Early Childhood Teacher Education Research Articles

The influence of family life on the pedagogical praxis of male teachers in early childhood education and care

ABSTRACT There is increasing literature regarding the experiences of men working in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Around the world, men are an under-represented group in ECEC settings. The article uses a cultural-historical wholeness approach to explore the interconnected dimensions of the personal and institutional perspectives of male ECEC teachers. The focus is on the participants’ personal experiences (family) and professional practices (pedagogy) when working with young children (aged under five years). Data were gathered from four participants through approximately six hours of semi-structured interviews and included discussion of personal and pedagogical artefacts collected from the men’s personal life and work in ECEC settings. Findings suggest that for all participants, family practices were particularly important in shaping pedagogy, and influence the development of motives and everyday practices. We argue that the intersection of personal and professional family practices informs and enhances the pedagogical praxis of male teachers in ECEC.

Participation profiles in Chilean ECE professional associations and unions: assemblages of agency and professional field orientation

ABSTRACT This article explains how early childhood education (ECE) teachers in Chile participate in ECE teachers’ Professional Associations and Unions (ECEPAUs), building professionalism amid a constraining context composed of an entirely feminized workforce, and educational policies influenced by neoliberalism. Following the Constructivist-Grounded Theory (CGT) abductive approach, this is a single holistic case study with a sample of ECE teachers participating in ECEPAUs. Data collection drew on individual in-depth interviews and discussion groups; the analysis was developed through Constant Comparison coding. Findings show an assemblage of four ECE teachers’ participation profiles in ECEPAUs; each one is shaped by the crossing of two axes: “Agency” and “ECE field.” These profiles are termed Communalist, Representativist, Field-centered, and Child-centered. To conclude, we discuss how these profiles, despite having some trappings of the definitions of professionalism usually described in the literature, do not have a one-to-one correspondence with the latter. This implies that these four profiles show that ECE teachers’ participation in ECEPAUs is not tied to the monolithic approach toward professionalism imposed by standardization and accountability. Optimistically, this loose-connectedness of teachers’ participation among ECEPAUs assembles an alternative ecosystem to navigate the constraining context but also may reflect the fragility of professionalism in the ECE field caused by fragmentation.

Effectiveness of motor learning model based on local wisdom in improving fundamental skills

Traditional Balinese games are considered a cultural heritage that provides many basic movement benefits but have not been well revealed, this study aims to describe the effectiveness Motor Learning Model Based on Local Wisdom (MLMBLW) in Improving Fundamental Skills of students in early childhood education programs in Buleleng Regency in Bali Provinces.The data analysis technique used descriptive quantitative. The sample in this study was the students in early childhood education Laboratory of Undiksha shool and early childhood education Telkom School (n = 44) age 5 year taken by purposive sampling technique with active children for traditional Balinese games. Data were collected by direct observation, questionnaires, and tests. Based on the results of data analysis, the effectiveness of the MLMBLW which can be seen from the activities of students participating in learning 81.3% belongs to the very high/very active category, student learning achievement as seen from the average fundamental motor skills above 70% have moderate to high basic movement skills, and the teacher's response to the implementation is overall positive. This research is evidence that MLMBLW is effectively applied in the implementation of motor learning in early childhood students From the results of this study, there are several things that are recommended: (1) early childhood education teachers must understand the character of students and the local wisdom used, so that the learning steps (syntax) can be implemented properly, (2) the learning model can be implemented properly, if the teacher understands how to play traditional games (local wisdom) well. Introducing culture to every child is the same as preserving the world's cultural wealth, for that reason traditional Balinese games are also important in addition to improving fitness Keywords Basic Movement Activities, Balinese Culture, Traditional Games

Book review: Slow knowledge and the unhurried child: Time for slow pedagogies in early childhood education, by Alison Clark

Book review: Slow knowledge and the unhurried child: Time for slow pedagogies in early childhood education, by Alison Clark

Implementation Of The Curriculum And Teaching In Early Childhood Education In The City Of Ambon

Implementation Of The Curriculum And Teaching In Early Childhood Education In The City Of Ambon

Enhancing the Pedagogical Competence of ECE Teachers through the Creation of Comprehensive Game Tools

The ability of Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers to create instructional materials constitutes one of their pedagogical competencies. This competence entails overseeing the development process, which consists of planning, executing, and evaluating the development process and its outcomes. This article aims to describe the procedure involved in the conception and development of comprehensive game tools (CGT) to enhance the pedagogical competence of ECE teachers. This community service instructs and equips teachers in developing CGTs, conducted in a blended method within six weeks. Specifics of offline materials consist of the following: 1) activity schedule, 2) understanding of the nature of CGTs, 3) product development, 4) revision of results, and 5) product evaluation. Online resources provide instruction on 1) developing and creating designs and 2) constructing comprehensive game tools. Thirty teachers from PAUD Katuk and Asyifa Islamic Kindergarten - South Jakarta were participants. The final product is comprised of 5 CGTs, and the teachers' ability to design and develop CGT is enhanced. Suggestion: CGT development should be conducted under intensive supervision.

