scholarly journals The Effects of Children’s Literature on Preservice Early Childhood Mathematics Teachers’ Thinking

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Jett
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Education Majors ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Mathematics Teaching And Learning

In this article, the author shares an intervention of using children’s literature as a pedagogical frame for an undergraduate mathematics content course with early childhood education majors to influence their thinking about mathematics teaching and learning. With this case study of 29 preservice teachers, the author found that literature increased preservice elementary teachers’ excitement about mathematics, heightened their self-efficacy in mathematics, and motivated them to design innovative mathematics lessons. By elaborating on these findings, the author makes a case for the continued need for mathematically competent teachers in elementary classroom spaces, and the author advocates for the incorporation of literature as a means to do this work. Finally, the author provides implications for future research and practice with other SoTL-related projects involving children’s literature.

scholarly journals How to Use Challenge-Based Learning for the Acquisition of Learning to Learn Competence in Early Childhood Preservice Teachers: A Virtual Archaeological Museum Tour in Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Abril-López ◽  
Dolores López Carrillo ◽  
Pedro Miguel González-Moreno ◽  
Emilio José Delgado-Algarra
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Virtual Museum ◽  
Learning To Learn ◽  
Virtual Tour ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Challenge Based Learning ◽  
Museum Tour

This article presents the research results in relation to an interdisciplinary teaching innovation project—Teaching and Learning of Social Sciences and Teaching and Learning of Natural Sciences—with Early Childhood Preservice Teachers (ECPT) at the University of Alcalá (Spain) in the pandemic context by COVID-19 during 2020–2021 (N = 55): 52 women (94.55%) and 3 men (5.45%) from 20 to 22 years of age. The main research problem is to know if the ECPT improves the learning to learn competence after a challenge-based learning (CBL) linked to virtual tour in a museum. The main objective was to improve the learning to learn competence, during a virtual tour at the Community of Madrid Regional Archaeological Museum (MAR) (Alcalá de Henares, Spain) for a reflective training of students to understand problems of the past and present and future global challenges, promote collaborative and multidisciplinary work, and defend ethics and leadership. In order to ascertain the level of acquisition of this competence in those teachers who were being trained, their self-perception—pretest–posttest—of the experience was assessed through a system of categories adapted from the European Commission. ECPT worked, in small groups and using e/m-learning tools, ten challenges and one storytelling cooperatively with university teachers to solve prehistoric questions related to current situations and problems. Subsequently, two Early Childhood Education teachers from a school in Alcalá de Henares reviewed the proposals and adapted them for application in the classroom of 5-year-old boys and girls. The results show an improvement in this competence in Early Childhood Preservice Teachers: total score pre-post comparison paired-samples Wilcoxon test result shows a statistically significant difference (p > 0.001); an evaluation rubric verified the results of self-perception. Second, we highlight the importance of carrying out virtual museum tours from a challenge-based learning for the development of big ideas, essential questions, challenges, and activities on socioeconomic, environmental, and emotional knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Third, this experience shows the insufficient educational adaptation of the virtual museum tour to the Early Childhood Education stage from a technological and didactic workshops point of view, but there is a diversity of paleontological and archaeological materials and a significant sociocritical discourse.

Using the Children's Literature Course to Promote Teacher Candidates' Cultural Competence

2021 ◽  
pp. 460-481
Author(s):  
Erin Hogan Rapp ◽  
Melissa Landa
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Culturally Competent ◽  
Collective Case Study ◽  
Asking Questions

This chapter presents the results from a collective case study of 23 undergraduate preservice teachers enrolled in a Children's Literature course at a large Mid-Atlantic university. It explores how course instruction in and around high-quality, culturally diverse children's literature facilitated both displays of culturally competent dispositions and cultural knowledge of self and others. The chapter also describes how the preservice teachers under study applied their culturally competent dispositions as they rehearsed selecting texts, planning activities, and asking questions to their future students. The Cultural Competence for Teaching Framework provided a useful metric to evaluate participants' displays of cultural competence across the course of the semester. Within this chapter, the authors describe how they embedded cultural competence education inside the course including a description of the activities, texts, and pedagogy used.

scholarly journals When are we going to have the real school? A case study of early childhood education and care teachers’ experiences surrounding education during the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 336-347
Author(s):  
Hem Chand Dayal ◽  
Lavinia Tiko
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care

