Validating the early childhood classroom observation measure in first and third grade classrooms

The present study reports on the psychometric properties of the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure (ECCOM) in Finnish and Estonian first and third grade classrooms. The observation data were collected from 91 first grade teachers and 70 third grade teachers. Teachers' curriculum goals, teaching experience and the classroom size were measured also. The results of confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of the three-factor model (management, climate, and instruction) for each dimension—child-centred, teacher-directed, and child-dominated—in both grades. The reliability of the dimensions and sub-scales was good, and some evidence was also found for criterion validity. The findings imply that ECCOM is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring teaching practices in primary school.     

Dolls in the early childhood classroom

Dolls are a part of every culture. From the beginning of time, children have played with dolls, using them as friends and confidants, as surrogates while the child recreates domestic situations, and as props for acting out fantasies. Dolls help children practice the nurturing role they see their parents performing. Dolls can be loved or punished, kissed or spanked, rocked to sleep or sent to bed with no supper, providing an acceptable outlet for a child's range of emotions. Children have the same kind of control over their dolls' lives that parents have over the lives of their children. Eden Ross Lipson, children's book editor ofThe New York Times, notes the universality of children's play with dolls. She suggests, The will to create dolls, to give them personalities and family relationships, to imagine their emotions and act out fantasies in which they figure, is one of the characteristics that makes us all more alike than different as human beings (Lipson, 1986).Blakely Fetridge Bundy is a writer, consultant, and teacher at Willow Wood Pre-School in Winnetka, IL.     

Fostering creativity in the early childhood classroom

Most early childhood teachers would tell you that creativity is important; and that creativity should be considered an integral part of every early childhood classroom. Yet, too often, it is slighted in some areas or limited to being a part of art education. How can creativity can be nurtured and developed in all cognitive and social aspects of an early childhood classroom? The key to this fostering of creativity is for each teacher to examine his or her own filters that can help to foster, or hinder, as the case may be, creativity in that classroom setting. By examining adult attitudes, classroom atmosphere, and children's activities and materials, and adjusting, where necessary, to incorporate certain positive elements for creativity, early childhood educators are more likely to establish a trusting, flexible, and safe environment that allows and stimulates the creative process in an atmosphere of respect.     

Psychological effects of classroom noise on early childhood teachers

The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between exposure to classroom noise and the psychological well-being of full-time teaching staff in 14 preschool settings located across Western Sydney. The participants comprised 25 teachers, each of whom was administered a range of instruments. The results indicated that 40% of teachers were subjected to daily or peak noise exposures beyond the maximum permissible levels according to the Australian Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) standard. Further, the unique contribution of daily noise dose received by the staff to the prediction of their vocational strain, interpersonal strain, and defensive functioning was evident through multiple regression analyses. It was concluded that vocational strain amongst preschool teachers may be related, in part, to a combination of elevated daily doses of noise, and years of teaching experience.     

Interweaving a mindfully somatic pedagogy into an early childhood classroom

There has been considerable distress in early childhood classrooms due to a cultural bias of Cartesian dualism, which has led to the bullying and disappearance of Body in education. Efforts of bringing about shifts in pedagogical practices toward holistic, bodily views of the self must be supported and developed. However, with classrooms that are filled with less movement and play, the marginalization of Body is of major concern. Interdisciplinary educational settings may be rich in exposing potentials and challenges of a nondual pedagogy implemented in unconsciously dualistic classroom cultures. The purpose of this article is to describe the barriers to implementation of a Mindfully Somatic Pedagogy, as well as affordances to young children throughout a preschool yoga class over an academic year. This research provides a basis for understanding how a Mindfully Somatic Pedagogy can curate holistic, first-person experiences of young children’s bodily selves within a classroom. Likewise, differing expectations of Body from adults in classrooms can lead to mixed messages for children. Understanding how bodily experiences afford young children’s development and teachers responses to Body in the classroom is informative in understanding the roles a school culture can have on the relationship between child development and teacher pedagogy.     

