Community Engagement Project for Preservice Early Childhood Students

This article describes how a preservice early childhood program collaborates with a local agency in a community engagement project. The project was implemented in a family–community partnership class for preservice teachers. There were three purposes for this project. First, to build a partnership between the University of Alaska Anchorage Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood (BAEC) program and a local child care center; second, to provide support for the child care center’s administration and teachers based on their needs and interests; and third, to offer authentic opportunities and experiences for preservice BAEC students to work with the children and their families. This project was a semester-long endeavor, which evolved through rich collaborative experiences.     

Preservice Teacher Learning within a Kindergarten Internship: Insights for Early Childhood Teacher Educators

This study is an examination of early childhood preservice teachers' kindergarten internship experiences to identify the supportive and challenging conditions for their learning and explore in what ways those conditions are productive or unproductive for them, based on ecological perspective as a theoretical framework. Qualitative data were collected from weekly seminar notes and field notes by the researchers, a focus group with the preservice teachers, and course evaluation feedback. Through a constant comparative analysis approach, the findings indicate that both supportive and challenging learning conditions were created by collaborating teachers, preservice teachers, and the university supervisors. The findings illuminate the complex responsibilities of early childhood teacher educators to develop horizontal expertise for both themselves and preservice teachers so they can negotiate the best practices from research and the reality of school contexts.     

Making Research Relevant in Preservice Early Childhood Teacher Education

Increasingly, researchers, teacher educators and governmental agencies underline the need for early childhood professionals to be able to conduct and use relevant research in their practice. In contrast, early childhood teachers tend to draw exclusively on practical advice rather than research evidence to evaluate and develop their teaching. To address these contradictions in expectations, recently developed preservice early childhood teacher education programs have included a core research subject that aims to foster an appreciation of the value of research and its contributions to professional practice. This study examines the effectiveness of teaching and learning approaches designed to make research relevant to undergraduates at an Australian regional university by tracking students' changing views about research during a one-semester teaching period. The findings of this study show that relevant learning experiences, such as designing and conducting a simple research project, modeling research, collaborative inquiry, focused reading, and organizing a research conference, significantly changed student perceptions of the relevance of research to their teaching and their future role as early childhood professionals.     

Perceptions of Preservice Early Educators: How Adults Support Preschoolers' Social Development

Studies show that for preschool-age children, social skills can have a profound effect on, and be a predictor of, future societal success and school achievement. Therefore, it is essential that young children develop appropriate social behaviors. To do this, preschoolers need support and guidance from the adults in their life: parents, family, and early educators. This study looks at the perceptions of preservice early educators in regards to their understanding of preschoolers' social and antisocial behaviors, their assumptions about what appropriate adult interventions might be, and their beliefs about the role they, as early educators, play in supporting young children's social development.     

Achieving Cultural Competency: Assessment of US-Based Counselor Educators Instructing Internationally

This article presents the outcomes of a qualitative investigation addressing the global exchange of counselor education. Findings delineate key traits and behaviors applied by counselor educators and counseling psychologists in cross-cultural exchanges. Personal traits noted by educators as essential for international exchanges included flexibility, respect, openness to learning, and passion for the experiences provided by international travel. Factors that increased cultural competency were cited as communication skills, increased comprehension of the context, and understanding of the counseling profession within the culture.     

Creativity in the Early Childhood Classroom: Perspectives of Preservice Teachers

This study examined how preservice teachers view the nature and role of creativity in light of the complexities of contemporary early childhood classrooms. A multiple methods approach was utilized and data were collected with the Questionnaire Examining Student Teachers' Beliefs about Creativity (Diakidoy & Kanari, 1999 Diakidoy, I. and Kanari, E. 1999. Student teacher beliefs about creativity. British Educational Research Journal, 25: 225–243. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) survey instrument and through a qualitative examination of a learning community whose members were preservice teachers engaged in their student-teaching semester. Findings from both the survey and qualitative measures indicate that the vast majority of preservice teachers valued creative thinking; however, they voiced concerns over their own unclear understandings of how to support children's creative endeavors in complex classroom environments. Additionally, this research strongly suggests that early childhood teacher educators take a supportive role in the development of preservice teachers' understandings of the interrelationships between content, pedagogy, and creativity in early childhood classrooms.     

Early Childhood Special Educators and the Hospital Ethics Committee

WITH THE advent of PL 99‐457, in the United States, early childhood special educators may be expected to observe and/or serve on Hospital Ethics Committees in order to assist families better who have seriously ill and handicapped infants in the neonatal intensive care units. To fulfil provisions of the new legislation, the educator needs to be aware of some of the issues that could be considered by the Committees. These issues could include alternative viewpoints on infant euthanasia and the right to life, the provisions of current child abuse legislation, and possible effects on families. This article discusses these concerns and suggests some guidelines which may assist in the training of early childhood special educators for such responsibilities.     

