EDUC 6163 wk. 8

• What insights have you gained about research from taking this course?
• In what ways have your ideas about the nature of doing research changed?

This course showed me that research is complex. Not that I did not already know that, but there are so many avenues of research. Quantitative vs. qualitative, different forms of triangulation, and mixed method approach all show the vast array of ideas that research encompasses. To narrow down your research and create a meaningful and valid study can be quite difficult.
 

• What lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood did you learn?

This course showed me that the more perspectives the better! I think the idea of triangulation (various forms) really hit home with me. 

• What were some of the challenges you encountered—and in what ways did you meet them?

The biggest challenges I faced throughout this course is modifying and creating a well written research question.  It can be very difficult to narrow ones research idea down to one simple but encompassing question.

• What are some of the ways your perceptions of an early childhood professional have been modified as a result of this course?

I cannot say that my perception of an early childhood professional has changed, but it has been affirmed that we do not have easy tasks.  We are all conducting mini-research studies within our own classroom, sometimes more often then what we realize. It is important to remember that what we are researching and trying to figure out within our own classroom is real and important and we cannot forget to look and reach out for help or information from others.

EDUC 6163 wk 5- Research Around the World

This week I chose to look at the European Early Childhood Association.

One topic the EECERA formed a Special Interest Group about is balancing the ECE workplace in terms of gender. The SIG is looking at how gender roles play a part of adult-child-relations.  There have been government funded programs trying to get more males into the ECE profession. The SIG supports males in the workplace and realize there is a need for more of a differentiated view.

There were many SIG formed to discuss and research other ECE topics. Many of the topics I feel are similar to what we in the United States would be discussing and researching as well.  The topic about balancing gender in the ECE world is the one topic that interested me the most.

When looking throughout the website I found that there were a lot of "member only" items. I was not able to access their journal since I was not a member. There was also a lot of "who's who" within the organization, which I did not really care about. It seemed that the EECERA is a members only group and not a family or practitioners group. There were no sections related to family or practitioners.  It was disappointing to see that this large association is only geared toward members.

 

EDUC 6163- Research that benefits Children and Families

This week I chose to look at Option 2 for this assignment.

My research question is: How do students fair later in life when one or more biological parents are incarcerated during their early years (birth-age5)?

I chose this research question because three out of my 11 students have one or more parents incarcerated. In these specific cases the students are being raised by their grandmothers.

After a little research on the topic of children of incarcerated parents i found that 1.7 million children under the age of 18 have incarcerated parents. I also learned that there has not been any real high quality research on the effect of parental incarceration due to effects that are in place before incarceration like, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and parental mental illness (Christian, 2009).

I am truly curious if there is a likely hood of children becoming incarcerated later in life when a parent was incarcerated in their early years. I am thinking the positive contributions of this research could be identifying those "at risk" children when they are young and providing those children and the families with related services such as counseling, support groups, and enrolling the children in a mentor/mentee program.






Christian, S. (2009) Children of incarcerated parents. National Conference of State Legsilature. March 2009.

EDUC 6163 week 2- Personal Research Journey

As I have mentioned in other posts, the topic I chose to research is inclusion in the preschool classroom.  I am currently a special needs preschool teacher and truly believe that "typical" children and special needs children should be in the same classroom. It is my thought that both types of children would learn from each other.  The typical child would be able to be a positive language model and social model for the children with special needs.  The special needs children would teach the typical children empathy, compassion and patience. 

Through my research this week I found many articles discussing the benefits of inclusion in a preschool classroom.  My biggest challenge was reading all the "scientific" portions of the research.  I am not one to concern myself with numbers and statistics. I am much more of a practitioner and focus on the overall impact of something. I know that is going to be my biggest challenge continuing in the research process.

Week 8- final blog

The three pieces of information I learned by looking at international and Early Childhood Education websites are as followed:

1. There is so much good work being done for young children! Every international website I looked at enlightened me with information about how people, agencies, and organizations are out their fighting and advocating for young children and their future well-being.

2. The United States needs to take notice to how Early Childhood Education is perceived and revered as an important part of many countries.

3. NAEYC has a great website for educators.  It is one website that all Early Childhood Educators should have saved on their favorite list!

