MONTESSORI PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM ON LEARNING THROUGH PLAY (LTP) APPROACH THROUGH QUALITY LEARNING SPACES DESIGN

Abstract

Learning through play (LTP) has emerged as an integral part of the early childhood education system and has profound impacts on children’s learning and holistic skills development. Throughout Montessori history, play has been applied as a learning approach in the Montessori classroom. Quality spatial design is beneficial to support LTP in preschool. However, LTP isn’t integrated effectively into formal preschool in Malaysia as the spatial design of preschool does not support children’s play. Furthermore, there is a dearth of evidence on how LTP can be employed effectively in quality spatial learning environments where the workforce’s training and curriculum development are mainly concerned. The focus of this paper is to evaluate how spatial learning environments in Montessori preschools support LTP as curricula that may emerge across preschools in Malaysian contexts. This paper adopts interpretivism to frame the overall research and implements case studies through explanation building supported by data collection from document analysis and observation on spatial design of two case studies of Montessori preschools which are based upon prominent and established Montessori preschools in a global context. The findings are analyzed with a comparative analysis method based on the determinants of the spatial design features: - articulated space and form; outdoor learning space; social spaces; personalized environment; and anthropometric design, which are supported by Gibson’s Theory of Affordance. Findings indicate that the quality learning space design to support LTP, and open-plan design space is important because of having flexible partitions for creating different areas and integrating with the dynamic external learning environment. Besides, the furniture and facilities all are child-size. Therefore, children are freely moving around and actively involved in either group or individual work. This study is beneficial to designers, educators, and policymakers as it highlights the role of LTP pedagogy in spatial design for developing children’s play behavior patterns in preschool for Malaysia’s future education.