教育信息技术促进幼儿教师专业化成长

实现教育现代化,首先需要一支具有现代化教育理念和现代化教育手段的师资队伍,这就需要我们不断地搭建平台,加快教师专业化成长。近年来,我园着力教师教育信息化技术的学习与运用,明确教师专业发展目标,搭建学习平台,通过学以致用的有效措施,在教育信息技能掌握、教学运用等方面取得了显著成效,加速了新时期的教师专业化成长进程。     

Professional Development for International Teachers: Examining TPACK and Technology Integration Decision Making

This mixed-methods study explored the impacts of a semester-long technology professional development for secondary school international teachers from developing nations around the world. We used (a) a survey approach to examine international teachers' perceived technology integration abilities using the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework and (b) a design task to understand their rationale behind technology integration decisions. As a group (N = 16), international teachers reported increased abilities in all TPACK domains. Qualitative analysis of their rationales revealed that though teachers learned to consider the affordances of technology, technology access issues were pivotal in their choice and use of technology in instruction planning. With education becoming increasingly global, the study has implications for the motivation and design of technology professional development programs for international teachers.     

A Comprehensive Approach to Technology Training for Early Childhood Teachers

This study describes the development and implementation of a comprehensive approach to computer technology training for early childhood teachers. Departing from the singular goal of conveying skills and knowledge, a comprehensive program targets the development of teachers' attitudes and practices as well as knowledge and skills. All 3 areas are regarded as equally important for the development of teacher technology proficiency. Evaluation of the program documented its effectiveness. Compared to nonparticipants, teachers in the training program had significantly higher scores in all 3 goal areas: attitudes, knowledge and skills, and practices. Results of the study indicate that a comprehensive approach is an effective means of training teachers in computer technology. Implications of the study are discussed with regard to the strategy of developing the “whole teacher” and emergence of the domain of educational technology.     

A Comprehensive Approach to Technology Training for Early Childhood Teachers

This study describes the development and implementation of a comprehensive approach to computer technology training for early childhood teachers. Departing from the singular goal of conveying skills and knowledge, a comprehensive program targets the development of teachers' attitudes and practices as well as knowledge and skills. All 3 areas are regarded as equally important for the development of teacher technology proficiency. Evaluation of the program documented its effectiveness. Compared to nonparticipants, teachers in the training program had significantly higher scores in all 3 goal areas: attitudes, knowledge and skills, and practices. Results of the study indicate that a comprehensive approach is an effective means of training teachers in computer technology. Implications of the study are discussed with regard to the strategy of developing the "whole teacher" and emergence of the domain of educational technology.     

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.     

基于教师专业发展的教师教育实践模式

培养专家型的中小学教师，改革教师教育模式，加强教师培训机构的能力建设，是中小学教师队伍建设的一项重要课题。作为“中馍甘肃基础教育项目”（GBEP）子项目之一的“中英小学教育硕士班培养计划”，确立培养专家型的新型教师为目标，坚持“顶层设计、科学规划、实践创新”的宗旨，从培养模式、培养规格、培养途径到课程设置、课程开发和教学策略等方面，制订了一个项目推展和实施的教师培训计划，把自上而下的培训与教育之间的学习、观摩、研讨相结合，注重促进教师的自我发展，为教师教育和教师专业发展实践探索出了一种全新的模式。     

Early Childhood Education in Societal Context: Teachers in Three Countries Speak About Early Childhood Education

Building on the cross-cultural patterns and systems research as well as social constructivism, in-depth interviews were conducted with key informant early childhood teachers in three regions with similar characteristics in Sweden, Russia, and in the United States. Inductive analyses revealed differences in responses among Swedish, Russian and American informants related to the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of societal system. United States teacher informants had a great number of separate topic comments and distributed them more evenly across all levels than did Russian and Swedish teacher informants who had more emphasis at the meso level. United States and Russian teacher informants discussed the lack of societal support for young children and their families, while Swedish teacher informants seemed to almost take this support for ranted. United States teacher informants suggested that early childhood programs were important in developing support networks among parents, while Russian teacher informants often gave information to parents and Swedish teachers spoke about mutually sharing information. United States teacher informants desired both strict rules with strong academic content and extension of the child's initiations through play; they emphasized activities and materials. Swedish teachers discussed a child- centered approach to social learning and creativity and desired to be with children rather than do activities with them. Russian teacher informants emphasized the importance of obedience, aesthetic education, and preparation for school and the labor of the larger society. These study outcomes deepen understanding about the multidemensional relationships between early childhood programs and societal contexts in which they are embedded, and they suggest alternative approaches to working with young children and their families.     

