Journal of Australian Research in Early Childhood Education Volume 13 (2) pp103 - 118 PRODUCTIVE PEDAGOGIES IN THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTRE I D LIKE TO SEE THAT! David Zyngier Faculty of Education, Monash University ABSTRACT Australian teacher educators and teachers have become increasingly familiar with the notion of Productive Pedagogies. It has been argued that Productive Pedagogies is relevant to only secondary and primary education and that Early Childhood pedagogy is different. In this paper the value of Productive Pedagogies as a meta-language for developing pre-service early childhood teachers knowledge and understanding of teaching is examined; whether Productive Pedagogies is a language that is also intelligible for early childhood pre-service teachers without prior teacher knowledge, or whether its elements and dimensions merely constitute an isolated vocabulary. Drawing on early childhood pre-service teachers fieldwork observations, the paper argues that Productive Pedagogies language is indeed useful in the development of early childhood pre-service teachers critical understanding of not just the need for supportive learning environments, but the role that intellectual quality, connectedness and engagement with difference plays in pedagogy of early childhood education. Keywords: Pre-service education, early childhood, pedagogies, fieldwork. INTRODUCTION I was certain that the productive pedagogies dimensions would have no relevance in a kindergarten setting, as throughout the semester [of teacher education at university] I believed that they were solely used in a primary or secondary school classroom. (Sarina) The centrality of teaching, the explication of what good teaching involves, and the valuing of teachers knowledges are recurrent themes at teacher education conferences. Gore, Griffiths & Ladwig (2001) argue that preparing teachers who can produce high quality outcomes for all of their students requires teacher educators to give greater importance to what they do and say about good classroom practices; that is, what teachers do matters. Australian teacher educators and teachers are become increasingly familiar with the notion of Productive Pedagogies, itself the product of longitudinal research on school reform recently undertaken in Queensland, Australia. While it is outside the scope of this paper to define the 4 Dimensions and 20 Elements of Productive Pedagogies, detailed and accessible information is available from Education Queensland at http://education.qld.gov.au/public_media/reports/curriculum-framework/productive- pedagogies/ . More generally, Government Departments of Education have begun to acknowledge the importance if not its centrality, of good pedagogy for successful teaching (for example the Victorian Principles of Learning and Teaching).