How a young child learns how to take part in mealtimes in a Japanese day-care center: a longitudinal case study

This research is a longitudinal, ethnographic study that focuses on mealtimes with one boy from 9 to 78 months of age in a day-care center in Japan. It looks at routine interactions between a child, his nursery teachers, and the environment, which is a shared and mutually available communicative space between participants in collaboration. The aim of this study is to clarify how the meal as a learning problem is “solved,” especially with young children whom the teacher cannot instruct verbally, and how the environment in which this takes place affects the process and is used in collaboration. The first part, a diachronic illustration of the child’s environment, in which all materials are organized as a total system to constrain his action, demonstrates the dynamic relation between his actions, the nursery teachers’ actions, and the environment. The second part presents the findings of a microanalysis of the interaction between a nursery teacher and the boy at 15 months, which is a critical transitional time from other-assisted to self-organized eating. It shows the close interdependence between the child’s environment and the teacher’s way of caring for him. The teachers generally used environmental modifications to assist his eating and to channel his actions toward their preferences. This study has demonstrated that children can learn much through an intentional arrangement of an artificial environment.     

Play for young handicapped children in an integral setting,part 2

Conclusions Play is an important part of the life of the young child, both at home and in school. In designing a play environment for handicapped children who are attending a preschool along with their nonhandicapped peers, the teacher needs to be aware of the needs and limitations resulting from the child's particular disability. This knowledge can be put to use in making the environment as productive as possible and providing play opportunities that are fun, educational, and practical for each child. While it is important that we consider the particular handicapping condition, teachers should never lose sight of the fact that a handicapped child is first and foremost a child, whose basic needs are not too different from those of all children. These basic needs should be the primary concern of the teacher who is interested in guiding the child toward productive educational experiences and helping that child become an integral part of the school group.     

Developmental counseling and the educational process

Summary This paper has presented a model that includes a cooperative effort of the teacher and the school counselor. The goal is a more productive and healthy learning environment for the child in school.First, a recognition that today's emphasis is on remedial and orises situations was discussed. Second, although many persons are responsible for a child's learning, efforts are often fragmented and lack continuity. Finally, a model was presented in which the teacher and the counselor act cooperatively as a team, each one assuming the active or supportive role according to the needs of the child and the recognized expertise of the adult.     

Stress and coping in hearing mothers of children with hearing loss: factors affecting mother and child adjustment

The present study examines maternal and child adjustment as a result of the application of a stress and coping model (Folkman, Schaefer, & Lazarus 1979) to factors associated with having a school-aged child with a hearing loss. Thirty-six hearing mothers of children with hearing loss participated in the study. Information was gathered through parent and teacher questionnaires and home interviews and observations. Results indicated that (a) social support emerged as an important predictor of maternal adjustment as well as a buffer between current life stress and maternal adjustment, and (b) maternal problem-solving skill emerged as a significant predictor of child adjustment and as a mediating factor between child's age and teacher rating of child adjustment. The discussion focuses on possible explanations for these findings, the utility of a competency-based rather than psychopathology-based perspective in understanding parent and child outcomes, and implications for intervention strategies.     

Maximizing Learning in Early Childhood Multiage Classrooms: Child, Teacher, and Parent Perceptions

The multiage classroom is not a new concept. In fact, the concept of multiage grouping dates back to the one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century. Most educators believe that multiage grouping allows them to develop a more developmentally appropriate program. It is considered as a natural community of learners. Graded schools focus primarily on the model that teaching is transmitted to the learner, whereas multiage settings focus on the interactive nature of the teacher/student. Multiage concept is based on the assumption that children learn best in active ways through the interaction with the environment and with different people. This study emerged out of my curiosity to examine what it means to have a child in a multiage classroom, especially from the child's and the parents' perspectives. In an effort to gain perspective from several sources, the researcher spoke with children, parents, and the teacher involved in the program. Although multiage classrooms seem to have several benefits, there are some concerns: the parents' and communities' lack of understanding of the program, the lack of training of multiage teachers, and the teachers' fear of more preparation time and more materials. Nevertheless, the multiage class allows for each child to progress at their own pace. Individuality is also valued in the class, and labels are not used to describe the more or less advanced students. Children also feel less competition as opposed to a traditional classroom because they are all on different levels and have different expectations set for themselves. Since the children spend more than 1 year in a class they have more time to develop caring relationships with other classmates and the teacher. As schools progress toward more developmentally appropriate programs, multiage and nongraded environments will flourish.     

