Diversity Competencies within Early Childhood Teacher Preparation: Innovative Practices and Future Directions

With classrooms becoming increasingly diverse due to children’s various cultural backgrounds and varying abilities, early childhood teacher education programs face the challenge of how best to prepare the workforce. Various initiatives have been implemented in teacher preparation programs to prepare early childhood educators to become competent in relating to all children and families. Infusing components of diversity into all courses and field experiences and engaging in community–university partnerships, as well as unifying early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE) program components, are promising practices for the field. An examination and evaluation of these initiatives are discussed in this article, as well as future directions for research and practice.     

IMPLEMENTING COLLEGE AND CAREER STANDARDS IN MATH METHODS COURSE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION TEACHER CANDIDATES

This study is purposed to measure the efficacy of implementing College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) math standards into math methods courses for early childhood and elementary education teacher candidates at an urban university located in the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex area. A total of 161 college seniors (teacher candidates) enrolled in the mathematics methods courses for early childhood and elementary education participated in this study. The results showed that incorporating CCRS into the math methods courses was successful as shown by the significant findings between pre- and post-assessments in both skills- and knowledge-associated items. Although only two items were found to be significant between pre- and post-assessments on disposition, teacher candidates showed higher scores in pre-assessments on disposition compared to skills- and knowledge-associated items.     

提供高质量学前教育与保育:来自TALIS 2018“强势开端”项目的经验与启示

《提供高质量学前教育与保育:来自TALIS 2018"强势开端"调查》报告于2019年12月发布。经济合作与发展组织对影响儿童学习、发展和福祉的各项因素进行量化,发现各国学前教育发展领域面临的共同挑战:教师学历偏低,相关培训待普及;对儿童基础认知技能的培养重视不够;最迫切的教师专业发展需求领域是"支持特殊需求儿童";教师工作满意度普遍较高,但受社会尊重的程度不够,希望提高工作待遇。通过国际间的比较和借鉴,为加强我国学前教育的师资队伍建设,教育行政部门可适当加大政策调控力度和财政投入,提升学前教育师资队伍的专业性,研制健全的学前教育质量标准,同时构建家庭—幼儿园—社区的学前教育共同体,营造积极的育人环境。     

New concepts of play and the problem of technology,digital media and popular-culture integration with play-based learning in early childhood education

Technology, digital media and popular culture form an important aspect of young children’s life-worlds in contemporary post-industrial societies. A problem for early childhood educators is how to most effectively integrate these aspects of children’s life-worlds into the provision of play-based learning. Traditionally, research has considered barriers to teacher uptake of technologies in the early years, or teacher beliefs and attitudes about using technologies with young children. An alternative perspective focuses on children’s play as the foundation for early childhood curriculum provision and argues that what is needed instead are ‘new’ concepts of play more appropriate for explaining children’s contemporary play experiences in post-industrial societies. This article examines the influence of a new concept of play called ‘web-mapping’ on teachers’ curriculum practices in early childhood education, and finds that, according to Vygotsky’s ideas about explicit and implicit mediation, new concepts of play are likely to provide a fruitful avenue for addressing the ‘problem’ of technology, digital media and popular-culture integration in early childhood education.     

美、英、澳三国教师教育课程改革动向分析

美国、英国和澳大利亚三国的教师教育课程正在经历范式的更替,并围绕普通教育课程、专业学科课程和教育学科课程这三类教师教育的主要课程类型迅速展开和推进,在教师教育课程改革的动向方面呈现一些共性的特点,包括普通教育课程更具通识性和广博性,专业学科课程更具实践性和实用性,教育学科课程更具融合性和完整性。三国的教师教育课程改革适应了教育形势发展的要求和世界性教师教育改革的潮流,体现了较高的教师教育课程研究水平。     

Developing Professional Early Childhood Educators in England and Hungary: Where Has All the Love Gone?

European education agendas have emphasized the importance of early childhood education in providing the foundations for lifelong learning. Central to the success of early childhood education is the quality of provision, with the workforce being key. While qualifications levels are frequently cited as important for the quality of provision here we ask questions of the attitudinal competences required to work in early childhood in two countries: England and Hungary. This paper presents a mixed-method study that considers the attitudinal competences perceived as needed by early childhood students and how these are acquired. We focus on the role of love in early childhood education and the contrasting perceptions and experiences in England and Hungary. In Hungary love is spoken about freely, but in England managerialist and entrepreneurial discourses are creating tensions with more emotional dispositions of being caring, supportive, and empathic that early childhood practitioners uphold. In Hungary, early childhood educators are given relative autonomy in their professional roles and love is a key characteristic. We consider historical, philosophical, and political developments in the two countries to shed light on how English and Hungarian perspectives have diverged, while exploring opportunities that comparing perspectives offers for the further professional development of early childhood educators.     

