Early Childhood Technology Education: A Sociocultural Perspective

We are living in a fast-changing, technology-driven world, where technology affects the daily lives of every person, directly or indirectly. While the importance of providing young children with technological knowledge and experience has been well-recognized, how the curriculum should be developed deserves greater study. Using early childhood education in Hong Kong as a case study, this paper argues that to be successful in planning and implementing a technology curriculum, we cannot consider only the technological aspects. We also need to take into consideration the social and cultural factors. Among various social and cultural factors, this paper focuses on: (a) the background of the students and their parents, (b) society’s perceptions of technology, and (c) society’s expectations of children who learn about technology, and (d) the approach and method of teaching and learning technology.     

Early Childhood Teacher Education in Australia

The complexity of preparing personnel for early childhood services seems common to many countries of the world. Issues and problems include length of courses, pre‐requisites for entry to courses, core curriculum content, age range covered in courses, education and care elements and practicum requirements. This paper discusses early childhood teacher education provision in Australia and acknowledges that teacher educators in countries of the world have much to share and the discussion of solutions can only better the preparation of early childhood courses. A common theme is the need to raise the status and strengthen the early childhood profession by the provision of quality courses.     

A Systems Perspective on Practicum Experiences in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Focus on Interprofessional Relationships

High quality early childhood teachers have a wealth of knowledge and use a range of skills in their daily classroom practices, and research has consistently demonstrated the positive influence effective early childhood teachers have on children’s development and long-term outcomes. Given the importance of practicum experiences in the development of effective teachers, exploration and understanding of these experiences for early childhood teacher candidates is warranted. The relationship between the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate can be viewed as a central element in the experience; this relationship influences and is influenced by additional elements within the practicum experience, including: communication, beliefs, fit, knowledge and learning. In this article, each of these elements is explored, and the interrelatedness of the elements within the practicum experience is discussed. A systems perspective is used to describe the multiple elements of the practicum experiences in early childhood teacher preparation programs, not only to explore the practicum experience, but also to develop recommendations and a research agenda.     

Electronic Portfolios in Teacher Education: A Case Study of Early Childhood Teacher Candidates

The use of electronic portfolios is increasingly becoming popular in teacher education programs. The electronic portfolio allows learners to express their work and take ownership over their own ability to plan and assess and reflect upon their learning during a specific period of time. While many teacher education programs have adopted electronic portfolios in order to meet accreditation requirements, others use electronic portfolios to develop and improve on students’ technology skills—train students on how to better use technology in instruction and student assessment. Irrespective of the reasons for adoption, there is the need to assess students’ perceptions of electronic portfolios, and especially to explore the benefits and challenges students face in using electronic portfolios in their course work. Using a qualitative research design, the current study explored teacher candidates’ attitudes toward electronic portfolios and the differences that electronic portfolios bring to their profession. Such a study is necessary to help administrators identify students’ needs to ensure that they are gaining the maximum benefits from the use of electronic portfolios in their programs of study.     

Australian Early Childhood Teacher Education: Developments and Concerns

The history of early childhood teacher education in Australia dates back to 1897 with the establishment of the Kindergarten Union Teachers' Training College in Sydney. Since the 1970's, small, specialized, private teachers' colleges in each state have emerged to become part of the national government system of Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE's). These institutions had as a primary goal to teach rather than to conduct research about teaching. CAE's have historically been primarily responsible for vocationally-oriented professional courses of study such as nursing, teaching, social welfare, media and communications, fine arts and health studies. It was in this CAE's system where students were prepared to be early childhood, elementary, and secondary teachers. These programs lead to a three-year Diploma of Teaching or a four-year Bachelor of Education. This approach was based on the Australian pattern of specialized teacher training which was generally provided immediately upon graduation from high school. Universities provided training in early childhood-related areas such as psychology, psychiatry, social work and medicine but did not include specialized early childhood teacher preparation per se (although they do provide secondary teacher preparation).     

后现代主义视野下的幼儿教师教育变革:路径与策略

社会环境的巨大变迁使传统的幼儿教师教育系统面临严峻的形势,而后现代主义的流行为幼儿教师教育发展提供了两条路径,即基于多元学科视野的培养体系变革与课程体系重构,从而更加有效地应对来自内外部的压力。基于后现代主义的观点,在幼儿教师教育中可以灵活运用多种教学策略:情境性知识策略,确保在社会化与历史性的情境中将教学内容融入职前幼儿教师的知识体系;多元阅读策略,帮助职前幼儿教师感知后现代主义视野下的话语思想和掌握塑造教育与社会的话语方式;图片形象融入策略,则为职前幼儿教师提供了理解后现代主义中有关主观性的观点和教师工作所暗含蕴意的便捷途径。     

Blended Perspectives: A Global Vision for High-Quality Early Childhood Education

What are the attributes of a high-quality early childhood education program worldwide? An group of experienced early childhood educators that represent diverse international backgrounds attempts to respond to this question by examining six dimensions of quality set forth by the Association for Childhood Education International: (1) philosophies and goals, (2) high-quality physical environments, (3) developmentally appropriate and effective pedagogy and curriculum, (4) attention to basic and special needs, (5) respect for families and communities, (6) professionally prepared teachers and staff, and (7) rigorous program evaluation. The article concludes with an annotated list of references, both in professional publications and online, that examine early childhood education from an international perspective.     

幼儿英语教育师资培养浅谈

随着中国对外交流的拓展与加深,英语教育受到的重视程度与日俱增。在这种背景下,幼儿英语教育在全国大中城市普遍开展,但是整体现状却不尽如人意,教学水平参差不齐。因此,加强幼儿英语教育师资培养对于改变这一现象具有重要意义。本文针对幼儿英语教育师资培养提出了一些浅见和建议,以期对幼儿英语教育师资培养提供新的视角和助益。     

Student-Produced Action Research in Early Childhood Teacher Education

This article describes how preservice teachers accomplish and write up action research projects as part of their teacher preparation at one university in the United States. The paper is divided into four major sections. In the first section, the instructor describes how teacher research is introduced to teacher education students and how they are guided through the processes of conceptualizing, doing, and writing up their projects. The next two sections are the stories of two 1st-year teachers who describe and reflect on what they learned from completing action research projects under the direction of the instructor. The concluding section offers generalizations that synthesize lessons learned by the authors.     

Innovations in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Reflections on Practice

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the instruction in a teacher education science content course that applied the theories that underlie cognitive constructivism. The methods used aimed to develop positive dispositions toward teaching practices that encourage exploration, collaboration, and individual student responsibility. Nurturing a love of science and an excitement towards learning through discovery were also goals. The theories spanned intersubjectivity and scaffolding from Vygotsky, individual responsibility for learning, and assimilation and accommodation of ideas to allow for individual construction of knowledge from Piaget. Project work, suggested by Katz and Chard, was also included, as were application of the experiential social construction of knowledge theories of Dewey and multiple intelligences from Gardner. Modeling the application of the theories behind cognitive constructivism fostered students’understanding of their appropriate use in elementary classrooms.     

早期教育视野中的游戏

因为游戏具有促进幼儿发展的功能,所以游戏便被纳入教育的视野。但游戏一旦成为教育者手中的工具,试图运用它去实现某种教育功能时,立刻就被赋予了功利目的。当游戏必须符合教育的目的性时,游戏者的自由意志将被大大削弱。对游戏与教学关系的认识和实践,既受制于文化传统的影响,也受制于对游戏本质的理解。在中国文化背景下,幼儿园要以游戏为基本活动,既要寓教于乐,更要寓学于乐。