Teaching Early Childhood Teacher Candidates How to Assess Children's Inquiry Skills in Science Learning

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-269
Author(s):  
Joohi Lee ◽  
Ji Yoon Yoon
2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Brown

As neoliberal polices that emphasize governing the modern state through market-based principles expand across the globe, they are altering the training of early childhood teacher candidates. This creates a range of challenges for those teacher educators who are critical of this reform process. This article presents an instrumental case study that examined the impact of neoliberal education reforms on the development of a sample of early education teacher candidates. Analyzing this case of teacher development offers teacher educators the opportunity to consider the practical and critical steps they might take to better prepare their candidates for these reforms. Doing so will help teacher candidates develop early learning experiences for their children that teach them to become engaged democratic citizens rather than compliant consumers within the neoliberal state.


Author(s):  
Lea Ann Christenson ◽  
Janese Daniels ◽  
Judith Cruzado-Guerrero ◽  
Stephen T. Schroth ◽  
Marisa Dudiak ◽  
...  

Teacher education programs serving early childhood education teacher candidates have unique challenges and need to work to ensure that each future educator be exposed to a variety of settings and practices throughout their preparation in order to best prepare them to serve the needs of their future young students. A solid background in human development, a well-rounded complement of methods courses grounded in developmentally appropriate practice and experience in a diverse variety of Professional Development Schools (PDS) will go far in meeting this goal. In Pre-K through 3rd grade classrooms early childhood teacher educators can significantly shape these competencies through their choice of, support for, and use of PDSs.


Author(s):  
Stephen T. Schroth

Teacher education programs face many challenges preparing teacher candidates for the early childhood education classroom. Initiating undergraduate research programs in conjunction with early childhood teacher education can provide a greatly enhanced experience for teacher candidates and bear great benefits to the departments sponsoring this. Undergraduate research initiatives provide pre-service teachers with tremendous opportunities to gain hands-on experiences with many of the theories and strategies they study in their coursework. Such initiatives also serve as tremendous recruiting tools, especially for those early childhood education programs seeking to recruit more males, teacher candidates of color, and those from low-SES backgrounds. Rigorous preparation must be completed before teacher candidates begin to conduct fieldwork, but the benefits to teacher candidates, mentor teachers, and children are many.


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