日本学前教育中的教师角色与地位研究

经过长期的保育实践和探索,无论是从教育理念上还是在具体的实践工作中,日本学前教育中关于教师角色和地位的要求都越来越明确,这也是日本学前教育不断完善的一个重要方面。日本幼儿园和保育园的教师在每天最基本的工作中,重心就是理解孩子,帮助孩子增加体验。所以,无论是以布置环境为主的日常的基本工作,还是相关的研究或进修,学前教育工作者都必须围绕着“尊重孩子的自主性,重视孩子的主体活动”,开展符合每个孩子发育和成长的工作。     

Understanding and Promoting Resilience in the Context of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Brain development in the early years is especially susceptible to toxic stress caused by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). According to epigenetics research, toxic stress has the capacity to physically change a child’s brain and be hardwired into the child’s biology via genes in the DNA. The compelling nature of the impact of early adversity on later health and development has generated interest in protection against the impact of early adversity. Research highlights three interrelated “core protective systems” associated with positive adaptation. Early childhood educators are in a unique position to play a role in early identification of ACEs and to contribute to the development of protective skills. Adults within the early childhood education community can assist in increasing physical health and mental well-being for children who have encountered ACEs. Safe and healthy environments that allow the child to play, explore, and maximize his/her capacities are examples of how individual protective factors can be enhanced. Early childhood educators can support the child’s protective system by building the child’s personal attributes associated with resiliency, such as self-efficacy and self-regulation. Early childhood educators can provide a secure relationship, which is especially critical for children who have experienced trauma because it can provide extra support in times of stress. Additionally, by working collaboratively with parents, early childhood educators provide an additional layer of protection for children who experience adversity. Lastly, at the community level, early childhood educators can bring awareness to the public and private sectors by informing others of ACEs effect on early brain development and the link to later outcomes on individuals and society. Society is positively impacted when ACEs are reduced and individuals are raised in thriving families and communities.     

Joint analysis of preschool attendance and school performance in the short and long-run

This paper aims at explaining the academic performance of a sample of children starting their first year at public schools in Montevideo, Uruguay, during 1999. We are mainly interested in the effect of pre-school education on the children's academic results. Previous probit and OLS estimations suggested that pre-school education has a positive impact on short and long term school performance. However, these results could be biased because a rather strong endogeinity of the pre-school education variable. We solved the problem by bivariate probit and treatment effects estimations. The results confirmed the bias and suggest that our previous estimations underestimated the positive effect of pre-school educations. Thus, we found fairly strong empirical evidence to suggest that having pre-school education has a short term positive effect on these children's results in the first year at school, and the long-term effect, after six years, seems to be somewhat weaker but is still positive. We also found several other factors connected with schools and with households that might lie behind children's short-term and long-term performance. It is important to note that, in the long-run, we found that a variable reflecting the general performance of the school had a strong effect on the academic performance after six year.     

Teacher Professional Development and Student Reading Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects

Abstract

Research-based instruction is necessary to support students’ reading development, and professional development (PD) is a critical avenue to ensuring high-quality instructional practices. To date, there has been no comprehensive review focused on the effects of teacher PD on student reading achievement. As such, the purpose of the present meta-analysis was to examine the impact of teacher PD on reading outcomes for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. A secondary aim was to determine whether study, program, or participant characteristics were potential moderators of these effects. A comprehensive search of published and unpublished research between 1975 and 2017 resulted in 28 studies that met prescribed criteria. Results indicate that teacher PD has a moderate and significant, positive average effect on reading achievement. However, moderator analyses did not explain the variance in the effects of PD on student outcomes. Primarily, studies represented typically-developing students in the elementary grades, with only three studies including middle school students and four studies including reading outcomes of students with or at-risk for reading disabilities. Recommendations for improved study designs that allow for more in-depth investigation of the characteristics of effective PD and mechanisms of change in student outcomes are discussed.     

