Differences in practitioners’ understanding of play and how this influences pedagogy and children’s perceptions of play

This paper presents research that examines the links between practitioners’ understanding of play and its relationship to learning, their pedagogic interactions with children and children’s own perceptions of their play. Previous research has shown a mismatch between practitioners’ understanding of play and their practice. This research identifies how differences in understanding of play, especially the role of the adult, by practitioners in two unrelated settings are associated with variation in pedagogic interactions emphasising choice and control. Furthermore, it is argued that these differences are reflected in differences in children’s use of the cue of adult presence as a defining feature of play and not-play activities.     

Missing the Boat with Technology Usage in Early Childhood Settings: A 21st Century View of Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Technology use permeates virtually all aspects of twenty-first century society, though its integration in early childhood settings and recognition as a developmentally appropriate practice remains problematic. A position is taken that education professionals may be ‘missing the boat’ by not embracing technology usage as a developmentally appropriate practice. Concerns are presented that both preservice education and inservice professional development require substantial improvement if early childhood education professionals are to both recognize the role of technology in developmentally appropriate practice and develop skills in using it in classroom settings.     

Do different components of working memory underlie different subgroups of reading disabilities?

The purpose of this study was to determine the components of working memory (WM) that underlie less skilled readers' comprehension and word recognition difficulties. Performance of 3 less skilled reading subgroups---children with reading disabilities (RD) in both word recognition and comprehension; children with comprehension deficits only; and children with low verbal IQ, word recognition, and comprehension (poor readers)--was compared to that of skilled readers on WM, short-term memory (STM), processing speed, executive, and phonological processing measures. Ability group comparisons showed that (a) skilled readers outperformed all less skilled readers on measures of WM, updating, and processing speed; (b) children with comprehension deficits only outperformed children with RD on measures of WM, STM, phonological processing, and processing speed; and (c) children with RD outperformed poor readers on WM and phonological processing measures. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that (a) subgroup differences on WM tasks among less skilled readers were moderated by a storage system not specific to phonological skills, and (b) STM and updating contributed significant variance to WM beyond what was contributed by reading group classification. The latter finding suggested that some differences in storage and executive processing emerged between skilled and less skilled readers that were not specific to reading.     

School experience influences on pre-service teachers' evolving beliefs about effective teaching

This study systematically tracked a group of 37 pre-service teachers' evolving beliefs about and perceptions of themselves and their experiences from the initial data collection prior to any experiential base in schools through the varied phases of their professional placements involving steadily increasing levels of professional responsibility. The results indicated that the pre-service teachers' beliefs about good teaching evolved from a belief in being in control through expertise to a belief in being in control through charisma and building relationship with their students. The first teaching practicum experience dramatically challenged the beliefs of these students where the beliefs indicated immediately after the experience to be more focussed on ‘self’ rather than students. Subsequent belief structures differed in character from both those after the first teaching experience and from those held prior to the first teaching responsibility. The study also reports on the pre-service students' self-efficacy beliefs in good teaching. Gender differences are also discussed.