Elena Bochkina

About

I strive to pass on my experience to colleagues and students to understand the child, improving the curriculum in children’s education. That’s why I created an intellectual development program “Me and time” for children that is gaining more and more positive feedback each year among child development professionals.

1. Graduated from Moscow City Pedagogical University (MGPU) – the best university in the country in the field of educational psychology (three diplomas with honors, grade point average 5.0, and best undergraduate student 2013- 2014).

2. More than 11 years of experience in assisting and supervising research projects in preschool and school education.

3. Winner of all-Russian and international professional competitions.

4. I have more than 5 years of experience as a university teacher.

5. The author of two psychodiagnostic techniques that help to identify the level of development of creative thinking in preschool children.

6. Co-author of the textbook on creating a school-friendly environment for children with ADHD, dyslexia/dysgraphia, and children from foreign families.

7. Since 2022, certified Reviewer Web of Science Academy.

8. Since 2023, representative of students of the 1st division of the APA (American Association of Psychologists).

9. Thanks to my research made the system of quality evaluation of preschool education was created and implemented all over Russia.

Awards

The winner of the All-Russian Competition for preschool education workers named after L.S. Vygotsky 2019-2020.

The winner of the International Competition “The Best Young Scientist of Commonwealth of Independent States – 2020”.

The laureate of the All-Russian Competition of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation of the Best Psychological and Pedagogical Programs and Technologies in the Educational enviroment – 2022.

“Me and time”

In the context of the reform of modern education, one of the priority tasks is the development of children’s skills of orientation in the world with the help of socially significant cultural means (road signs, topographic maps, signs, etc.).

The skill of orientation in the surrounding world directly depends on the ability to determine your position in time and space. Thanks to this skill, a preschool child takes a step towards mastering the activities necessary for school age – educational. This is due to the fact that in the process of familiarizing himself with the structure of space-time cycles and their mechanisms, the child masters all thought operations (analysis, synthesis, comparison, classification, etc.). This helps him carry out the transfer of his knowledge to any educational task, having previously identified its main characteristics, and carry out a phased solution.

To implement these tasks, it is necessary to create developmental programs that will take into account the psychophysiological characteristics of a preschool child.

The relevance of the program “Me and Time” lies in the fact that it allows you to teach a child of older preschool age the ability to navigate in time and space and forms ideas about the cyclicity of space-time processes due to the assignment of cultural markers by the child – topographic maps, signs, schemes and analog clocks and taking into account its psychophysiological features. This allows you to work with children in the zone of their immediate development. This work consists in the fact that it is built on the reconstruction and reflection of vital events for the child, relying on annual, daily and other cycles in a clearly defined adult structure (divided sheet of paper into 2.3 or 4 parts). This structure becomes a kind of “matrix” for the child, through which he sees life processes. In the first stages, children “draw” their life experience into the framework of a given structure, while highlighting the most important, i.e. identifying significant signs of the event. After this stage is well studied, the child independently tries to transfer the acquired knowledge to another educational task, thereby creating new inter-subject and intra-subject connections.

Thus, the process of forming ideas about the cyclicity of spatial-temporal processes enriches the intellectual development of an older preschool child and contributes to the formation of educational activities in him, important for successful education at school.

Program Task Force

The program is designed to work with preschool children aged 5-6 years, including children with disabilities and with mildly delayed psycho-verbal development.

The choice of this age group was justified by the fact that in older preschool age there is a sensitivity to conflicting situations, thanks to which this age period becomes the most favorable for the formation of ideas about the cyclicity of spatial-temporal processes.

Goal: development of cognitive functions through the formation of ideas of cyclic spatial and temporal processes in older preschoolers.

Program objectives:

– by creating a situation of immersion in the material (elements of the environment, classes, art and aesthetic activities, etc.) amplify the content of the representations of the cyclicality of spatio-temporal processes;

– to form the ability to navigate with the help of topographic maps, analog clocks, natural phenomena, cultural signs and symbols;

– to contribute to the meaningful increase of knowledge and ideas about diurnal, lunar and annual cycles;

– on the basis of different types of developmental activities (LEGO construction, discussion, experimentation, artistic and visual activities, etc.) to develop the child’s skill of building a cycle;

– to develop children’s experimentation by encouraging actions aimed at transforming objects, subjects, objects and learning situations.

In the course of work, various forms of both individual creativity of the child and his/her facilitation, cooperation and co-creation with peers and adults – teachers and psychologists – are envisaged.

Methods of measuring targets

1. Method “Jars” (E. Bochkina, Russia);
2. Method “Magic Ribbons” (E. Bochkina, Russia);
3. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (E. Torrance, USA);
4. Neuropsychological method “Nepsy II” (Sally Kemp, USA);
5. “Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)” (D. Wechsler, USA).