Fostering Cross Cultural Competence in Preservice Teachers Through Multicultural Education Experiences

Diversity is increasing in our classrooms implying the need for teachers to be prepared to work effectively with students from different backgrounds, such as cultural, linguistic or national origin. Additionally, the focus on diversity education is important because of the need for students to develop, from an early age, the ability to communicate with and relate to others from diverse backgrounds. This article focuses on cross cultural experiences gained from cross cultural partnerships between preservice teachers and English Language Learners over the course of a semester at a medium size public university. Evidence from this project suggests the need for teacher educators to model and support appropriate cultural competencies that are critical in classrooms that are fast becoming more culturally as well as linguistically diverse.     

The Effects of a Teaching Methods Course on Early Childhood Preservice Teachers' Beliefs

This study examines the effectiveness of an educational methods course for changing early childhood preservice teachers' instructional beliefs. The teaching methods course emphasized constructivist teaching principles. Seventy-eight of the early childhood education preservice teachers who were enrolled in this course filled out the Teacher Belief Survey at the beginning and end of the 15-week course. The results of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis indicated that participation in the teaching methods course had significantly changed preservice teachers' beliefs. As a result of the course, preservice teachers' constructivist beliefs increased, and these beliefs became more concrete and coherent. Results are discussed in relation to the literature, and the implications of examining early childhood education programs are explored.     

Developing a Data-Driven Assessment for Early Childhood Candidates

ABSTRACT

Decision-making is essential for the work of teaching. Preservice teachers must learn to leverage knowledge about young readers’ strengths, needs, and interests in order to plan and teach guided reading lessons skillfully. However, limited research examines preservice teachers’ decision-making based on what they know about individual children. In this qualitative case study, we report findings from 12 preservice teachers enrolled in a reading methods course who used teacher knowledge to inform their teaching decisions for guided reading lessons with Kindergarteners. Findings reveal how participants used knowledge of learners to make planning as well as in-the-moment teaching decisions. The data show that most of these decisions were lesson planning decisions about text selection and word solving strategies, indicating that participants were beginning to engage in responsive teaching strategies. This study makes a new contribution to early childhood teacher education literature by underscoring the significance of learner knowledge in the context of authentic teaching practice while learning to teach guided reading to young children.     

Combating Gender Disparity in Education: Guidelines for Early Childhood Educators

Research has indicated a gender disparity in early education environments. This disparity has been recognized in terms of the student–teacher interaction, the differing types of play fostered, the varying use of praise and gender-specific messages, and the stereotypical messages evident in children's literature or play materials. The purpose of this article is to outline areas within a classroom that prospective teachers or childcare providers can update to reflect a more gender-fair environment. Suggestions for assessing classrooms for an antibiased environment are also offered.     

What Early Childhood Educators Need to Know About Divorced Fathers

Early childhood professionals can play an important role in helping divorced fathers to be more involved in the lives of their children. They can include involving fathers in all school and classroom activities from parent conferences to class celebrations. Educators can also serve as child care consultants to help fathers become better caretakers. By taking these measures, teachers will not only improve the emotional health of children and their fathers, but will also improve the educational experiences of children     

Understanding Asperger Disorder: A Primer for Early Childhood Educators

The psychiatric community has only recognized Asperger Disorder (AD) as a distinct syndrome since 1994. Therefore, for most early childhood educators, AD is still a new diagnosis. The majority of the children with AD are being educated in the general education classroom although it's not uncommon to see specialized placements. Unfortunately, due to the uniqueness of this condition, teachers often question their academic and classroom management skills with these youngsters. This article suggests basic strategies in each area of AD that are useful in helping the student demonstrate success in the general education classroom or in specialized services. In addition, the characteristics of AD in young children are provided with some early indicators that may be important in early identification and referrral for specialized services.     

Assessing Beliefs of Preservice Early Childhood Education Teachers Using Q-Sort Methodology

The purpose of this study was to assess the beliefs of students and faculty in a 4-year birth–kindergarten teacher preparation program using the Teacher Belief Q-Sort (TBQ). Data were collected over one academic year from a total of 63 students, 35 students at the beginning of their coursework and 28 students at the end of their program, completing their student teaching experience. The faculty (n = 8) in the program completed the TBQ to provide a criterion sort as well as to assess the consistency in philosophy across faculty members who teach preservice teachers. Compilations of rankings are presented to describe beliefs related to children, discipline, and teaching practices held by students who are at different points in their education program. Criterion comparison results indicate that student teachers at the end of their education program report beliefs more similar to faculty beliefs than students at the beginning of their education program. However, findings suggest that the student teaching experience does not appear to significantly alter beliefs about children, discipline and teaching practices. These results are discussed in terms of child-directed versus teacher-directed styles of preservice teachers and implications of assessing beliefs for teacher preparation programs.     

持续发展中的澳门特区幼教事业

澳门回归祖国后,幼儿教育事业获得了飞速发展.由于特区政府重视,各项旨在促进幼儿教育事业可持续发展的法律法规和政策相继出台.在相关法律法规和政策的推动下,特区政府教育部门实施了一系列关于幼稚园课程与教学革新的计划.近年来,教育部门除了制定师资的学历规范外,还以各种形式推动在职教师的专业发展.