Shifting to Remote Learning During COVID-19: Differences for Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education Teachers

This study explored similarities and differences in how early childhood education (ECE) teachers (n?=?947) and early childhood special education (ECSE) teachers (n?=?160) provided remote learning to young children and their families following COVID-19 shelter in place orders in the spring of 2020. The most utilized remote learning activities for both ECE and ECSE teachers were the provision of activities for families to use at home, communication with families, online lessons, and singing songs and reading books. Both types of professionals spent more time planning and communicating with families than providing instruction to children. Results of chi-square tests of independence revealed differences in activities provided, how time was spent, and training received by professional role. Open-ended responses revealed particular challenges for ECE and ECSE teachers. Findings are discussed in the context of how the early childhood field adapted quickly to remote learning during COVID-19 and the implications for ongoing technology support for early childhood personnel based on their professional role.

     

Early Childhood Teachers at the Center: A Qualitative Case Study of Professional Development in an Urban District

Professional development for early childhood educators (ECE PD) is an essential component of supporting a professional early childhood workforce. Yet research on ECE PD frequently centers on narrow fidelity data, while teachers’ individual voices and teaching contexts are only rarely considered in order to understand teacher experiences with PD initiatives. This qualitative case study utilizes the critical ecology of the early childhood profession framework (Miller et al., Early childhood grows up: Towards a critical ecology of the profession, Springer, London) to examine process-related questions in a large urban district’s PD initiative connected with the launch of a new district-developed kindergarten curriculum. Examining teacher experiences through an ecological lens, the study focuses on two kindergarten teachers, viewing them as active agents in their own professional learning and situating them within their particular teaching contexts. Data sources included classroom observations, teacher interviews, and curriculum fidelity data. Although fidelity data provided some information about teacher responses to the PD, triangulating this data with teacher accounts of adapting the curriculum to their particular context enabled more nuanced understandings about how teachers adapt information from PD sessions to their particular teaching contexts. This study demonstrates the need for research on ECE PD to go beyond fidelity data to explore process-related questions about teachers PD experiences.     

Technology User Groups and Early Childhood Education: A Preliminary Study

This article presents a preliminary examination of the potential of Technology User Groups as a professional development venue for early childhood education professionals in developing operational and functional competence in using hardware and software components of a Technology toolkit. Technology user groups are composed of varying numbers of participants having an interest in technology, and are led by one or more skilled facilitators who meet with participants across time to help them acquire and demonstrate new technology skill sets. A series of these groups were conducted with seven early education professionals serving young preschool children who were at risk or who had disabilities. The impact of these technology user groups was examined using self-reports subsequent to individual participation. Specific data were collected regarding the types of technologies that had been used, and the types of classroom instructional products that had been created and implemented in classrooms using the technologies. A discussion of the value of technology user groups is presented.     

An Analytic Study of the Professional Development Research in Early Childhood Education

Research Findings: The goal of this study was to examine empirical research on the design, delivery, and measurement of the effects of professional development (PD) for early childhood educators in order to provide insight into what the field has accomplished as well as suggest directions for future PD programs and research. Through the use of rigorous inclusion criteria outlined by S. M. Wilson, R. E. Floden, and J. Ferrini-Mundy (2001 Vu, J., Jeon, H. J., &; Howes, C. (2008). Formal education, credential, or both: Early childhood program classroom practices. Early Education &; Development, 19, 479–504.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), 73 studies were included and analyzed. On average, 25% (M = 12.68, SD = 9.99) of references in each study were specifically about PD. The majority of studies (n = 39) targeted some form of language and literacy instruction, whereas only 5 studies targeted math and 1 study targeted science. A total of 35 different delivery mechanisms were used to provide PD, with 40 studies including some form of coaching and 45 including training workshops. The studies used a wide range of methods to measure PD-related outcomes: 51% (n = 37) of studies examined changes in teacher practice, 18% (n = 13) measured changes in teachers’ knowledge, 40% (n = 29) measured changes in children’s learning, and 11% (n = 8) measured changes in children’s behavior. Practice or Policy: Based on the results of this study, there are 4 major ways in which PD for early childhood educators can be developed. Researchers and providers of PD should (a) continue to draw from multiple resources to inform PD implementation designs, (b) include more diversity in the content of instruction targeted by PD, (c) experiment with innovative formats for delivering PD, and (d) create better means of evaluating PD.     