Research and the training of primary teachers

Elementary education is an ideal field for educational research, not only because of the special difficulties that are inherent in it—such as the problem of communication with the children and resistance to change on the part of the teachers—but also because the advance of knowledge is bound up with the revision of its foundations and because a child's early training has a vital influence on the subsequent development of his mental powers and particular talents. Research into elementary education is rendered still more valuable and urgent by two additional factors: changes in the child's family and social status, and advances in the sciences which shed light on the various aspects of those changes. Research at this educational level—important, urgent, but also difficult—promises to be rewarding and the results should lead to considerable changes in teacher training. However, the author is not concerned with this aspect; he is trying to examine to what extent an introduction to educational research and participation in it should be included in teacher training, and how this can be done. Nevertheless, the close relationship thus established between such research and training also implies that we are concerned with training as a subject of research. Raymond Lallez, Director of the Centre for Research and Training at the école Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud and a member of the French National Commission for Unesco, worked in child psychology at the University of Montpellier before becoming an adviser to the Minister of National Education of Cambodia. He has taught at several universities in the United States and is currentlyrapporteur for the National Centre of Scientific Research, in addition to his other functions in French national educational planning.     

当前幼儿园环境创设中存在的问题及其对策

幼儿园环境作为幼儿教育的组成部分,对促进幼儿的全面发展具有重要作用.但是当前幼儿园环境创设中存在着诸多问题.本文在对存在这些问题的原因进行分析的基础上,提出了在幼儿园环境创设中协调好物质环境创设和精神环境创设的关系、应创设有利于幼儿多种感官参与互动的幼儿园环境、在幼儿园环境创设中注重培养幼儿的主体性以及加强幼儿园教师环保培训,提高其专业化水平等策略,以期能够对幼儿园创设高质量的环境提供有益借鉴.     

Measurement of quality in child care centers

Assessment of quality of care in 363 classrooms with infants, toddlers, and preschool children was conducted in 120 child care centers in three states with widely varying regulations. Three major process measures, InfantToddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS; Harms, Cryer & Clifford, 1987), Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS; Harms & Clifford, 1980), and the Assessment Profile for Early Childhood Programs (Abbott-Shim & Sibley, 1987) were included. Regulatable aspects of quality of child care included ratio of caregivers to children, group size, teacher training in child development or child care, teacher education, highest wage paid to a teacher in the center, and staff turnover. The goal of the study was to evaluate how well the quality of child care is measured by process and regulatable variables. For research purposes, the process measures proved to be highly redundant, both internally and with each other. Much smaller sets of items, drawn randomly from the instruments' item pools, were found to be perfectly acceptable measures of quality of care. Regulatable measures did not prove to be acceptable measures of quality care, except for teachers' wages, which were highly correlated with process measures of quality.     

Understanding the Dialectical Relations Between Everyday Concepts and Scientific Concepts Within Play-Based Programs

In recent times there has been an enormous interest in Vygotsky’s writing on conceptual development, particularly his insights on the differences between everyday and scientific thinking. In drawing upon cultural–historical theory, this paper seeks to examine the relations between everyday concepts and scientific concepts within playful contexts, such as preschools, with a view to better understanding how very young children develop conceptual understandings in science. This paper presents an overview of a study which sought to map the transformation and appropriation of scientific concepts within two early childhood settings. Approximately ten weeks of data gathering took place, with video recordings, field notes, photographic documentation, and child and teacher interviews for recording child concept formation within these naturalistic settings. The findings indicate that when teacher programs are more oriented towards concepts rather than materials, children’s play is focused on conceptual connections. Importantly, the study showed that: It was possible to map the multiple and dynamic levels or stratas of thinking that a child or group of children may exhibit within play-based contexts; An analysis of ‘unorganised heaps’ and ‘complexive thinking’ evident in conceptually or materially oriented play-based programs can be determined; the dialectical relations between everyday concepts and scientific concepts in play-based programs can be understood; and greater understanding about the nature of concept formation in situated playful contexts have been possible.     

