Moving Toward Family-Centered Early Care and Education: The Past, the Present, and a Glimpse of the Future

Over the past 4 decades, early care and education programs in the United States have struggled to overcome obstacles to active parent and family participation, especially in the wake of recent welfare reform guidelines requiring parents to work outside the home. This article highlights the vision and activities of four Wisconsin Early Childhood Centers for Excellence, which offer family-centered services along with services to young children. Using various strategies, these programs have empowered parents and strengthened bonds between parents and professionals. Their success suggests that new models based on family-centered goals can improve the overall quality of early care and education for young children.     

Dependency on elementary school caregivers: The role of parental intrusiveness and children's separation anxiety

A theoretical model of children's dependency on teachers and other caregivers in elementary school was tested and supported in this study. Based on attachment theory and social‐cognitive theory, parental intrusiveness and children's separation anxiety were hypothesized to heighten dependent behaviors with school caregivers. Families of children in Grades K–5 participated. Parent‐ and child‐report measures with good psychometric properties were employed. Parental intrusiveness and children's separation anxiety were associated with clingy, dependent relationships with school caregivers in cross‐informant correlational analyses. Intrusiveness and separation anxiety jointly accounted for 18%–29% of the variance in dependency scores. Results are consistent with attachment models of continuity between parent–child relationships and relations with other caregivers. Practice recommendations for teachers and school providers are given. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 823–837, 2007.     

MICRO‐TEACHING AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT

One of the ways in which closed‐circuit television can contribute to staff development in higher education is through the various techniques associated with and developed from micro‐teaching. In this paper we shall suggest and illustrate ways in which some of the features of micro‐teaching can answer some of the problems of staff development.     

Beginning Teachers�� Workplace Experiences: Perceptions of and Use of Support

This paper illuminates the experiences of beginning teachers using a participatory perspective approach and drawing on some of these teachers’ perceptions. We place the ‘subject’ of workplace learning research centrally in understanding the relatedness between workplaces and novice employees/trainees. This paper builds on previous work by the authors using semi-structured interviews with 17 beginning teachers in 19 schools that aim to better understand issues associated with beginning teacher retention. This study explores an application of a framework for evaluating workplaces as from expansive to restrictive learning environments, whilst examining individuals’ responses to and agency in these environments. In addition, these teachers’ personal networks were explored to idedntify how they shaped the teachers’ engagement with workplaces. This analysis revealed networks both internal and external to their schools, and hence a broader view of workplace than is often proposed. Together these analyses allowed an examination of the relatedness between individual beginning teachers and the schools they experienced. This paper identifies the significance of ontogeny and expectation that individuals bring to the workplace, along with individuals exhibiting different agency. These beginning teachers indicate how individuals can be proactive in creating more expansive learning environments for themselves through the utilisation of personal networks, even when these are not offered. This finding may have implications for beginning teachers to re-evaluate their potential to become empowered as they begin their careers.     

Scenarios for Teacher Education Programs

This paper discusses the history of Internetbased videoconferencing (IVC) within the teacher education program at a large Midwestern university. It explains ways this technology has been used to expand interactions with students and professionals in a wide variety of settings and thereby increase depth, diversity, and effectiveness of preservice teacher education. Partners include P-12 schools, practicum sites, and other universities. The article focuses on real-time interactions among two or more locations in which at least one of the sites involves a larger space and/or a large group of participants. Scenarios of successful videoconferencing are included along with lessons learned. Practical guidelines for building collaborations, establishing technical connections, preparing for and running videoconferencing sessions, and maintaining communications are provided.     

Intergenerational exchange: undergraduate researchers’ learning and listening enhanced through older adults’ entertainment preferences

The purpose of this qualitative study was to provide an intergenerational exchange as undergraduate students taking an introductory Psychology of Aging course, interviewed and watched films with older adult participants (N = 13) residing in an assisted living community. The undergraduate researchers (N = 10) conducted and transcribed interviews, wrote about their perceptions of interviews and film viewing with older adults, and their instructor interviewed assisted living staff (N = 2) creating an assessment of participants, researchers, and staff. Researchers listened and learned from older adult’s words, thereby improving researchers’ understanding that older adults preferred in-person discussions over film viewing. Researchers learned from older adults’ words, as they began to understand that sexual content in today’s films may reduce entertainment viewing for youth and older adults. Older adults described television remotes and phones with frustration and researchers felt angst for their frustration. Findings suggested understanding and meaning for participants and researchers in this service learning intergenerational exchange generated through undergraduate research.