In this study, we set out to explore how two private, early childhood education and care centres in a small island developing state in the Pacific are coping with schooling during the COVID-19 lockdown period. In particular, we used a case-study research approach to explore teachers’ feelings about the situation and what actions or strategies the centres have devised to continue to support education of young children. We also report on the challenges and opportunities that teachers have experienced in teaching remotely. The case studies suggest that teachers feel worried not only about their personal lives, but also about their professional lives as teachers. The findings also reveal how the two early childhood education and care centres innovate in delivering education in a time of severe crisis. Glimpses of success are visible in terms of making teaching and learning possible and meaningful even with very young children. These findings provide useful insights into teaching and learning during a pandemic.

scholarly journals Reading straight : an examination of heteronormativity in children's literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tricia Michelle Dumais
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Sexual Diversity ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Early Childhood Professionals

Diversity in ignored in many early childhood education settings, especially sexual diversity. The purpose of this study is to determine if children's literature in early childhood education settings represents diversity. Because identity is interconnected, this study includes an exploration of individual aspects of identity such as gender, sexuality, race, class, age, body size and ability. One hundred and nine books from four childcare classrooms were analyzed to investigate the representation of diversity in children's literature. A qualitative queer critique of two of the titles from this study supplemented the competing yet inadequate findings of the quantitative research. Results showed that beyond moderate representation racial diversity, the literature examined failed to represent significant diversity of sexuality, class, age, body size, and ability. Through the analysis of children's books it was found that oppression exists in the form of omission. Research from supplementary queer critiques of two titles showed that each book is heteronormative in nature and that one of the books may be deemed homotolerant as it positioned heterosexuality as 'normal,' represented sexuality as private, failed to celebrate difference, and failed to challenge essentialism. The findings of this study may be significant for initiating a dialogue among early childhood professionals to promote a celebration of difference.

scholarly journals extent of tablet computer use in New Zealand's early childhood education services

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 76-94
Author(s):  
Luke Santamaria ◽  
Sue Cherrington ◽  
Mary-Jane Shuker
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Tablet Computer ◽  
Tablet Computers ◽  
Collective Case Study ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Home Based

In 2017, New Zealand’s revised curriculum for early childhood education, Te Whāriki, expanded reference to the use of technology for teaching and learning to include digital media and related devices. This article reports findings from a doctoral study about tablet computer use among New Zealand’s four major early childhood service types: education and care centres, home-based services, kindergartens, and playcentres. Data were gathered in 2017, initially through a national survey, followed by a collective case study. Seven services participated in the collective case study which was designed to explain the results of the survey. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse survey data while cross-case analysis was used to identify themes from the responses from each service in the collective case study. The results are presented according to two categories of respondents, services who classified themselves as non-users and services who were using tablet computers for teaching and learning at the time of the survey. The national survey results revealed that more than half of the services did not use tablets. Non-users’ reasons for not using tablet computers are discussed considering findings from both quantitative and qualitative phases of the study. Services who used tablets did so for a variety of reasons, including for documentation and assessment, to support children’s learning and teaching work. Qualitative data regarding policies or guidelines for staff about the use of and access to digital media, teachers’ and educators’ learning for how to use touchscreen tablets for teaching and learning, as well as services’ preferences on the facilitation of children’s tablet use are also presented. An important issue uncovered in this study was the use of personal tablets within ECE services. Among non-users, teachers and educators from more than half of home-based services and playcentres used their personally owned tablet computers, raising concerns about cybersafety and screen time. Many user services did not have formal guidelines or policies regarding tablet use. The data suggest that some services relied on the use of teachers’ and educators’ personally owned tablets. Implications arising from the findings of this study are explored, including the relevance of using digital technology for supporting distance learning and learning at home as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Reading straight : an examination of heteronormativity in children's literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tricia Michelle Dumais
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Sexual Diversity ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Early Childhood Professionals

Diversity in ignored in many early childhood education settings, especially sexual diversity. The purpose of this study is to determine if children's literature in early childhood education settings represents diversity. Because identity is interconnected, this study includes an exploration of individual aspects of identity such as gender, sexuality, race, class, age, body size and ability. One hundred and nine books from four childcare classrooms were analyzed to investigate the representation of diversity in children's literature. A qualitative queer critique of two of the titles from this study supplemented the competing yet inadequate findings of the quantitative research. Results showed that beyond moderate representation racial diversity, the literature examined failed to represent significant diversity of sexuality, class, age, body size, and ability. Through the analysis of children's books it was found that oppression exists in the form of omission. Research from supplementary queer critiques of two titles showed that each book is heteronormative in nature and that one of the books may be deemed homotolerant as it positioned heterosexuality as 'normal,' represented sexuality as private, failed to celebrate difference, and failed to challenge essentialism. The findings of this study may be significant for initiating a dialogue among early childhood professionals to promote a celebration of difference.

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