The welcoming value in (re) constructing one another: (Re) documenting a post materialist Borderlands approach to inclusive early childhood identity studies

As two Remida Reggio-inspired early childhood teacher educators, we (re)consider our research embedded in longtime writings and workshops together. (Re)cycling our public/visible thinking with Remida-inspired reuse materials’ educational ecologies, we (re)write together here to find new ways of envisioning our shared identities as related to a reuse materials pedagogical journey. Our methodological approach is (re)documentation. By (re)documenting—revisiting over time/space the pedagogical narrative material—we salvage and offer ourselves new life and identity(ies). We make (re)visible a presentation shared again and again over 3 years, entitled Co-constructing Identities with Reuse Materials. Our presentation is generated within a creative reuse center situated in a social-constructivist infant-toddler and preschool program. Our recyclables include presentation slides-notes, and revised scraps of literature review repurposed from a dissertation. Our hope is to share a way to really see into our co-collaborators’ lives as (re)documentarians living IN and WITH documented experiences.

With sensitive eyes: ECEC teachers’ visual gaze and related reflections on pedagogical actions in toddler groups using eye-tracking glasses

This study explored early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers’ visual gaze and related reflections on pedagogical actions during pedagogical activities in groups of children under three years of age in Finland. The data were collected from play and teacher-guided activities using mobile eye-tracking glasses, the retrospective thinking aloud (RTA) method, and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that even though the teachers were surprised about some aspects of the visual gaze metrics, they reflected on and gave reasons for their visual gazes on children. When observing gaze data from play, teachers explained the high amount of gaze by citing children’s particular needs. When observing gaze data from guided activities, teachers reflected on children’s unpredictable behavior and noted that the children’s need for support in concentration was linked to more gazes by the teacher. The findings showed that both during play and guided activities, children seeking a gaze and the position of children in the classroom influenced the number of teachers’ gazes. In the teachers’ explanations of their visual gaze and related pedagogical actions, five categories were identified: protection; physical and emotional availability, teaching and learning; facilitation; and initiatives. This explorative study showed that teachers utilize their knowledge concerning children’s individuality, development, and learning when they explain their decisions concerning their visual gaze and pedagogical activities with toddlers. The use of mobile eye-tracking technology is relatively new; therefore, its applications to ECEC are pioneering for the development of the field in relation to the practices and research of toddlers’ groups and groups with older children in ECEC

Family Engagement Practices in a Public Pre-Kindergarten Program: Variation by Program, Classroom, and Staff Characteristics

ABSTRACT Family engagement is considered a key component of preschool program quality, and early childhood education teachers and programs are increasingly expected to engage families in their programs. However, there is limited knowledge on what strategies preschool programs use to engage families and how these family engagement practices vary across programs. This study uses survey data collected from public pre-kindergarten program administrators and teachers in a mid-sized, urban school district to describe various types of family engagement practices and to examine associations between family engagement practices and pre-K program, classroom, and staff characteristics. We also conduct thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses to triangulate and complement our quantitative findings and to provide insight into teachers’ and administrators’ perceived barriers and facilitators of family engagement. We find that teachers frequently communicated with parents and provided involvement opportunities. Programs also provided various referrals and family support services. Family engagement practices were associated with staff’s professional training and classroom and program characteristics. Our findings highlight the importance of considering program structure, such as half- versus full-day program, and the importance of teachers’ knowledge and training in family engagement for shaping preschool programs’ family engagement practices.

Fostering Safe Schools: Empowering Educators and Parents in the Fight Against Violence in Early Childhood Education Setting

Bullying was a concerning issue among pre-schoolers within kindergarten settings, though its definition remained debated. This research’s aim is to uncover the forms of bullying, its causes, and impacts on children, as well as the intervention programs implemented by early childhood education teachers. This research engaged 87 teachers in anti-violence training, collecting data via bullying worksheets and interviews with 18 preschool teachers. The results showed that in early childhood education, verbal bullying involved the use of degrading words, while physical bullying included actions that hurt the victim's body. Relational bullying impacted social exclusion, whereas emotional bullying focused on hurting the victim's feelings. Internal causes included aggressive tendencies and low social values, while external causes included negative environmental influences and upbringing. Victims experienced depression, isolation, and learning disorders. The abuser might lose empathy, have difficulty forming relationships, and show aggressive behavior in the future. Teachers communicated openly with perpetrators and victims to help understand the root causes of behavior and provide emotional support. Follow-up actions taken by early childhood education institutions included counseling, developing empathy and social skills, strengthening positive values, and creating a safe environment. Parental involvement through education and open communication was also an important factor in creating a conducive environment for positive child development and preventing bullying.