The differentiated classroom observation scale

This article presents a new classroom observation scale that was developed to examine the differential learning activities and experiences of gifted children educated in regular classroom settings. The Differentiated Classroom Observation Scale (DCOS) is presented in total, with clarification of the coding practices and strategies. Although the DCOS was developed to examine the impact of differentiated classroom practices for gifted children, it is expected that the scale could be used for observing the educational experiences of any identifiable group of children. Reflections on the benefits offered by the DCOS that are not available with existing measures are provided, and include (a) the ability to contrast the educational experiences of two groups of learners; (b) documentation of a variety of educational factors including pedagogy, student engagement, and level of cognitive activity; and (c) preservation of contextual factors for deeper investigation through a database‐driven record keeping system that maintains disaggregated data from a series of short observational segments.     

Gender behaviors in an early childhood classroom through an ethnographic lens

The purpose of the study was to examine, using an ethnographic perspective, young children's gender behaviors. Four children, 3 to 5 years old, are described using videotaped observations of a university laboratory preschool. This study revealed, through individualprofiles of the children, that gender behaviors in early childhood are constructed by the individual interacting with her his social world. Also, gender behaviors were found to be integrated with other social processes, namely, student and peer behaviors. Finally, sociocultural and poststructuralist perspectives revealed the obvious and subtle gender behaviors of young children. Thus, researchers using ethnographic methods can explain the complexity in which children experience becoming a person .     

Charting new territories: re-assembling childhood sexuality in the early years classroom

Since the moral panic discourse is shutting down discussions about how children are making meaning of gender and sexuality, this paper argues that a new logic is needed for understanding childhood sexuality. A postdevelopmental logic is created by working with Deleuze and Guattari's [Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizoprhenia. Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. London: Athlone and A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. London: Continuum. (Orig. pub. 1980)] concepts ‘assemblage’, ‘desire’, and ‘territories’ to understand childhood sexuality in ways that do not rely on the notion of a ‘moral panic’. By re-assembling data generated from an exploratory study of talk by young children about gender and sexuality this paper creates new connections about childhood, gender, and sexualities. It does this by moving away from developmental framings, initiating a different dialogue about curiosities, human and nonhuman bodies, and desires, to chart new territories about childhood sexuality in the early years classroom.     

Dialogic classroom talk in early childhood education: The effect on language skills and social competence

The first purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of dialogic classroom talk on children's language skills (i.e. oral communicative competence and receptive vocabulary knowledge). The second purpose was to examine the effect of this type of classroom talk on children's social competence (i.e. theory of mind and social acceptance). A total of 17 teachers and 311 children (aged 4–7 years) participated in this study. Eight teachers participated in an 8-week intervention directed at dialogic classroom talk. Multilevel analyses revealed that the intervention had a significant effect on children's oral communicative competence. No significant effects were found on children's receptive vocabulary knowledge, theory of mind, and social acceptance. The results of this study indicate that dialogic classroom talk is beneficial for children's oral communicative competence. Further research is required in order to investigate how dialogic classroom talk might affect receptive vocabulary knowledge and social competence as well.     

Stability and patterns of classroom quality in German early childhood education and care

Many education systems worldwide have dedicated a significant amount of resources to improve quality levels in early childhood education and care. Research can contribute to this goal by providing information about conditions of high-quality education and care and reasons for changes in the quality provided to children. This study therefore analyzes the stability of educational quality and patterns of dependency of process quality on possibly determining context factors over a period of 3 consecutive school years to detect mechanisms of change and patterns of quality. Longitudinal data of a field study with annual assessments in 97 German classrooms were analyzed via growth curve analyses using Bayesian estimation. The analyses revealed an increase in process quality provided in the classrooms. Classroom composition characteristics showed strongest relations to status and change of process quality; allocated resources and characteristics of the professional staff were less strongly related.     

