Creating a Culture of Innovation in the Community College

As we approach the second decade of the new millennium, there is a renaissance of innovation in education, a resurgence of interest and experimentation that begs for analysis and review. To that end, the League for Innovation in the Community College proposed to conduct a national study on the nature of innovation in the community college using recipients of its Innovation of the Year award from 1999 through 2008 as a data set. With funding from MetLife Foundation, researchers examined these innovations and explored the perspectives of the winners of these awards. In September 2009, a survey created by the researchers with assistance from a focus group—field-tested on a sample of winners not included in the project and vetted by a national advisory committee—was distributed electronically to the 400 award winners; 117 respondents returned surveys for a return rate of 29%. In addition to the survey, more than 40 of the award winners were interviewed using interview questions created by the researchers and vetted by the national advisory committee. The full report and all project findings can be accessed at www.league.org/natureofinnovation. Based on the findings from this national study on the nature of innovation, this article addresses the challenge of creating a culture of innovation in the community college. The characteristics of a culture that support and encourage innovation and the role of leaders in shaping that culture are featured in the article.     

Teachers Don’t Always Do What They Think They Should: A Preliminary Validation of the Early Childhood Educators’ Knowledge of Self-Regulation Skills Questionnaire

The extent to which teachers understand the concept of self-regulation skills and how best to implement practices that enhance self-regulation in children in the early childhood education classroom remains unexamined. The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the self-reporting Early Childhood Educators Knowledge of Self-Regulation Questionnaire (ECESRQ) instrument designed to identify teachers’ knowledge and instruction of self-regulation skills in the classroom. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to determine three latent factors: teacher attitudes and beliefs, classroom management techniques, and child behavior. The findings identified parallel the literature in the preservice teacher-training arena, suggesting a theoretical basis for the underlying constructs. EFA contributed to establishing good estimates of construct validity in the ECESRQ; in addition Cronbach’s alpha results demonstrated moderate levels of internal reliability. Pearson correlation was used to additionally determine the extent to which teachers understand self-regulatory skills and their ability to implement effective tools in the classroom to enhance these skills. Results and implications for practice in the early childhood classroom are discussed.     

Before Student Teaching: How Undergraduate Students in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs Describe Their Early Classroom-Based Experience

Classroom-based experiences, alternatively known as practica, are an integral component of undergraduate teacher preparation programs, which provide students essential opportunities to apply knowledge in practice. Though much is known about student teaching, much less is known about students’ earlier classroom-based experiences. This qualitative study explores how early childhood care and education students describe their early classroom-based experience. Thirty-four students enrolled in a teacher preparation program participated in interviews, submitted journals, and responded to survey questions about their early classroom-based experience. Results are presented in terms of how students talk about their experiences—belonging or not belonging in the classroom—and what students talk about when discussing their experiences, including communication, support, freedom, new learning, and “the children.” These themes are discussed in terms of students’ experiences in the classroom and implications for undergraduate teacher preparation in early childhood education.     

Developing Teachers' Classroom Interactions: A Description of a Video Review Process for Early Childhood Education Students

This article describes a video review process for providing feedback to students and documents students' teaching practices using the CLASS in a practicum course and student teaching. Students videotaped themselves in their field-based settings and then met with the course instructors and classmates in small groups to review strengths and challenges of their teaching using the CLASS framework of teacher–child interactions. These videos were also coded by trained CLASS observers across 10 dimensions in the areas of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. Results from preservice teachers' CLASS ratings indicate a pattern similar to national data sets using the CLASS, higher scores in the emotional support and classroom organization domains than in the domain of instructional support. Also, findings from the current study revealed that CLASS scores declined from students' practicum placement to the end of student teaching in the domain of emotional support and specifically in the dimensions of regard for student perspectives and behavior management. The process of using videos for providing feedback in field-based experiences is discussed as well as implications for teacher development in light of students' CLASS scores and changes in CLASS scores.     