International Contacts Part 3

Sadly, I still have not heard from any international contacts. I am completing the alternative assignment.

When looking at the UNESCO's website I saw that you could look at country profiles.  I looked at Costa Rica's profile because I had originally tried to contact a professional from Costa Rica. I visited Costa Rica a few years ago and learned about how wonderful they are with Early Childhood Education. It is a compulsory, free and state-funded. WOO! Way to go Costa Rica. Data showed that 89% of children entering kindergarten had preschool experience. They also have instated universal health care, so all children have medical insurance. Costa Rica also provides daily care for working mothers living in poverty. I know Costa Rica is a much smaller country then the United States, but as I felt when visiting  and now looking at their great work with young children, the US could definitely learn some things from Costa Rica.

I looked at an article discussing access and equity in ECE programs. There were some interesting facts presented. Forty percent of the worlds children attend preschool. Indonesia has 99% of its children attending preschool and Egypt has 48 %. Brazil and Mexico both have low percentages at 27 % and 10%.

While looking over the website I looked at the section on "Partners." There are around 20 different organizations that partner with UNESCO. Some are the more well known organizations like Save the Children and UNICEF but there are others like Early Childhood  Development Virtual University which focuses on web-based learning and virtual seminars.




http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/),

Sharing Web Resources

This week I looked at the NAEYC website on the topic of equity in early childhood education.  I came across an article, a book and some recommendations.

The article I read was about the word gap we see in wealthy families and poor families.   By the age of three, there is a 30 million word gap between the wealthy and poor children. Research shows that children on welfare hear 616 words per hour. An average working family child hears 1,251 words per hour. A child from a professional family hears 2,153 words per hour. When the research breaks it down like that, it is truly amazing as to what are young children are actually hearing on a daily basis.

"Diversity in Early Care and Education: Honoring Differences" was the book found that could be of value for early educators.  It discusses accepting  students or families culture and how to get parents involved. The book also discusses the culture of special needs students and families.



NAEYC provided some useful links for what they call "Anti-Bias Educators"

Teaching for Change

Provides a bibliography of anti-bias books for young children for each chapter of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children & Ourselves. This list will be updated regularly. The website will also include short pieces and activity ideas from anti-bias educators.

 

The Children’s Peace Education and Anti-Bias Library

An interactive database of high-quality, developmentally appropriate books specifically for infants up through 5-year-olds. This site permits you to look up books by identity group, anti-bias chapter, peace education strand, type of book, and so forth. A good place to begin.

 

Asia for Kids
An excellent site with lists of books, CDs, and some toys for all ages, which are searchable by country. Not all books are age appropriate, and not all meet high literary and visual art standards, but this site lists items you cannot find anywhere else.

 

Children’s Book Press
This press specializes in books about children who are African American, Asian, Latino, and Native American. Some are for young children, but most are for 6- to 12-year-olds. However, the artwork is so wonderful and the topics so important in all the books that it's worth checking out and adapting those for older children by “telling” simplified stories with preschoolers. Many books are bilingual in English and Spanish or English and Japanese, for example.

 

Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
This publisher site contains wonderful bibliographies of children’s books listed by identity categories. There are several lists of children’s books, including categories such as “Family,” “Labor,” and “Spanish/English Bilingual.” Make sure to pay attention to age appropriateness.

 

Language Lizard
This site offers translations in many languages, including Middle Eastern and Asian languages, for often used books for young children.

 

Lee & Low Books
This site contains excellent lists of books, many appropriate for children ages 5 and under. There is a strong focus on multiethnic children.

 

Oyate
This is the best Native American site for teachers. It was developed by members of various Indian nations. They have an excellent list of books, written by American Indians, many of which are appropriate for young children. They also have a surprising list of books to avoid.

 

 

California Tomorrow

Publications, videos, and toolkits on early childhood education and school readiness, public policy, school leadership, and customized strategies for education in an inclusive, multicultural society.

 

 

Rethinking Schools
Founded by teachers, this site provides books and articles about diversity and equity work with children from preschool through high school, as well as critical analysis of changes needed in education. Focus is on elementary school and above, but much of the material is extremely useful for early childhood educators.
  

