“An idea is in your body”: Technology and transformation in the early childhood classroom

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-172
Author(s):  
Dana Frantz Bentley
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Transformational Learning ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
Traditional Technologies

What does it mean to engage in transformational learning with young children? In a time when “technology” is hallowed as all-important, how do we frame young children as empowered, critical thinkers around technologies, instead of just consumers? This article looks closely at a child-centered, emergent curricular process within an early childhood classroom. Framing the “having of ideas” as the essential technology in children’s lives, a teacher chronicles and analyzes children’s idea-having process and the pedagogies around it. Focusing on children’s talk, questioning, critique, and negotiation, this article shifts away from notions of traditional technologies, looking closely at the transformational learning inherent in children’s collective having-of-ideas.

scholarly journals Reconceptualizing Assistance for Young Children of Color With Disabilities in an Inclusion Classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Soyoung Park ◽  
Sunmin Lee ◽  
Monica Alonzo ◽  
Jennifer Keys Adair
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Head Start ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Surveillance Culture ◽  
Children Of Color ◽  
School Year ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
Medical Model Of Disability ◽  
Inclusion Classroom

In this article, we draw on DisCrit to critically analyze how a group of early childhood educators approached assistance with young children of color with disabilities in a Head Start inclusion classroom. Using examples from data collected over one school year, we demonstrate how child-centered assistance advances justice for young children of color with disabilities who are often subjected to a surveillance culture in schools. We critique assistance that aligns with the medical model of disability and aims to change young children of color with disabilities to conform to ableist, racist expectations of schooling. We offer examples of assistance practices that contrastingly aim to support young children of color with disabilities to pursue their own interests and purposes. Through these counterstories, we reconceptualize assistance as a practice that can support young children of color with disabilities to be more fully themselves.

scholarly journals (Re)considering Squirrel––From Object of Rescue to Multispecies Kin

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
Angela Molloy Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Classroom Community ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
Northwest Region

This is a story situated in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, where encounters with a non-native “rescue” squirrel present disequilibrium for an educator and surprises for an early childhood classroom community. Thinking with Haraway, Latour, and common world frameworks challenges the educator’s “back to nature” narrative and generates opportunities to engage with different perspectives about the intersection of nature and culture, human and nonhuman kin, and the limiting quality of anthropocentric, child-centered pedagogies in early childhood education.

Building Epistemic Awareness in the Early Childhood Classroom

2010 ◽  
pp. 177-216
Author(s):  
Denise L. Winsor ◽  
Sally Blake
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Preschool Education ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Academic Environments ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The World ◽  
New Thinking

It is evident from the information in the previous chapters in this book that there is much to be learned about how technology fits into the world of early childhood education (ECE). This chapter discusses some exciting new thinking about epistemology and how children and teachers learn and how this could relate to technology and all learning with young children and their teachers. The new understanding of preschool education potential demands new approaches to these vital years of schooling if we are to prepare our children to succeed in the increasingly demanding academic environments.

Enhanced Picture Books

2013 ◽  
pp. 196-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cahill ◽  
Anne McGill-Franzen ◽  
Dawn Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Literacy Development ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Shared Reading ◽  
Home School ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
School Connection ◽  
Children's Literacy

This chapter provides a rationale for using digitally Enhanced Picture Books (EPBs), electronic texts which pair text narration with animated pictures, with young children in the classroom and as a home-school connection tool. First, we synthesize the research on shared reading with young children. Next, we detail the research literature in the area of digital text use with young children. We suggest substantive variables to consider when selecting EPBs. Finally, we recommend practices for integrating EPBs into the primary and early childhood classroom in a manner that will advance young children’s literacy development.

Interventions for Young Children With and at Risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-187
Author(s):  
Kristin L. Withey
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Emotional And Behavioral Disorders ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Behavioral Skills ◽  
Life Success ◽  
A Current

Social-emotional and behavioral skills are essential to school and life success. Some young children, though, demonstrate significant delays in these areas. While there is a current hierarchical model of behavioral interventions for young children, it is lacking explicit interventions to be implemented in the early childhood classroom. This column suggests an intervention continuum to be used that extends beyond the current model, providing a matrix that aligns social-emotional or behavioral skills with specific interventions shown to be effective for students who fall under other disability labels.

“You Get What You Get”? Learner Agency in the Early Childhood Music Classroom

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Huisman Koops
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Student Learning ◽  
Color Preference ◽  
Student Choice ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Music Classroom ◽  
Learner Agency ◽  
And Control ◽  
Enhance Student Learning

In this article, I suggest that providing opportunities for agency (student choice or control) in the early childhood classroom could enhance student learning. One important way that young children demonstrate agency is through expressing color preference. I encourage teachers to look for opportunities to give children choices and control in the classroom, including selecting colors of classroom props or leading a conducting activity.