Preparing early childhood preservice teachers for science teaching: aligning across a teacher preparation program

In early childhood education and early childhood teacher preparation, science is often a challenging academic content area. However, young children are primed for science learning, and early science learning is important for later science achievement. The current study presents an embedded case study of one early childhood teacher preparation program that undertook a process of infusing and aligning science teaching preparation across a curriculum preparing preservice teachers to work with children ranging in age from birth through third grade. Major themes fell into the three categories—motivation for change; the process of improving and aligning across a program; and science attitudes, beliefs, and experiences in the midst of change. Implications are discussed in terms of improving preparation for teaching early science and aligning across courses in early childhood teacher preparation.     

From the Editor: Challenges to Guiding the Teacher of Guided Play

ABSTRACT

New education reforms in Australia, and elsewhere in the world, are calling for degree-qualified early childhood teachers to work in prior to school contexts, including child care. Yet, emerging research indicates that the majority of early childhood graduates are averse to work in child care, with a career desire to work in other contexts – primary, kindergarten, preschool. This paper reports on a pilot study that focused on early childhood teacher preparation, with attention to child care professional experience. Interviews with early childhood teacher educators, including program coordinators, focused on the decision making processes about the child care professional experience. Discourse analysis located some of the competing and complex discursive considerations, illuminating the contingencies and tensions that face early childhood teacher educators. The imperatives on reflective thinking and decision making in complex early childhood teacher education landscapes are illuminated. These contingencies and tensions have implications for the workforce they are charged to prepare, as policy imperatives call for teachers prepared and willing to work in child care.     

教师教育大学化:反思与重构

教师教育大学化已成为教师教育改革的世界趋势,大学教育之共识是科学研究与人才培养相统一,但是,以往“学术性与艺术性”的分歧、当前“专业化与解制化”的争议,始终牵伴着各国大学的教师教育改革之路,也困扰着教师培养模式的选择,甚至陷入教育伦理困境:一些大学倾向以实习课程来增加职前教师的教学经验,却无法避免其教学行为失误给予中小学生的消极影响。秉承历史与逻辑相统一的研究原则,系统梳理大学介入教师教育的历史,重点考察教育研究与职前教师培养的关系演变,尤其聚焦教师教育大学化进程中的主要矛盾,即教育理论课程与实习课程的割裂问题。作为以培养教师为主责的师范大学,借鉴现象学哲学家胡塞尔开启的“意识-经验”关系新视域,重构大学视域教师教育改革的方法论,关注教育理论与教学经验之间的内在联系,探寻“理论-实验-实习”一体化的教师教育课程改革新路径。     

Early Childhood Education and Care Vade Mecum for 2002

This is not an article, but a series of compressed notes which attempt to set down what the writer sees as the principal concerns highlighted in recent studies of early childhood socialisation from birth to about eight years. It draws heavily upon personal and professional experience of education and care systems in some sixteen countries as well as upon current OECD and UNESCO data. It deals with the concerns surrounding a minority of the world's children, however; that is the 10% or less, born into the rich portion of the (largely western) world. It focuses on the context surrounding the growing need for 'institutionalised' provision for children from birth in those OECD countries where divorce is common-place, where the birth rate has fallen dramatically and where, increasingly, most adult women work outside the home. It notes especially the gradual congruence of early childhood care and early education in policy and practice. It emphasises the vital contribution of appropriate early experience and learning to the creation of a humane society, briefly considers the policy preoccupations with literacy, and notes especially that the biggest single factor contributing to high quality provision lies in the quality of the professional staff concerned.     

The fading of a teaching profession? reforms of early childhood teacher education in Sweden

In Sweden, working with young children in institutions outside the home dates back to the late nineteenth century when public child care provision developed in a context of industrialization, urbanization and democratization. Out of the charitable work of unmarried women in these early institutions, pre‐schools and teacher education programmes developed. Over the years, pre‐school teacher education has undergone major changes, the most recent reform being the move into a system within which the previous eight distinctive teacher education programmes, pre‐school teacher education being one of them, have been replaced by one integrated teaching degree. This article addresses some major features of the development of pre‐school teacher education and concludes with a discussion of the most recent reform and its consequences for the early childhood teaching profession.     

Subjektiver Kompetenzgewinn und Wissenszuwachs bei frühpädagogischen Fachkräften unterschiedlicher Ausbildungsprofile

In the light of the diversity of early child teacher education profiles this study deals with two questions: Can typical content profiles regarding early childhood study courses be identified? Do gains in self perceived competences and professional knowledge differ between students of different content profiles? First, the curricula of 16 vocational schools and 15 bachelor study courses in early childhood education are coded regarding creditpoints (ETCS) in various domains of early childhood education. Latent class analyses led to one “practical” content profile of the 16 vocational schools and to three profiles of Bachelor courses: a social pedagogy and scientifically oriented profile, a pedagogical content profile, and a mixed profile. Multi-level regression analyses as well as analyses of complex covariance patterns of repeated measures (self-concept of competences and knowledge regarding language, language development and fostering language) yielded relationships between content profile of study courses and utilization of the courses’ offerings on the one hand and the development of competences and knowledge of prospective early childhood teachers on the other hand. These results hold true even when individual background variables were statistically controlled and show that it is less the academization per se but the content profile of study courses which makes the difference.     