不同地区儿童语言入学准备的调查研究

该研究采用测验法对四川省的绵阳、南充、自贡三个地级市的12所幼儿园,共540名幼儿的语言入学准备现状进行了调查研究。研究结果表明:总体上看,三个地区的儿童在语言入学准备上呈显著性差异,绵阳地区的儿童在语言测验的七个方面的具体表现水平均显著高于南充地区和自贡地区的儿童;不同地区的儿童在语言准备能力上的差异性与测验试题的难度有关,在一定程度上,语言任务的难度越大,解决问题所需要的综合能力就越强,不同地区儿童的差异就越大;三个地区的儿童在语言学习品质上均存在着明显的入学准备不足的情况。研究进一步分析发现,三个地区的儿童在语言入学准备上的差异性与地区的经济发展水平、师资力量的配置以及教育者(教师和家长)的教育教学观念有着显著的相关性。     

Early Educators’ Collective Workplace Stress as a Predictor of Professional Development’s Impacts on Children’s Development

Although professional development is widely used to improve the impacts of early childhood education, little is known about the conditions under which such interventions promote child outcomes. This study applies newly developed methods for quantifying intervention impact heterogeneity to understand whether educators’ collective workplace stress moderates professional development’s impacts on children’s language and literacy skills, executive functioning, and learning behaviors. Within a sample of 406 children from the National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education Professional Development Study (M_age = 4.17; 50% female; 50% Black, 32% Latinx, 11% White), professional development positively impacted child outcomes in centers where educators collectively reported high workplace stress but negatively impacted child outcomes in centers where educators collectively reported low workplace stress.     

Determinants of child outcomes in a cohort of children in the Free Pre-School Year in Ireland, 2012/2013

The study analyses determinants of child outcomes in a cohort of children who participated in the Free Pre-School Year. Child outcomes are measured through a before-and-after assessment of children using the Early Development Instrument. The sample comprises 448 children in 70 early years centres. There are three main findings. First, children with more or better skills at the beginning of the study period tended to have more or better skills at the end of this period, and vice versa, indicating that the broad parameters of a child's progress during the Free Pre-School Year have already been set by the child's development during previous years. Second, child and family characteristics are the largest set of measured influences on child outcomes by comparison with the pre-school system, with social class being the single biggest influence. Third, there were significant skill gaps between children at the start of the Free Pre-School Year which remained unchanged or widened during the year. The main conclusion is that the measures required to improve child outcomes in pre-school need to extend well beyond the confines of the early years sector to include all influences, especially family and social class influences, on child development and need to begin at the start of the child's life.     

The impact of pre-school on adolescents’ outcomes: Evidence from a recent English cohort

This paper investigates the relationship between attendance at pre-school school and children's outcomes into early adulthood. In particular, we are interested in: child cognitive development at ages 11, 14 and 16; intentions towards tertiary education; economic activity in early adulthood; a group of non-cognitive outcomes such as risky health behaviour; and personality traits. Using matching methods to control for a very rich set of child and family characteristics, we find evidence that pre-school childcare moderately improves results in cognitive tests at age 11 and 14, and 16. Positive effects are especially noticeable for girls and children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Results for non-cognitive outcomes are weaker: we do not find any significant evidence of improvement in psychological well-being, petty crime involvement, or on almost all health behaviours. While the cognitive effects may well serve to reduce lifecycle inequalities there is no support here for other important social benefits.     

Forty years of Finnish pre-school education: the development of curricula between 1972 and 2000

Since 2001 in Finland, all six year olds have had the right to free pre-school education, and almost all pre-school-aged children take advantage of this opportunity. The purpose of this article is to dissect the development of Finnish pre-school education curricula within the societal context and within the changes in trends of curriculum planning between 1972 and 2000. The study analysed five curricula texts through qualitative content analysis by paying attention to the functions of pre-school education and the positioning of children and educators. The development of pre-school education consisted of four phases: (1) the era of pre-school education trials; (2) the era of heterogeneous pre-school education arrangements; (3) the era of changes in curriculum policies; and (4) the era of pre-school education establishment. The results indicated that the changes in pre-school education curricula related to the changes in Finnish society and in basic education.     