 

 

International Contacts Part 2

Sadly, I still have not heard from any of the international contacts I made at the beginning of this course.  I am thinking that  I will not hear from them with the remaining weeks.

I looked at the Harvard website since that was the alternative for this assignment. Reading over their mission statement and goals for the Global Children's Initiative, it is apparent that this program is truly looking at the global impact of supporting young children.  The topic that interested me the most was Children's Mental Health.  I sometimes think we forget that these little people are impacted by what is going on in their lives. They cannot always communicate or let us know how they are feeling, but they are feeling something.

NAEYC Website

I chose to examine the NAEYC Website. As previously mentioned, I am a member, but have not really taken the time to examine the website in depth.

The first part of the Website I looked at was the topic of Common Core Standards, since that was part of this weeks discussions.  I was able to read over the article NAEYC published for this weeks discussions regarding the cautions and opportunities the CCS allow.

The other article I read, discussed CCS in Kindergarten, and how there are so many differences in each states Kindergarten program, that having nationwide standards may be a disservice since there are so many different variables regarding the implementation of Kindergarten. While completing this weeks discussions, I had not really thought about this point. I was so focused on the "push-down" effect, that it really didn't even dawn on me about the different variables that Kindergarten presents and how the CCS may not be appropriate to implement in Kindergarten (Snow, 2012).

The other part of the NAEYC website that caught my attention this week was the "Voices of Practitioners" section.  This is where teacher research is published. It is a great place for teachers who are doing great things in their classroom let other early childhood educators see it, without having to go through the hassle of publishing. There was one teacher summary regarding diversity in classrooms.


Snow, K.(2012). Variation in children's experience in kindergarten and the common core standards.
                             National Association for the Education of Young Children. Washington D.C.

Variation in Children’s

Experience of Kindergarten

and the Common Core   

Week 3 Getting to Know Your Interenational Contacts

I had no luck contacting international educators. I contacted three and no one responded. It seems like that is a common theme. I went to the many of the websites that were listed as part of our Alternative for this assignment and did not have much success there either. Most of the sites came up as unavailable.  Again, seems like a common theme.

When I finally was able to hear a podcast it was from the Global Fund for Children. I listened to Victoria Dunning speak. She is the vice-president of the Fund.  I was curious as to what the GFC actually did. I learned that they are in the business of supporting Community Based Organizations aka CBO.  GFC feels that the CBO's are in the best position to serve children because they really know what the families in their communities need.  GFC supports the CBO with money, value added services and knowledge management. GFC really focuses on innovation and new solutions to world issues. The GFC has 300 grant partners and surprisingly all of those partners have different focuses and are serving different populations.  GFC really focuses on "reaching children where they are." That is why they so strongly support Community Based Organizations.




Dunning, V. (2012)What Children Need to Succeed: Victoria Dunning’s Presentation at the Foundation Center

Web Resource Sharing

This week I chose to sign up for a monthly newsletter from Earlychildhoodnews.com

It provides links to news articles about early childhood education, developmentally appropriate classroom activities, arts and crafts project ideas and opportunities to network with other early childhood professionals.
I am already a member or NAEYC, so I wanted to see what else was out there.

Looking over archived newsletters it seems that it will be very informational. A few of the newsletters talked about diversity in the classroom as well as special needs students. Both of those topics interest me, so hopefully this newsletter will provide me with information pertinent to my interests.

Initial post for EDUC 6162

For this weeks assignment I chose to use the UNICEF website to see what contacts I could make to professionals in other countries. I  chose to contact Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala. I chose those three countries because I have been to all of them and have some general background knowledge of their educational system.  I have not heard back from anyone, so I may need to reconsider what I am doing for this assignment.

I am a member of NAEYC but have not taken the time (recently) to look at their website. So, this week I did take the time to look over what was on there.  I really like the "Family" section. I think it is a great resource for teachers to use when families have some tough issues to deal with or are wanting more information on a topic. I also appreciate that NAEYC has an accreditation tool to help families look for quality Early Childhood Programs in their area. It is so tough for parents to delve into the world of ECE that they need a tool to help them sift through all that is out there.