Thematic sections of the program

1. Opposites.

A child of preschool age has difficulty in the process of identifying contradictions. This is explained by the fact that most children of the older preschool age do not distinguish the essential features of an object if they are not pronounced. An older preschooler can easily distinguish a red object from a green one or a big one from a small one, but he or she finds it difficult to identify the dynamic essential features of an object or subject. That is why it is necessary to teach a child to find opposite objects, identify their essential distinguishing features and operate with them.

This thematic section of the program is devoted to teaching older preschool children the ability to see and work with opposites.

2. What happened then?

This thematic section of the program is aimed at teaching older preschool children the action “transformation” – the ability to identify the point of transition from one state to another – the opposite one. The main difficulty of this action for a preschool child is that he/she cannot independently combine the essential features of two contradictions that he/she has identified earlier (e.g., the contradiction lying-flying will have a transition point of falling or taking off).

3. Cycles are so different.

In this thematic section of the program children get acquainted with whole cycles. They learn to combine two pairs of opposites into a single structure. The main difficulty for older preschool children is that in the process of operating two pairs of opposites they do not understand the order of their arrangement in a cycle.

During the lessons at this stage of the program they learn to operate several pairs of opposites independently. For this purpose, we used the most appropriate forms (theatrical mini-production, story-role-play, art and aesthetic activities, quests, LEGO construction) and pedagogical methods of teaching and education (conversation, problem situation, experimentation, etc.). In the course of the lessons, children learn to orient themselves in the kindergarten room with the help of a map-scheme. At the final session, they have a quest in the street using a mini topographical map. An additional skill that children acquire in the course of the lessons is the ability to tell time using an analog clock.

Results

After the implementation of the program, we obtained the following results:

– Increase in the level of development of ideas about cyclicity; spatial and temporal processes;

– increase in the level of development of creative thinking and imagination;

– increase in the level of development of thinking and memory;

– the emergence of the skill to orient in the surrounding world with the help of topographic maps, analog clocks, natural phenomena, cultural signs and symbols;

– developing the skill of identifying and operating with opposites;

– development of the skill of seeing natural cycles (daily, annual, lunar) and orienting in them;

– development of creative and subjective potential of senior preschoolers;

– development of the ability to solve problems containing contradictory situations.

The majority of children 3 (94%) and 4 years old (83%) have a low level of development of ideas about the cyclic nature of spatial and temporal processes. They do not see natural or social cycles, speech instructions are not clear to them. Any cycle was interpreted from the position of “was/still”. Repeated events in time for children of these groups were not perceived as similar and were interpreted from a formal-logical position.

Analyzing the results obtained for samples from different countries, we came to the conclusion that from the age of 5-6, children in Russia already begin to rely on images of the past (memory) and the present (thinking) when constructing ideas about the cyclical nature of spatial-temporal processes. They do not manage to build a whole cycle on the basis of these images. The process of building the cycle stops at one of the initial points. The child performs the mental action of stagnation, seeing no possibility to get out of it.

Analyzing the results obtained for samples from different countries, we came to the conclusion that from the age of 5-6, children in Russia already begin to rely on images of the past (memory) and the present (thinking) when constructing ideas about the cyclical nature of spatial-temporal processes. They do not manage to build a whole cycle on the basis of these images. The process of building the cycle stops at one of the initial points. The child performs the mental action of stagnation, seeing no possibility to get out of it.

Let us turn to the results obtained on foreign samples (Canada and Spain). In the process of analyzing the obtained results, we found that most of the children living in Canada and Spain have a low level of formation of ideas about the cyclic nature of spatial-temporal processes – they did not distinguish a contradictory situation. A distinctive feature of children of this sample is that in the process of constructing a cyclic image they rely on the image of the future or anticipatory image.

In the Thai and Serbian samples, a significant relationship between “representations of cyclicality” and “memory” has been established. These children build their images about spatial-temporal cycles on the basis of past experience, which does not always correspond to real situations. The level of formation of the studied representations is medium and low.

In the process of comparing the target indicators obtained in preschool children by the criterion of gender difference, we found that the sample of girls at all age stages of the preschool period coped with diagnostic tasks better than boys. Perhaps this is due to the fact that girls tend to do everything according to the algorithm given earlier, without searching for new methods of solution. Their thinking is focused on obtaining a certain result, and in the process of memorization they rely on mechanical actions. Boys, on the contrary, are aimed at searching for non-standard methods of solution. Their thinking is filled with creative activity. That is why it can be difficult for them to fulfill the tasks proposed in diagnostic methods. Their attention is scattered, because of which they are more often than girls distracted by external stimuli. In boys and girls at the age of 5-6 years, the difference between the levels of development and formation of ideas about cyclic and cognitive development remains significant.