Ban the computer,or make it a storytelling machine. bridging the gap between the children's media culture and pre-school

Children today live in different cultural settings. The pre-school culture is one of them and the media culture outside the pre-school another. These cultures are in different ways characterised by opposite and often even conflicting traditions. This article shows how educators and children handle this dilemma by using interaction as a tool to bring changes into the discourse in an educational setting while making stories in the pre-school by means of the multimedia functions of the computer. The interactional processes from three observations are described. In the discussion a comparison with another study with a constructivist point of departure is made. The comparison between the two studies showed contrasting results. The use of a socio-cultural perspective in the presented project make the context and the community visible, while the other study with its underlying assumptions of individually constructed knowledge make context and community invisible.     

论我国古代学前教育思想及其现实意义

我国古代教育家关于儿童学前教育思想的论述,涉及儿童教育的意义、内容、原则及方法等。他们所倡导的早谕教重熏陶、坚持慈爱相济、顺导儿童性情、鼓舞儿童兴趣、循序渐进和因材施教等早教原则与方法,在实施素质教育的今天仍具有积极的借鉴意义。     

浅析幼儿教育的“实然”与“应然”

幼儿教育的“实然”状态主要表现为远离幼儿现实生活,忽视幼儿当下生活。幼儿教育的“应然”状态应达到让幼儿成为幸福幼儿的目标,这要求幼儿教育必须关注幼儿的现实生活,把幼儿当成幼儿,让幼儿生活在童年里;关注幼儿的可能生活,为幼儿创造发展的条件,引导幼儿积极建构他们的完美生活。     

从儿童社会性发展看幼儿园社会领域课程目标

课程目标是人们对课程预期的结果,明确课程目标,才能找到实现目标的最优过程和方法,才能监控教育活动的过程和结果。幼儿园社会领域的教育应该达到哪些教育目标是探讨幼儿园社会领域课程设置的基础。而幼儿园社会领域课程的目标设置又需要以幼儿社会性发展的特点和规律为依据。目前,我国幼儿因课程将社会作为专门的一个领域,有其独立的目标和内容,促进幼儿的社会性发展在社会认知、社会情感、社会行为技能三方面得到共同提高。但幼儿园社会领域的目标设置未见帮助幼儿树立理想这一内容,建议通过发展幼儿的想象并促使其大胆实现来进行幼儿理想的萌芽教育。     

Analysis of macroethics teaching practices and perceptions in engineering: a cultural comparison

ABSTRACT

Students must be taught to understand the ethical issues associated with engineering and technology, which includes microethics and macroethics. This research examined the influence of cultural environment by comparing ethics-related education outcomes between educators in (1) the United States, (2) non-US Anglo, and (3) Western European countries who teach engineering students. In an increasingly globalised world where companies and projects draw from talent across countries, it is important to understand how different cultures educate future engineers about their ethical responsibilities. Survey results revealed that a majority of educators in all three groups viewed undergraduate and postgraduate education on ethics as insufficient. A higher percentage of non-US Anglo and Western European educators taught sustainability and environmental issues in their courses compared to US respondents. US educators taught codes of ethics, ethics in design, and safety more than those in Western Europe. Open-ended responses illuminated challenges and opportunities to improve ethics education.     

Impact of professional development on preschool teachers’ conversational responsivity and children's linguistic productivity and complexity

The present study investigated the effect of professional development (PD) on preschool teachers’ conversational responsivity in the classroom, defined as teachers’ use of strategies to promote children's participation in extended conversational exchanges (communication-facilitating strategies) and exposure to advanced linguistic models (language-developing strategies), and the resultant impact on proximal child language outcomes. We randomly-assigned 49 preschool teachers to receive 15–20 h of such PD (PD; n = 25) or to a comparison condition (n = 24). Growth curve analysis indicated that trained teachers used significantly more communication-facilitating strategies across the year but no such difference for language-developing strategies. Moreover, children in these classrooms showed greater linguistic productivity and complexity in their talk. These findings suggest that PD may alter some aspects of teachers’ conservational responsivity responsible for increasing the amount and complexity of child language. Alteration of some strategies, however, may require more intensive PD efforts.     