Child development knowledge and early childhood teacher preparation: Assessing the relationship—A special collection

An assessment of the field's relationship with its dominant knowledge base is both timely and critical. The early care and education field is defining what it means to be an early childhood professional, demand for early care and education practitioners is soaring, and the demographic context for provision of early care and education programs is shifting. Furthermore, the discipline of child development and its research methodology are increasingly under attack. Such an examination has direct implications for the preparation of early childhood teachers. Yet realities of the early care and education field complicate the profession's capacity to respond. By listening to calls to develop its own paradigm of professionalism, the early care and education profession could elucidate, on its own terms, a more meaningful relationship between child development knowledge and early childhood teacher preparation.     

From university to working life: an analysis of field-based studies in early childhood teacher education and recently graduated kindergarten teachers’ transition to work

The aim of this article was to shed light on problematic issues related to the practical element in early childhood teacher education. We approach these questions mainly through scrutinizing and interpreting this part of kindergarten teachers’ university education in Finland. We then expand our analysis to include the broader issues of job commitment and the role of mentoring programmes among newly qualified kindergarten teachers. With the ‘kindergarten teacher as researcher’ as the chosen teacher model, our findings indicate that this aim can only be realistically achieved if all stages of the teacher education process are effectively linked. Key elements begin with the entry requirements for students and include productively connecting practicum experiences with on-campus courses, establishing a ‘double supervision model’, and cooperating with a stable network of early childhood centres for field studies. A further finding is that, despite a successfully completed professional education, the induction phase in the workplace can be a vulnerable time for novice teachers, suggesting an urgent need for mentoring programmes.     

Supporting inclusion in early childhood settings: some possibilities and problems for teacher education

Aotearoa New Zealand, like other countries, has legislation and policies that support inclusion and promote the participation of all children and families in early childhood education. We might expect therefore to see a culture of inclusion resonating through policy and practice in early childhood settings. There are early childhood teachers who support such legislative and policy goals, who are committed to inclusion, and who are developing more inclusive early childhood services. Yet, it is also evident that discrimination and exclusion is experienced by many. Teacher education plays an important role in supporting inclusion and assisting teachers’ development of knowledge, skills and attitudes that will support them to teach all children. In this paper, we write as a group of teacher educators and demonstrate the challenges we took up to move beyond traditional approaches to inclusive education and to open up theoretically and practically diverse possibilities for thinking and doing inclusion differently in early childhood teacher education.     

Improving early childhood teacher education: Preservice teachers' beliefs about inclusion

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe early childhood preservice teachers’ beliefs about the inclusion of children with special needs in early childhood settings. Nineteen female undergraduate early childhood education preservice teachers participated in one of five focus groups. Students were divided into three groups based on the courses they were enrolled in or had completed: Beginner (sophomore and junior courses), Intermediate (senior courses), and Advanced (student teaching). Additionally, 6 of the 19 students participated in individual interviews. Data analysis resulted in themes related to students’ beliefs and philosophies of inclusion, as well as their thoughts concerning practice in inclusive programs. This paper describes students’ beliefs within each group and compares responses across the different groups. Implications are discussed in relation to teacher education programs and directions for future research.     

国际教师教育的变革和我国的应对策略

教师教育问题是当代世界各国教育界人士共同关注的热门话题。世界各国尤其是发达国家都大力推进教师教育。呈现出明显的优先发展态势。本文通过借鉴国外的有益经验,结合我国高等师范教育改革存在的问题,基于新的视角探讨教师教育可持续发展战略。     

Early Practicum Experiences: Preservice Early Childhood Students’ Perceptions and Sense of Efficacy

The current study explored early practicum experiences (those occurring before student teaching) in an early childhood birth to kindergarten teacher education program. Undergraduates enrolled in practicum courses completed questionnaires about their overall practicum experience including: socio-emotional components (their perceived fit with their cooperating teacher and intrapersonal feelings while in the classroom), overall practicum satisfaction, and their sense of teacher efficacy. Results revealed that practicum students generally reported feelings of being energized and relaxed, though some practicum students reported feelings of frustration in their practicum classrooms. Feeling energized and relaxed and students’ perception of fit with their cooperating teacher were positively associated with practicum satisfaction and practicum students’ teacher efficacy. Feelings of frustration were negatively associated with students’ fit with their cooperating teacher, practicum satisfaction, and students’ teacher efficacy. Higher levels of practicum satisfaction predicted higher practicum students’ teacher efficacy. Findings highlight the importance of understanding early practicum experiences and what factors of the practicum experience contribute teacher efficacy. Implications for future research and practice for early childhood teacher preparation programs are discussed.     

Fostering Connections to Nature — Strategies for Community College Early Childhood Teachers

ABSTRACT

How can early childhood teacher educators at the community college level create opportunities for their students to explore and relate to the natural world? This article discusses three learning opportunities in an early childhood associate-degree program that foster connections between preservice and inservice early childhood teachers and nature education — the Goldsworthy project, a local habitat course, and an animal study project in a curriculum course. Each learning opportunity helped teachers develop effective teaching strategies for engaging children with nature education and also a personal and professional disposition toward valuing nature education as future teachers.