Technology in Preschool Education in Mexico

Author(s):  
Jorge López ◽  
María Eugenia López

The last nine years have seen major change in the Mexican educational system as sweeping reforms across all levels have been implemented. In particular the early years of education have become the focus of legislation to increase quality, open access, and improve curriculum. How technology shaped these sweeping reform efforts will change the future of Mexico in a global community. Early childhood education must support the use of technology if the population is to move into a techno-society.

2011 ◽  
pp. 242-260
Author(s):  
Jorge Lopez

The last decade brought major change to the Mexican educational system as sweeping reforms across all levels were implemented. In particular the early years of education became the focus of legislation to increase quality, open access, and improve curriculum. Mexico captured international attention when it became the first country to make it obligatory for the State to provide pre-school education services for children 3 to 6 years of age and required parents to see that their children attend a public or private pre-school. This chapter explores the gap between policy and implementation of early childhood and technology reform. This sweeping reform is one of the first international attempts to support early childhood education at this level.


Author(s):  
Yu-Yuan Lee

Taiwan has become a global high-tech center. The success of becoming the leading country of high-tech and information technology is accredited to the efforts of the government and of all citizens. In addition, Chinese highly value in academic success, and this has contributed to the success of Taiwan. Parents believe the success of life is rooted in a good education, especially in the early years. This chapter presents an overview of early childhood education in Taiwan and explores how Chinese culture had influenced the value of parents’ expectation in education, as well as how children learn through the use of technology. The last part of the chapter discusses the discrepancy between current early childhood education situations and teachers’ professional development.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 871-875
Author(s):  
Elisabeta Bajrami Ollogu ◽  
Diturije Ismaili

Little attention has been paid to the principles in which early childhood education affects the quality of other educational system levels in terms of quality and long-life learning processes. In this research, we discuss some challenges of early childhood education with a bearing on its impact in the upcoming years of education, significance and importance of preschool education. The main reason is to be found in theoretical and empirical insights how this first level of education can impact the contextual and situational dimensions of all kinds of learning and how the system can affect stakeholders and beneficiaries. Methodologically, as above mentioned, the research combines the theoretical and empirical approaches (literature review and survey) with particular focus on the empirical data. Through literature review we tend to emphasize the importance of preschool education and its positive effects on the process of learning. On the other side, the empirical approach provides data regarding the relationship between low attendance (in preschool classes) and the success of the child in primary education and further classes, with the aim to identify eventual weaknesses of the educational system and offer some recommendations on how the relationship between the levels of education can be improved in order to increase the general level of quality for all actors involved; pupils, educators/teachers and parents. It analyzes data from a survey of 60 pupils (divided in two groups) to identify discrepancies between those who have attended preschool classes and those who didn’t. Parents have been part of the survey as well. An interview has been conducted with 30 parents with the aim to identify their uncertainties for not sending children in pre-classes and their perceptions and satisfaction towards the educational system.The results have shown significant differences in terms of success between children attending preschool classes compared to the others, which is an important indicator of how attendance of preschool education can positively affect the system as a whole. Most of the parents interviewed communicate different reasons for not sending their children in preschool classes. Reasons prevailing are mostly related to the economic claims and parents’ skepticism and dissatisfaction towards kindergartens’ infrastructure, staff involved, etc.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Licardo ◽  
Isabel Simões Dias

The purpose of the book is to present contemporary themes in early childhood education that are important for preschool education in practice and as topics in the education of students who will work in preschool education settings. The presented scientific research includes various themes in the field of pedagogy, didactics, special didactics and psychology. The results of the research reveal important conclusions regarding relationships between children and preschool teachers, children’s relationships with peers, important practices for social-emotional learning, problems that occur in students’ mathematics knowledge and the possibilities of promoting family literacy. Professional reports present international good practices in various educational settings for preschool education students. The presented good practices are innovative and are all based on socio-constructivist pedagogies. Authors report on how to activate learning in early childhood education with service learning, programming with children, science technology and maths, daily training in kindergartens, multimodal literacy, dance and didactic materials. In the last chapter international educational modules are presented that were prepared and tested within the project Erasmus+: International Learning Module in Early Years Education (EYE), between the years 2017 and 2019. These modules are examples of innovative education and how to integrate important topics in international early childhood education.


Author(s):  
Margarita León

The chapter first examines at a conceptual level the links between theories of social investment and childcare expansion. Although ‘the perfect match’ between the two is often taken for granted in the specialized literature as well as in policy papers, it is here argued that a more nuance approach that ‘unpacks’ this relationship is needed. The chapter will then look for elements of variation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) expansion. Despite an increase in spending over the last two decades in many European and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, wide variation still exists in the way in which ECEC develops. A trade-off is often observed between coverage and quality of provision. A crucial dividing line that determines, to a large extent, the quality of provision in ECEC is the increasing differentiation between preschool education for children aged 3 and above and childcare for younger children.