Contextualizing child-centeredness: Lessons from an American Samoan Head Start

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Sterling Henward ◽  
Mene Tauaa ◽  
Ronald Turituri
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Head Start ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Performance Standards ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Child Centered ◽  
Directed Instruction ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
American Samoan

Child-centeredness is a pedagogical approach common in US early childhood education, one that advocates young children should direct their own learning and excercise individual choice in activitites. This approach is reflected in national US Head Start policy. Using multivocal, video-cued, and traditional ethnographic methods, this study presents an analysis of interview data collected from three focus groups with American Samoan teachers to argue that the child-centered approach in newly adopted performance standards may not actually be child-centered, particuarly when ignoring the knowledge base and cultural expectations for children in culturally diverse communities. Analyzed through post-colonial theory, which recognizes the erasure of indigenous approaches to educating young children, we focus on Samoan teachers’ understanding of child-centeredness. Results indicate Samoan teachers had drastically different understandings of child-centeredness, instead pointing to optimal pedagogy as collaborative, community-oriented, and structured, and stressing the value of learning from each other. In forgrounding the voice of Samoan educators, we complicate the existing and pervasive binary positioning of child-centered and teacher-directed instruction in early childhood curriculums, to offer another alternative, an expanded notion of child-centeredness that is contextually bound and locally determined.

scholarly journals Leadership in the Early Childhood Years

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-23
Author(s):  
Debra Jo Hailey ◽  
Michelle Fazio-Brunson
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Young Children ◽  
First Graders ◽  
Leadership Skills ◽  
Student Leaders ◽  
Behavioral Characteristics ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Rural Living

Research into young children’s leadership skills is sparse and focuses on leadership in early childhood classroom contexts. Understanding of leadership development in young children can be expanded by studying parents’ perceptions of children’s leadership development as it is enacted in contexts outside of the school. This qualitative study examined beliefs, practices, and contextual relationships of families with young children who were identified by teachers within their schools as having strong leadership skills. Student leaders were identified according to the Leadership subscale of the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students, 3rd ed. Four mothers and three fathers of identified first graders who met gender and ethnic selection criteria participated. Interviews were conducted with structured and unstructured open-ended questions, and parent journals were collected from participants. Using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of human development as a guide, parental perceptions of contextual influences on young children’s leadership development were investigated. Findings indicate that parents were intentional in trying to develop characteristics and dispositions in their children to help them become good citizens but did not necessarily consider their actions as also building early leadership skills. Information concerning contextual situations, relationships, tools, and characteristics of early leadership development is shared. As parents discussed opportunities for their first graders to develop leadership skills, an unexpected theme emerged regarding benefits of rural living for young leadership development.

scholarly journals An Exploration of Preschool Teachers’ Perceptions of Physical Activity Integration in a Whole Child Pilot Curriculum

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Alicia Stapp ◽  
◽  
Madalyn Falkenheiner ◽  
Kenya Wolff ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Vigorous Physical Activity ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Critical Determinant ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Childhood Education

It is recommended that children ages 3-5 receive 180 minutes of physical activity a day, with at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Despite these recommendations, a majority of preschoolers are not provided opportunities in the early childhood education setting to meet these daily recommendations through either structured or unstructured physical activity. Accordingly, the number of young children identified as overweight or obese over the past couple of decades has increased. Critical to addressing this epidemic is the role of physical activity in the early childhood classroom and its capacity to increase healthy development and lifelong habits for young children. Participants in this study consisted of 23 Pre-K 4 teachers from 5 different preschools across North Mississippi. A phenomenological approach was utilized to determine if the barriers to physical activity implementation in early childhood education classrooms were effectively addressed through the Growing Healthy Minds, Bodies, and Communities curriculum. This was completed by garnering teachers' perceptions of the curriculum through pre- and post-focus groups. Three themes emerged from the data regarding teachers’ perceptions of the Growing Healthy Minds, Bodies, and Communities physical activity curriclum. Those themes are as follows: (a) teacher and student benefits of and engagement with physical activity in early childhood education; (b) shifting the mindset from “fitting it all in” to “making it work with modifications”; and (c) linking it to literacy. The opportunity for young children to participate in physical activity is a critical determinant of their overall health and development. While there has been an overall decrease in opportunities for preschool children to participate in both unstructured and structured physical activity, it is crucial to view physical activity as an essential and integrated component of the curriculum. When viewed through this lens, it provides a foundation that promotes lifelong healthy habits and development of children who become happy, healthy, and productive citizens in society.

Setting Effects on Friendship Formation among Young Children with and without Disabilities

2002 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Buysse ◽  
Barbara Davis Goldman ◽  
Martie L. Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Early Childhood Classroom ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Friendship Formation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference

This study examined the effects of social setting on the friendship formation of 333 preschool children (120 children with disabilities and 213 typically developing children) enrolled in inclusive early childhood programs. The study found that typically developing children in specialized classrooms had significantly more friends than did children with disabilities in those same settings. In child care settings, however, the difference between the reported number of friendships for typically developing children and their peers with disabilities did not reach statistical significance. Implications are presented for considering how the social ecology of the early childhood classroom setting may influence social outcomes for young children enrolled in inclusive programs.

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