Growing Early Childhood Education Teachers in Rural Areas

Currently in South Africa, there are over 20 000 underqualified Grade R teachers who are enlisted into service to ensure that Grade R teaching can continue. The aim of the study reported on was to investigate the challenges and needs faced by underqualified teachers in order to promote the professional development of teachers teaching in rural areas. Phenomenology was used as the research design. By means of a qualitative research approach, purposeful sampling selected only underqualified early childhood education (ECE) teachers teaching in rural schools for more than five years or more in three provinces, as well as their school principals. The findings revealed the following needs and challenges: the need for resources; poor infrastructure; lack of parental involvement; overcrowded classrooms; the need for in-service training; needs of the rural communities; and support from an open distance learning (ODL) institution.     

幼儿教育的新视点:可持续发展教育

20世纪80代以来，可持续发展的理念已经在世界范围内广为传播，可持续发展教育由此开始展开。各国幼教人士开始探讨幼儿可持续发展教育的意义、目标、内容与方法，认为幼儿可持续发展教育应当成为可持续发展教育体系的重要组成部分，并在促进世界可持续发展中发挥应有的作用。     

The Research Dynamic: A Professional Development Model for Secondary School Science Teachers

This essay summarizes the author's 10 years of experience at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation mentoring secondary school science teachers during 8-wk Summer Research Institutes. The summary is presented as a learning model, which we call the research dynamic. This model consists of three interlocked components: specified ignorance, peer interactions, and gateway experiments. Specified ignorance is based on the work of the sociologist Robert K. Merton. It is essentially the art of highlighting what is not known about a phenomenon but must become known for further progress. In practice, specified ignorance is framed as a hypothesis, a prediction, or a question. It is commonly the outcome of peer interactions, which are the second essential component of the research dynamic. Peer interactions are the inevitable outcome of having teachers work together in the same laboratory on related research topics. These topics are introduced as gateway experiments, the third component. The most important attribute of gateway experiments is their authenticity. These experiments, when first carried out, opened new scientific vistas. They are also technically, conceptually, and logically simple. We illustrate the research dynamic with a line of seminal experiments in biochemical genetics. We provide evidence that the research dynamic produced significantly positive effects on teachers' confidence in their professional preparedness.     

毕生发展观与早期儿童教育

毕生发展观以贯穿人的一生的发展历程作为指导思想来看待儿童每个时期的发展变化.本文在介绍其基本理论要义的基础上,重新解读了在毕生发展观指导下的早期儿童发展与教育的内涵,同时就毕生发展观指导下的儿童早期教育原则进行了阐述,以期为早期儿童教育的理论与实践研究提供一种新的视角.     

进化、发展与儿童早期教育

进化(种系发生)、发展(个体发生)与儿童早期教育之间的关系是儿童教育无法回避的基本理论问题.本文通过对标准社会科学模型的分析,在进化心理学,特别是进化发展心理学的理论基础上对进化、发展和儿童早期教育之间的关系作了初步讨论,指出应重新认识本能,重视生物学初级能力发展的重要性和自然选择在儿童早期的作用,同时提出儿童早期教育应加强对进化和生物因素的关注.     

Transformative Professional Development: A Model for Urban Science Education Reform

This study presents a model of Transformative Professional Development (TPD) for use in sustained, collaborative, professional development of teachers in urban middle school science. TPD focuses on urban science teacher change and is responsive to school climate, teacher needs, and teacher beliefs with the intention of promoting change in practice. In this study, TPD was used to meet the needs of individual teachers and the collective needs of schools in reform efforts. The experiences of the eight teachers engaged in this process of professional growth, including their changes in practices and beliefs, provide the focus of this paper. Findings in this study revealed that through the use of TPD, participants in this study improved science teaching effectiveness and began to transform their negative school climate and create positive classroom learning environments. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the U.S. Department of Education.