中小学生业余钢琴学习问题的调查与思考

中小学生钢琴学习应是一种以人为本的学习活动,应让琴童在学习过程中形成用身心去感受音乐的能力与经验,以促进其个性的完善与发展;应把钢琴学习与琴童自身的爱好结合起来,并以此为切入点发展琴童对钢琴学习的兴趣;在中小学生钢琴学习过程中,教师家长应避免功利心,对中小学生钢琴学习效果的评价应以琴童自身水平为标准;应根据琴童自身的特点与学习水平制定学习计划,并以一颗平常心对待琴童,理解容忍琴童的缺点与错误;同时,教师家长应与琴童保持平等的关系,不断了解中小学生的心理特点,选择易于被琴童接受的方式,从长远发展的高度给予琴童切实的帮助。     

Approaches to Early Intervention on the Navajo Reservation

This article describes a research and early intervention project that involves parents and Head Start teachers who live and work in geographically isolated areas of the Navajo Reservation. Social and environmental characteristics of life in remote areas are considered as “risk factors” that impact upon the child's probable success in school. Two promising lines of intervention are reported comprehensive instruction in child development for Head Start teachers and working with parents as children's “first teachers.” The teacher education approach involves innovative methods that build upon the Native American oral tradition. The approach to parents as “first teachers” involves Navajo parents in a structured reading approach with culturally relevant materials, where children are encouraged to reconstruct story content in a variety of representational media. Preliminary results include a dramatic rise in the number of CDA credentialed teachers and major improvements in teaching skills and satisfaction with teaching.     

Education reform policy and early childhood teacher education in Hong Kong before and after the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997

Built on a sociocultural framework of policy analysis and Wertsch's concept of mediation, the present study examines how early childhood teacher education has changed as a result of interactions between reform policy and the action of teacher educators. Ten teacher educators participated in the study, along with eight early childhood leaders, 15 kindergarten principals and child care centre supervisors, and one policy‐maker. Data collected through interviews, focus‐group discussions, and reviews of government and organisational documents as well as press materials were analysed. The findings revealed that early childhood organisations were more active than teacher educators in the process of negotiation. Although early childhood teacher education has expanded since the handover in 1997, the voice and identity of the profession are still in an embryonic state. The study offers implications for redefining the roles of teacher educators and restructuring teacher education contexts to help facilitate the development of ideological consciousness and new understanding.     

我国教师教育课程中儿童学课程设置的构想

我国教师教育课程中设置儿童学课程是重塑教师专业素养、顺应国际教师教育发展趋势和应对教师现实困境的必然要求。其设置需要超越学科体系的组织线索,以问题领域为核心组织课程模块;超越心理主义的课程内容,彰显课程建构的社会文化视角;超越对儿童发展普遍规律的依循,关照儿童个体差异。儿童学课程要设置如下课程模块:儿童身心发展、儿童发展与社会、儿童研究方法、儿童研习实践。     

Until somebody hears me: parent voice and advocacy in special educational decision making

When a family finds out their child has a disability, they enter the world of special education which has its own terminology, rules, settings and personnel. In addition to grappling with the meaning of their child's special needs, families are also thrown into the role of principle advocate for their child. The research study reported here presents the findings from focus groups conducted in the United States of America with 27 diverse families on their efforts to obtain the best educational outcomes for their children. In this article, Robyn Hess, Amy Molina and Elizabeth Kozleski bring their collective past experiences, as a school psychologist, bilingual counsellor and special education teacher respectively, to bear on this topic and frame the issue from a systemic perspective. They argue that engaging in conversation with families around their needs, as well as assisting them in their efforts to advocate for their child, is the first step in creating more equal partnerships between parents of children with special needs and educational professionals.     

Responsibilities of a Teacher in a Harmonic Cycle of Problem Solving and Problem Posing

Early math experiences can be challenging for young children. Although it seems that planning a lesson on solving and posing a problem for a young child is a daunting task, it is actually simple if a harmonic cycle is exercised. This harmonic cycle, in fact, embeds within in it a variety of teacher’s responsibilities that can expand our understanding of what a teacher needs to attend to when it comes to planning, teaching, and evaluating a child’s progress. This article will present responsibilities that a teacher has in a harmonic cycle, which is reflected through an interaction between a teacher and a child on problem posing and problem solving.     

