Understanding teacher learning community in the field of early childhood education: Focusing on Actor-Network theory

Author(s):  
Go Eun Choi ◽  
Ji Hyeon Kim ◽  
Hye Young Jung
Author(s):  
Marisa Macy ◽  
Jacqueline Towson ◽  
Judith Levin

A blended approach where pre-service and in-service professionals attend the same professional development event has the potential to create a leadership learning community. Bidirectional opportunities can result from a professional development format where experienced in-service professionals spend time with pre-service professionals. Public schools and universities can play a part in providing valuable resources to the community. This study shares how a leadership learning community was created by blending professional development to serve the needs of pre-service graduate students and in-service professionals in the field of early childhood education.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukuna Vijayadevar ◽  
Kate Thornton ◽  
Sue Cherrington

Leadership in early childhood education has been promoted as a collaborative process in which all teachers, rather than just the positional leader, are involved. Collaborative leadership practices are not well understood within the marketised Singapore early childhood education context. Beyond mandatory leadership training, little is known about how leaders are supported to strengthen their leadership practices and involve others in leadership activities. School-based literature suggests that learning through professional learning communities expands the collective capacity of organisations; however, literature on professional learning communities in early childhood education is limited. This article reports on the findings of an interpretive case study examining the current understandings and leadership practices of principals in the Singapore early childhood education context, and investigating how participation in professional learning communities can support the development of collaborative leadership practices. The participants in two professional learning communities established as part of this study were six principals from an anchor-operator childcare provider and five principals from private childcare centres in Singapore. Two teachers working with each of the respective principals were also involved in focus group interviews to ascertain if there were changes in their principals’ leadership practices. Data was collected from professional learning community meetings, online reflections, pre- and post-professional learning community interviews with the principals, and follow-up focus group discussions with the teachers. The key findings indicate that praxis as a result of participation in a professional learning community led to some shifts in principals’ thinking about collaborative leadership practices and resulted in reported changes to their leadership approaches, distribution of leadership, and improved collegiality and collaborative learning for teachers. The results indicate that considering and implementing collaborative leadership practices through professional learning communities in the Singapore early childhood education context requires sensitivity towards Asian Singapore sociocultural values related to hierarchy and economic pragmatism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105268462110088
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Garrity ◽  
Julia Bridi ◽  
Jaqueline Kotas ◽  
Gina Gianzero

Research and theory suggests that children and families are best served by a preschool to third grade approach (PreK−3) to early childhood education that is aligned, integrated, and based on developmentally appropriate practice. Because of the recent expansion of publicly funded preschool programs, principals are becoming increasingly responsible for overseeing these programs, and, as instructional leaders, play a critical role in establishing working conditions and creating organizational capacity to support teachers’ professional growth. Unfortunately, however, early childhood education is rarely addressed in principal preparation programs and principals are often unfamiliar with the science of child development. Using a qualitative case study design, the current study describes how one school principal began to lead a PreK−3 community at her school by examining data collected across a two-year period as the principal led a professional learning community with preschool, transitional kindergarten, and kindergarten teachers. The PreK−3 Learning Communities Competencies for Effective Principals developed by the National Association of Elementary School Principals were used to identify the thoughts, behaviors, and actions of one principal as she engaged in this work. Results from this study further discourse in the field as to what this approach looks like in practice and call attention to the need for structural changes in preschool and elementary settings.


2021 ◽  
Vol XII (3 (36)) ◽  
pp. 169-187
Author(s):  
Natalia Bednarska

The aim of the article was to present how teachers deal with managing online lessons. The author focused on the following categories: teacher learning styles, communications styles from teachers to students and lesson time. Results are based on observations of lessons conducted via the MS Teams during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was established that the dominant style of action of educators working with students of early childhood education is The instruction style is a dominant style of surveyed teachers. Most often they send directive messages to their students, and students spend an average of 22 minutes on learning new material during a whole lesson. The results were the starting point for answering the question about the opportunity to experience subjectivity during online lessons


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Anne Mette Buus

ResuméMetoder deklareret som evidensbaserede vinder frem i danske daginstitutioner båret af politiske ambitioner om en pædagogik baseret på videnskabelig viden om, hvad der virker. Evidensbegrebet anvendes i denne sammenhæng til at signalere, at effekten af en specifik indsats er målt med en videnskabelig præcision, der gør det muligt at forudsige dens virkning, uanset hvor den anvendes. Artiklen har som formål at udfordre en sådan forståelse af evidens og som alternativ at tilbyde en forståelse af evidens som et fænomen, der konstitueres og virker som del af en situeret politisk, social og kulturel praksis. Med afsæt i empiri fra et etnografisk feltarbejde og inspiration fra Aktør-Netværk-Teori undersøges i artiklen, hvordan den evidensbaserede metode De Utrolige År tildeles relevans og handlekraft på en national konference om evidens, til undervisning i metoden og i en børnehave. I disse sammenhænge stabiliseres metoden i kraft af sin status som evidensbaseret som en hensigtsmæssig del af en dansk småbørnspædagogik. De stabiliserende kræfter er ikke specifikke forskningsdesigns eller forskningsresultater men derimod attraktive og statusgivende rationaler og identiteter, som tildeler pædagogikken optimisme og status. Artiklen peger på, hvordan en evidensbaseret metode som et magtfuldt og virksomt fænomen i en dansk småbørnspædagogik ikke bliver til og virker i kraft af en iboende kvalitet, men er et resultat af metodens forbindelser til aktører af både politisk, ideologisk, emotionel og materiel art. AbstractEvidence-based methods are becoming increasingly widespread in Danish early childhood education driven by political ambitions about a pedagogy based on scientific studies about “what works”. The concept of evidence signals a scientific precision that makes it possible to predict a specific outcome. Such assumptions are challenged in this paper, and an alternative perspective is offered, inspired by theoretical perspectives from Actor-Network-Theory and data from ethnographical fieldwork. Through an analysis of the evidence-based method “The Incredible Years” in three different contexts, the paper explores how evidence-based methods are stabilized as the right and only thing to do. In these contexts, evidence is not linked to research results or relevance criteria but to attractive rationalities and identities which assigns optimism and power to early childhood education. As such the paper argues that evidence as a dominant part of Danish early childhood education is not the result of an essential quality, but the result of multiple other actors of various kinds - political, ideological, emotional, and material.


1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Susan Freedman Gilbert

This paper describes the referral, diagnostic, interventive, and evaluative procedures used in a self-contained, behaviorally oriented, noncategorical program for pre-school children with speech and language impairments and other developmental delays.


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