What Happens During Language and Literacy Coaching? Coaches’ Reports of Their Interactions With Educators

Research Findings: This study investigated coaches’ interactions with educators in the context of a large-scale, state-implemented literacy professional development (PD). We examined log data and open-comment reports to understand what coaches found salient about their interactions with educators as well as how those reports aligned with the initial design of the PD. Coaches reported spending a large proportion of their interactions with educators completing administrative tasks. Our findings also indicate that coaches disproportionally targeted instructional content from the PD while also adding unrelated instructional content to their coaching. Although coaches reported focusing on relationship building, they reported using less efficacious coaching strategies (e.g., observation and discussion) more frequently than coaching strategies demonstrated to be more efficacious (e.g., modeling and coteaching). Practice or Policy: Our findings suggest an explanation for the mixed evidence around coaching, as coaches in the study seemed to move beyond the specifications of the PD in their coaching interactions. This work has implications for the design of PD for both improving coach training and allowing some flexibility to meet educators’ learning needs that may be secondary to the content of the PD. Findings also support the need for more nuanced mechanisms for investing in coaching and coaching outcomes.     

The Social Validity of Bug-in-Ear Coaching: Findings From Two Studies Implemented in Inclusive Early Childhood Environments

Coaching is a promising method for providing professional development, which takes many forms. One such form is real-time coaching through bug-in-ear technology. This study explored the social validity of bug-in-ear coaching when provided as a form of professional development with preservice and in-service early childhood educators. Data from two studies were qualitatively analyzed to describe early childhood educators’ perceptions of the acceptability of bug-in-ear coaching with respect to the learning opportunities provided, feasibility, difficulties, and child-level outcomes. Findings suggest that BIE is deemed to be important and effective at producing educator and child outcomes. Further, educators are satisfied with the intervention and view it to be an acceptable means for receiving professional development.     

Current trends and missing links in studies on teacher professional development in science education: a review of design features and quality of research

This review provides an overview of the the current state of research on professional development in science education. An analytical frame was used, based on what is known about PD from educational research. Clarke and Hollingsworth’s model for teacher professional growth was also used to categorise the studies according to their aims and outcomes. Exemplar studies in each category are highlighted. In total, 44 recent studies were selected, all referring to science PD. The results show an increase in the number of PD studies in science education in recent years. Most PD programmes are aimed at enhancing teacher cognitions as well as classroom practice. Most recently, there seems to have been an increase in programmes that also aim at improving student outcomes through PD. All studies applied most of the characteristics drawn from research on what makes PD effective. However, school organisational conditions were not usually taken into account. Moreover, there has been a very little research on the role of facilitators and their impact on the outcomes of a PD programme.     

Trajectories in teacher education: Recognising prior learning in practice

This article analyses the trajectories into teacher education of a group of child minders who are studying to become pre-school teachers. The specific focus is what impact their prior experiences and learning from pre-school have on their trajectories, and how these experiences and learning are recognised in the first year of teacher education. A situated learning perspective is applied, with a focus on participation and trajectories in the two communities of practice in which teacher education is situated – the university and the pre-school. The data consist of transcribed interviews with ten student teachers, and additional data are gathered from stakeholders in the program. The results show that prior experiences and learning are given implicit and indirect recognition. In the practice of the pre-school, the trajectory means a shift in identity, from child minder to student teacher and pre-school teacher. In the practice of the university, prior experiences and learning help students in their trajectories from peripheral to fuller participation.     

本科学前教育专业的目标定位和课程设置问题

随着幼儿园教师教育层次的提升,本科学前教育专业的定位再不能沿袭上世纪50年代以来的做法而应以培养"高素质的学前教育工作者"为目标,并以此构建"培养人—培养教师—培养学前教育工作者"为思路的课程体系。在明确学前教育专业性质的基础上对实践教学、艺术教学等需要重新认定以便与新的培养目标接轨。