Thinking emotions with two-year-old children: an educational programme to improve emotional knowledge in young preschoolers / Pensando las emociones con niños de dos años: un programa educativo para mejorar el conocimiento emocional en primer ciclo de Educación Infantil

Abstract

This article aims to present preliminary data to validate and show the effectiveness of the educational programme Thinking emotions with a sample of children aged two years. To test its effectiveness, a sample of 57 children was selected. The sample was divided into experimental group (N = 38) and control group (N = 19). Participants were evaluated for overall development (Brunet-Lezine) and emotional understanding through two tests (AKT and TEC) before and after the implementation of the programme in the classroom. The tutors implemented the programme during school hours in weekly 45-minute sessions over six months. The results show significant advances in emotion understanding of children in the experimental group versus the control group. Results are discussed considering the implications of early education on emotions and the consequences on psychological wellbeing.     

Serious games for learning: games-based child sexual abuse prevention in schools

In spite of research demonstrating conceptual weakness in many child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programmes and outdated modes of delivery, students continue to participate in a diversity of initiatives. Referring to the development of a games-based approach to CSA prevention in Australia, this paper examines empirically based attributes of effective CSA prevention programmes for schools including contemporary pedagogies for learning. The paper draws on findings to inform the conceptual development phase of Orbit, an online, free and equal-access, games-based educational approach to CSA prevention for children aged 8–10 years. First, the paper provides a review of CSA prevention in schools and games-based approaches to key learnings in prevention. Second, an overview of Orbit (the Feeling Safe sexual abuse prevention project) is provided. Finally, implications for the development of games-based prevention programmes are offered and an argument is made for the advancement of games-based prevention resources.     

Mentoring expectations and realities: an analysis of metaphorical thinking among female undergraduate protegés and their mentors in a university mentoring programme

This article describes the differences between mentors’ and protégés’ expectations and realities regarding mentoring relationships and goals. Faculty and senior undergraduate mentors and female undergraduate protegés who participated in a formal, university mentoring programme at the University of Idaho, organised by the institution’s Women’s Centre, were asked to describe their ideal and actual mentoring relationship through metaphor; the responses were analysed qualitatively to explore protégés’ and mentors’ expectations and experiences. Results indicate that protégés held more traditional and hierarchical mentoring ideals at the beginning of the programme and that most mentoring ideals differed from actual experiences. Given this disparity and because metaphorical processes have the capacity to enhance mentoring experiences due to their generative and expansive capacities, we suggest that metaphors be employed in explicit ways to align expectations and realities between mentors’ and protégés’ expectations through shared reflection. We conclude with metaphorical exercises that can be used in formal mentoring programmes in higher education to help participants negotiate expectations and help organise relationships in ways that are aligned with the mission and goals of particular mentoring programmes.     

Training Parents as Effective Literacy Tutors: Increasing the Procedural Integrity of Tutoring

We trained parents to tutor their child through implementing a repeated reading procedure designed to increase oral reading fluency. Our study was conducted over a two-week winter break at the homes of the parent and child. Baseline data for each child were collected using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to determine an instructional reading level prior to the tutoring session. Following baseline, we trained parents as tutors to implement all aspects of the reading procedure including administering, scoring, and recording data. All sessions were audio recorded to assist with the data collection, scoring, treatment integrity, and interobserver agreement (IOA). According to results from our study, parent tutors were able to accurately score the reading probes and implement the repeated reading procedure with a high level of treatment fidelity following the training. In addition, parents were satisfied with the tutoring experience and the reading fluency for all children increased at the completion of the tutoring sessions.     

Mentoring: A Typology of Costs for Higher Education Faculty

In this theoretical paper, we apply a social exchange framework to understand mentors’ negative experiences. We propose a typology of costs, categorized according to psychosocial and career mentoring functions. Our typology generates testable research propositions. Psychosocial costs of mentoring are burnout, anger, and grief or loss. Career costs of mentoring include diminished reputation, decrease in productivity, and risk of ethical transgressions. The typology focuses on faculty in higher education because of the prevalence and importance of mentoring in that work setting. However, the typology may be extended to career arenas such as law, medicine, and the military. The theory presents a framework for acknowledging negative experiences and the costs associated with mentorship.