PhD Candidate Wei Yao

Project: Learning in mealtime interactions in three-year-old kindergarten programs.

Supervisors: Dr Amelia Church, Dr Penny Levickis, Dr Sarah Young

My project draws attention to the ‘mundane’ situation of eating together in Australian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings, during which informal learning opportunities may have gone unnoticed in practice. To better understand the pedagogical potential of mealtime for high-quality child-educator interactions, the project will take a close look at naturally-occurring mealtime interactions to figure out what learning opportunities are inherent to mealtime, and how they are collaboratively achieved by children and educators.