Qualities of classroom observation systems

ABSTRACT

Observation systems are increasingly used around the world for a variety of purposes; 2 critical purposes are to understand and to improve teaching. As observation systems differ considerably, individuals must decide what observation system to use. But the field does not have a common specification of an observation system, nor does it have systematic ways of thinking about how observation systems are similar and different. Given this reality and the renewed global interest in observation systems, this article first defines the observation system concept and then presents a framework through which to understand, categorize, and compare observation systems. We apply the framework to 4 well-known observation systems that vary in important ways. The article concludes with a discussion of the results of the application of the framework and some important implications of those findings.     

Direct observation of classroom behavior

Summary In this paper we have examined the uses to which direct observation has been put in the study of classroom processes, and taken note of several observation systems possessing a variety of distinct attributes. Problems encountered in the use of observation, chiefly those of obtaining accurate and stable measures, were explored.Future developments in direct observation procedures seem likely to center around several foci. Knowledge about classroom behavior, its correlates, and its effects requires replication and comparison among studies. Inventing new systems prohibits these comparisons. Therefore, users of direct observation are likely to become more interested in the basic dimensions underlying their observational data. This should facilitate the development of sound, behaviorally based instructional theories.Basic instructional dimensions can also be used to generate new observation systems, which are syntheses of the major components of existing systems and which therefore will allow comparisons to these systems. However, these dimensions will be delimited only if researchers take the trouble to investigate and report them.Finally, the use of observation in research and evaluation should increase particularly to measure process variables intervening between the application of a treatment or a new program and outcome variables. As more educators become aware of the potential information available from observation, and as our knowledge of observation system variables increases, observation seems likely to become a standard procedure in classroom evaluation studies and field research.

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Die Direkte Beobachtung von Klassenverhalten

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Observation directe du comportement en classe

     

The usefulness of an observational measure of young children's social and mastery behaviors in early childhood classrooms

This article reviews problems and issues in early childhood evaluation, and discusses advantages and disadvantages associated with using classroom observations. A specific observational measure of social and mastery task behaviors in preschool and primary-school children, the Bronson Social and Task Skill Profile (Bronson, 1985, 1991a), is described, and its usefulness is discussed by reviewing the way it has been used in several research studies.     

高校多媒体教室的使用现状及对策研究

随着教育信息化进程的深入,多媒体教室也日渐普及。但是在使用和管理的过程中还存在着很多实际问题,针对这些问题提出具体的解决方案。     

Touch your toes! Developing a direct measure of behavioral regulation in early childhood

Behavioral aspects of self-regulation, including controlling and directing actions, paying attention, and remembering instructions, are critical for successful functioning in preschool and elementary school. In recent years, several direct assessments of these skills have appeared, but few studies provide complete psychometric data and many are not easy to administer. We developed a direct measure of children's behavioral regulation, the Head-to-Toes Task, and report performance of participants aged 36–78 months, including a group of Spanish-speaking children, from two different sites (N = 353; N = 92). We examined construct validity, examiner reliability, sources of variation, and associations between task scores and background characteristics. Results showed that the task was valid, reliable, and demonstrated variability in children's scores. A cross-classified hierarchical growth curve analysis indicated that girls, participants assessed in English, and higher-socioeconomic status (SES) children achieved slightly higher average scores than did boys, Spanish-speaking and lower-SES children, but effect sizes were small. Older participants achieved higher scores than did younger children, and there were no effects for site. Results suggest that the Head-to-Toes Task is an informative and easy-to-administer direct assessment of children's behavioral regulation. We discuss implications for its use in early childhood settings.     

Financial literacy and classroom practices among early childhood and elementary teachers in India and the US

This study compared the financial literacy and teaching practices of 82 early and elementary teachers in India and US using a 43-item survey. Analysis showed that financial literacy of Indian teachers was lower than their American counterparts. Teachers in India enjoyed teaching financial literacy more than teachers in the US. Indian teachers received more professional development training than American teachers. Indian teachers reported using the school store, children’s literature and pictorial worksheets while American teachers reported using learning centres, play money, fake credit cards, technology and games to teach financial literacy.