childhood and Care course encouraged their students to develop their own dispositions for learning. A narrative research methodology was used, with data gathered via interviews and teachers’ journals of their learning experiences. The theory of practice architectures (TPA) was used to frame and interpret the teachers’ accounts of their teaching practices. The TPA interpretative framework enabled aspects of the two teachers’ sayings, doings and relatings to be considered in the context of their practice traditions. Findings suggest that the teachers had a superficial understanding of what ‘learning dispositions’ meant and were therefore limited in the ways they were able to develop their students’ learning dispositions.