Impact of Distance Professional Development Course on Early Childhood Teacher’s Knowledge, Skills, and Beliefs on Self-Regulation

This study aims to evaluate the impact of a distance professional development course, within the framework of the Preschool Situational Self-Regulation Program (PRSIST), on the knowledge, beliefs, and skills of early childhood education teachers about self-regulation skills. One of the qualitative methods, the case study, was preferred for the current study. The research was conducted with 5 early childhood education teachers, working in a city in middle Anatolia, Turkey. The teachers attended the synchronous distance professional development course 1 day a week for 5 weeks. The total duration of the five sessions was 120 minutes. Interview forms, reflective journals, and documents were used as data collection tools. As a result of the research, it was found that the course had positive impact on teachers' knowledge, skills, and beliefs about self-regulation skills.

Design and Content Validity of Health Games for children with Atopic Dermatitis

Objective: The success of managing atopic dermatitis (AD) largely depends on patient adherence to treatment. Achieving adherence requires more than knowledge transfer; it also requires a change in patients’ health behavior. Therefore, we conducted this study to develop and validate the content of health games for the pediatric population with AD. Methods: This study focused on developing and validating the content of health games about AD. Among these were the book Oli e o Grande Desafio da Coceira™ (“Oli and the Great Itching Challenge”) and the games Dermatrilha™ (“Dermatrail”) and Caixinha Surpresa da Dermatite™ (“Dermatitis Surprise Box”). The instrument development process consisted of five stages: planning of the instruments, development of the instruments, development of content validation questionnaires, evaluation by an expert committee, and a pre-test with the target audience. Results: The expert committee comprised 20 professionals: 5 pediatric dermatologists, 5 hospital psychologists, 5 illustrators/designers, and 5 early childhood education teachers. The target audience comprised 25 children with AD aged 5 to 12 years. The content validity index was 0.94 in the evaluation by the expert committee and 0.95 in the evaluation by the target audience. Among the games, the general content validity index was 0.95 among the members of the expert committee and 0.92 among the target audience, being higher than 0.80 for all items. Conclusion: The health games evaluated in this study are useful psychoeducational tools with high content validity for use in the therapeutic education of children with AD.

Mathematical Knowledge of Early Algebra Exhibited by Pre-Service Early Childhood Education Teachers

AbstractThis study analyzes the mathematical knowledge to teach early algebra exhibited by pre-service early childhood education teachers, from the perspective of the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) model. The research adopts a mixed exploratory-descriptive methodological approach, based on the application of the MKT-early algebra questionnaire (3–6), consisting of six open-ended items that place teachers in various teaching situations reflecting the knowledge that characterizes early algebra at this stage of schooling. The analysis of the answers given by the pre-service teachers of early childhood education revealed a level general of insufficient mathematical knowledge, with the common content knowledge exhibiting fewer limitations compared to the other subdomains that comprise the model, and the horizon content knowledge the weakest. We conclude that it is necessary to offer teacher training programs that deepen the didactics of early algebra and provide tools to further the effective teaching of this content block in early childhood education.

The performative triangle of tact as a professional “action competence”

ABSTRACT My reflections direct a performativity-theoretical perspective on the pedagogical tact, which in its systematic breadth should consider both the application approach for practice and the connectivity to theory. Regarding these dimensions, terms such as ’context sensitivity“ and ”reflective competence“ oscillate around the nature of tact. I will focus on the specific expertise of teachers in early childhood education and why the embodiment of pedagogical tact is particularly important for teachers in this target grade. Furthermore, the question arises how student teachers can appropriate the pedagogical tact and to what extent the ”performative triangle of the tact’ can be a constitutive element for teacher education in the context of professionalization research.

Souring palatable formations in DAP: Toward unfamiliar relations with child development in early childhood teacher education

ABSTRACT Drawing upon Ahmed’s (2006) analysis of how institutional documents become nonperforming, this article argues that teacher education must create opportunities for emerging educators to grapple with the pedagogical consequences of understanding the fourth edition of Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs (2022) as a nonperforming text. I contend that as DAP works to moderate universalising developmental knowledges in the name of fostering social justice, DAP reproduces taken-for-granted epistemological relations and hierarchies that maintain dominant understandings childhood and early childhood education. First, I position DAP as a nonperforming text and articulate a mode of nonperformance specific to early childhood education: palatability, built of a rhetoric of childhood innocence and a politics of niceness. I then show how two of DAP’s formations of child development enact nonpeformativity through palatability, illustrating how DAP reiterates status-quo connections between child development and early childhood education. To conclude, I propose souring palatability as a proposition that emerging educators might speculate and experiment with while engaging with DAP.