How front-end loading contributes to creating and sustaining the theory-practice gap in higher education programs

In this paper, I show how Mead’s theory of emergence can prove explanatory in how the theory-practice gap is co-created and sustained in front-end loading university programs. Taking teacher education as an exemplar, I argue that trainee teachers encounter different and oft-times conflicting environmental, social and cultural conditions in the two ‘fields of interaction’ of their training program, namely, the on-campus pre-service program and the in-school experience. The argument draws on interview and focus group data collected via a study of first-year graduate teachers of an Australian pre-service teacher education program. My conclusions are two-fold. First, I argue that role taking and self-regulated behaviour within the two environmental fields of interaction in front-end loading programs inhibit the trainee professional from exercising the power of agency to implement theory learned at university in practice in the workplace. Second, I conclude that Mead’s theory of emergence proves effective in predicting the obduracy of the gap between theory and practice in front-end programs.     

Joint attention and early language

This paper reports 2 studies that explore the role of joint attentional processes in the child's acquisition of language. In the first study, 24 children were videotaped at 15 and 21 months of age in naturalistic interaction with their mothers. Episodes of joint attentional focus between mother and child--for example, joint play with an object--were identified. Inside, as opposed to outside, these episodes both mothers and children produced more utterances, mothers used shorter sentences and more comments, and dyads engaged in longer conversations. Inside joint episodes maternal references to objects that were already the child's focus of attention were positively correlated with the child's vocabulary at 21 months, while object references that attempted to redirect the child's attention were negatively correlated. No measures from outside these episodes related to child language. In an experimental study, an adult attempted to teach novel words to 10 17-month-old children. Words referring to objects on which the child's attention was already focused were learned better than words presented in an attempt to redirect the child's attentional focus.     

Results From the Quality Early Childhood Training Program

High-quality child care is related to children's positive developmental outcomes. One way to increase quality of care is to provide training to child care providers. This study used assessment-based training to determine if overall quality of care in center-based preschools could be enhanced. Participants were recruited from six center-based child care programs serving preschool-age children and included program administrators, teachers, teacher aides, and enrolled children. Program administrators (N?=?6) were assessed with the Program Administration Scale (Talan & Bloom, 2004), classrooms (N?=?14) with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale Revised (ECERS-R; Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005) and the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation—Research Edition (ELLCO; Smith & Dickinson, 2002), teachers (N?=?24) with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2007), and children (N?=?135) with an author-created measurement designed to assess typical skills across five child domains. Assessments were administered at two time points and individualized targeted training was provided in between. Results demonstrated that after 7 months of intervention, the largest effect sizes were seen at the program administration and classroom levels and that smaller effect sizes were found at the teacher and child levels.     

A naturalistic study of the relation between preschool setting events and peer interaction in four activity contexts

The effect of preschool environmental factors, or “setting events,” on peer interaction has received little attention from investigators studying factors related to social competence. In this study, peer interactions and aspects of three setting events (teacher behavior, material use, and peer presence) were observed in four preschool activity contexts. Data on the frequency of occurrence of interaction and occurrence of specific setting event measures within activity contexts were obtained, and empirical probabilities were determined. Results indicate that the behavior of the preschool teacher is a potent setting event with regard to peer interaction. Teacher interaction with a child, in any activity context, retarded peer interaction by that child. The setting events of material use and peer presence had little effect on peer interaction. Results are discussed in terms of how teachers can alter their behavior to promote peer interaction.     

幼儿园课程要关注幼儿的生活质量

关注和提高幼儿的生活质量是时代赋予教育的使命。关注与提高幼儿的生活质量是幼儿园课程的价值追求。要关注幼儿的生活质量,就要关注幼儿对生活的体验与感受,关注幼儿在教育生活中的独特学习方式,关注幼儿个体在教育活动中的发展。幼儿教育与幼儿的生活密不可分,幼儿教育必须关注幼儿的生活质量。