Author(s):  
Sari Havu-Nuutinen ◽  
Sarika Kewalramani ◽  
Nikolai Veresov ◽  
Susanna Pöntinen ◽  
Sini Kontkanen

AbstractThis research is a comparative study of Finnish and Australian science curricula in early childhood education (EC). The study aims to figure out the constructivist components of the science curriculum in two countries as well as locate the similarities and differences in the rationale and aims, contents, learning outcomes, learning activities, teacher’s role and assessment. The curriculum analysis framework developed by Van den Akker (2003) was used as a methodological framework for the curricula analysis. Based on the theory-driven content analyses, findings show that both countries have several components of constructivist curriculum, but not always clearly focused on science education. The Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) integrates children’s science learning within their five specific learning outcomes, whereas the Finnish national core curriculum for early childhood education and care has no defined learning outcomes in general. The Finnish curriculum more clearly than EYLF encompasses science and environmental education as a learning domain, within which children participate in targeted scientific activities to gain procedural knowledge in specific environmental-related concepts. More focus should be turned to the teachers’ role and assessment, which are not determined in science context in both countries. This international comparative study calls for the need of a considered EC curriculum framework that more explicitly has science domains with specifically defined rationale, aims, content areas, learning outcomes and assessment criteria. The implications lie in providing early childhood educators with tangible and theoretically solid curriculum framework and resources in order to foster scientific thinking in young children.


Author(s):  
Anne Soini ◽  
Anthony Watt ◽  
Arja Sääkslahti

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers have a central role in supporting young children’s physical activity (PA) and overall development in the early years. However, the value of early childhood education teacher training (ECETT) programmes is not widely understood. This study aimed to investigate pre-service teachers’ perceptions of perceived competence when (1) supporting a child’s PA, (2) teaching PE, and (3) observing and assessing a child’s motor skills and PA. These self-evaluations were compared with a range of individual, educational, and behavioural characteristics. Final-year Bachelor degree pre-service teachers (n = 274; 54%) from seven universities in Finland participated in the self-report questionnaire. The results of the linear regression models showed that the relevant PE studies and previous experiences of pre-service teachers predicted higher perceived competence of supporting a child’s PA, teaching PE, and observing and assessing a child’s motor skills and PA. Thus, the study findings demonstrated how teacher training could positively influence perceptions and attitudes to increase a person’s perceived competence when implementing PE in the early years. Overall, results reinforce the importance of PE in ECETT, and the time devoted to this syllabus area should be maintained or increased.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-416
Author(s):  
Jane M Selby ◽  
Benjamin S Bradley ◽  
Jennifer Sumsion ◽  
Matthew Stapleton ◽  
Linda J Harrison

This article evaluates the concept of infant ‘belonging’, central to several national curricula for early childhood education and care. Here, the authors focus on Australia’s Early Years Learning Framework. Four different meanings attach to ‘belonging’ in the Early Years Learning Framework, the primary being sociopolitical. However, ‘a sense of belonging’ is also proposed as something that should be observable and demonstrable in infants and toddlers – such demonstration being held up as one of the keys to quality outcomes in early childhood education and care. The Early Years Learning Framework endows belonging with two contrasting meanings when applied to infants. The first, the authors call ‘marked belonging’, and it refers to the infant’s exclusion from or inclusion in defined groups of others. The second, the authors provisionally call ‘unmarked’ belonging. Differences between these two meanings of infant belonging are explored by describing two contrasting observational vignettes from video recordings of infants in early childhood education and care. The authors conclude that ‘belonging’ is not a helpful way to refer to, or empirically demonstrate, an infant’s mundane comfort or ‘unmarked’ agentive ease in shared early childhood education and care settings. A better way to conceptualise and research this would be through the prism of infants’ proven capacity to participate in groups.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioanna Palaiologou ◽  
Trevor Male

In this conceptual article, the authors examine the context of early childhood education and care in England and the underpinning predominant ideologies to explore how these impact on the framing of leadership. The English context entails several contradictions (antinomies) at ontological, epistemological and axiological levels, and is heavily influenced by an ideological struggle concerning the value of play within the sector as opposed to a climate of child performativity. Moreover, the predominately female workforce (a factor itself) has faced relentless changes in terms of qualifications and curriculum reforms in recent years. With the introduction of the graduate leader qualification (Early Years Teacher Status), a vast body of research has been seeking to conceptualise what leadership means for early childhood education and care. In this article, the authors argue that these attempts are helpful and contribute to this discourse of leadership, but it needs to be thought of not only abstractly, but also practically. Thus, the authors conclude, the (re)conceptualisation of leadership should locate it as pedagogical praxis after evaluating the inherent deep dispositions of leaders in conjunction with their history, surrounding culture and subjective perspectives/realities.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Björklund

Title: Didactical discussion on pre-school teachers’ prerequisites for working with mathematics in Finnish early childhood educationAbstract: Finnish teachers encounter an increased focus on learning aspects and a revised legislation strengthens teachers’ professional role for early learning, which also has impact on pre-school teachers’ work in early childhood education (children 0–5 years). The paradigm in early childhood education in recent years emphasizes development, learning and teaching. Mathematics is one content area that has been given a lot of attention in Nordic discussions on education for early years. However, the Finnish national curricula and guidelines for early childhood education give limited support for developing stimulating and goal-oriented educational practice in so called academic fields of knowledge, for example mathematics. This article aims at pointing at some of the prerequisites for working with mathematics in Finnish early childhood education in relation to new research on mathematical development and didactics suitable for early childhood education. Three authentic examples of traditional pre-school activities with toddlers are taken as a starting point for the didactical discussion.


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