Critically Conscious Early and Elementary Educators: Towards Abolitionist Education in Teacher Preparation

How do teacher preparation programs re-culture themselves so that we can supply educational settings with teachers who work toward liberation from racism and other systems of oppression? Abolitionist education is one strategic framework that can be utilized to support this systemic re-culturing. I share my experiences in re-designing and facilitating a diversity course in an early childhood education (ECE) teacher preparation program toward abolitionist education through culturally and historically responsive learning, social justice teaching frameworks, Chicana/Latina feminist philosophy, and abolitionist pedagogy. The course explored four units: Identity, Justice and Anti-Bias, Intergenerational Genius, and Freedom Dreaming and Abolition. In-class and at-home projects included positionality statements, analyzing characteristics of white supremacy culture operating in ECE, studying abolitionist movement organizers, and transforming mandated curriculum based on social justice for young children. In this article, I share the context of the course redesign, my facilitation, and reflexive ideas for moving toward abolitionist education as a field of teacher preparation.

Curriculum theory and developmentally appropriate practice

ABSTRACT The authors begin this article with an account of the crises in education in the US today. Curriculum theory is applied to the ideas in the 4th edition of NAEYC’s ‘developmentally appropriate practices,’ and the relationship between the ideas in this edition to current issues is discussed. The authors also present a brief description of democratic education. They conclude with a recommendation to democratise early childhood teacher education that includes the development of individual and group platforms.

Preschool teachers’ perceptions of STEAM-based learning in Banda Aceh

The purpose of this study was to identify early childhood teachers' perceptions of STEAM-based learning. This qualitative research will be analyzed descriptively, and semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions will be conducted with four early childhood education (ECE) teachers in Banda Aceh. The findings show that ECE teachers' perceptions of STEAM-based learning techniques have a high potential to be implemented in Banda Aceh City ECEs, as the respondents have used aspects of STEAM in their learning. Teachers' lack of knowledge of STEAM-based learning approaches and procurement of materials and funds to fulfil STEAM learning needs are barriers to integrating STEAM in ECE institutions in Banda Aceh. More STEAM socialization and STEAM learning implementation training is needed for ECE teachers in Aceh in general.

Changes in an early childhood education and care teacher’s practical theory in language pedagogy as a nexus:

This case study focuses on an expert early childhood education and care teacher’s practical theory in language pedagogy when implementing bilingual pedagogy (Finnish–Swedish) in a linguistically heterogeneous group of children aged 3–5 years. Practical theory refers to teachers’ views of good teaching that guide their practices. Applying a mediated discourse analysis approach (nexus analysis), we examine the interplay of factors that promote and challenge changes in the practical theory of language pedagogy in early childhood education and care. The discourses show that the changes are related to Swedish use (a new language for the children) and the use of the children’s home languages. Several personal, interactional, and contextual factors circulate in the expert teacher’s discourses, affecting the changes in her practical theory. Personal factors include reflection, beliefs, and experiences. Feedback from parents and children represents interactional factors, whereas contextual factors cover concepts such as participation and language-enriched teaching. This study highlights the significance of the multiple interrelated factors that are present when an expert teacher’s practical theory of language pedagogy changes, which needs to be reflected upon both in the practice of early childhood education and in teacher training.

The Concept of an Independent Curriculum with an Agrarian Insight in Early Childhood: Perspectives of Indonesian Teachers

The current condition of agriculture in Indonesia shows a decline in productivity. One reason for this decline is the low interest of children and young people in the agricultural sector. For this reason, the introduction and cultivation of a love of agriculture needs to be done from an early age. Schools must design curriculum and learning that is oriented towards agriculture. The independent curriculum implemented in Indonesia provides ample opportunities to develop agrarian insights in schools. This study aimed to discover teachers' views in Indonesia on the concept of an independent curriculum with an agrarian perspective as a medium for introducing and instilling the love of agriculture in early childhood at school. This research uses descriptive qualitative methods. The research data were obtained through in-depth interviews with early childhood education teachers in Indonesia. The results showed that the concept of an independent curriculum with an agrarian perspective is a curriculum that frees teachers to be creative and innovative in carrying out learning activities with the theme of agriculture. This agrarian-oriented learning consists of planting crops in the fields, planting grains in the schoolyard, visiting agro-tourism, and watching agricultural videos together. Hopefully, these activities can foster a love of agriculture in early childhood.