Early Childhood Education Leadership In Tanzania: A Missing Link For Quality Good Start In Basic Education, Fortidas Bakuza

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Early Childhood is a foundational period in the life of every child that is very important in the growth and development of each human being. In most literature, policy documents and program interventions, Early Childhood covers the period between conceptions to eight years. It is during this period in the human life cycle that young children acquire knowledge of themselves, people around them and the environments in which they live. Early Childhood as a foundation period for future development is demanding specialized leadership training opportunities, so that those in decision making positions do not only view Early Childhood Education as …

Intentional Conversations: Co-Creating Global Family, School, And Community Engagement Research, Emily Markovich Morris

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

As part of the Brookings Scholar Lecture Series, Brookings Mountain West presents a lecture titled "Intentional Conversations: Co-Creating Global Family, School, and Community Engagement Research" by Brookings fellow in global economy and development, Emily Markovich Morris. The more that families, schools, and communities work in partnership, the more students and schools have the support needed to thrive. This lecture explores a school and community-based research study representing education institutions in 14 countries across 6 continents. The project identifies beliefs held by families, educators, and students on the purpose of school, and global barriers to family, school, and community engagement. Surveys …

Of Boys And Men: Why The Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, And What To Do About It, Richard Reeves

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Boys and men are struggling. Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have many losing ground in the classroom, the workplace, and in the family. While the lives of women have changed, the lives of many men have remained the same or even deteriorated. Our attitudes, our institutions, and our laws have failed to keep up. Conservative and progressive politicians, mired in their own ideological warfare, fail to provide thoughtful solutions.

The father of three sons, a journalist, and a Brookings Institution scholar, Richard V. Reeves has spent twenty-five years worrying about boys both at home and work. His …

Transforming Transitions To School: Using Funds Of Knowledge And Identity, Lennie Barblett, Fiona Boylan, Amelia Ruscoe

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This resource describes a project where ten Western Australian Independent Schools embraced a way of viewing children and their family’s transition to school.

Participating teachers came together as a community of practice and engaged in different ways of thinking and investigating accepted practice.Transition practices were affirmed or challenged as teachers were mentored through design-based thinking. Transition ideas were explored focussing on children’s funds of knowledge and identity. This resource outlines why transitions are important, considers transitions through a funds of knowledge and identity lens, and describes each school’s journey as they re-imagined transitions in this project. Finally, the ideas and …

The Impact Of Teacher Student Relationship On The Academic, Behavioral And Socioemotional Growth And Development Of Students Aged Pre-K To 12, Graciella Arrascue

Education Theses

Fostering strong relationships with students is a pedagogical approach which can benefit both students and teachers. This research analyzed the application of this methodology in classrooms with students aged pre-k to 12. Based on this research, teacher student relationships can positively benefit student outcomes in academic, behavioral, and social emotional areas. The findings show how to establish these strong relationships, how relationships are a tool for classroom management and how relationships affect student motivation.

Digital Literacy: A Review Of Literature, Lennie Barblett, Raisa Akifeva, Leanne Lavina, Fiona Boylan

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This report describes the main themes of collected literature to examine and explain the information in relation to making best practice recommendations for using digital technologies with children, and their families using Better Beginnings programs. These themes include:

• definitions of literacy,
• digital literacy in the context of childhood and children’s rights,
• dimensions of children’s digital literacy,
• digital technology, children and families,
• digital divide and diversity,
• eSafety, privacy, protection,
• children’s digital literacy learning, and
• librarian staff as digital literacy mentors and advocates.

The early childhood phase of childhood (particularly birth to age five) is one of the most under - researched …

Public Charter And District Public Schools In The Mountain West, 2019-2021, Zachary Billot, Kristian Thymianos, Vanessa Booth, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

K-12 Education

This fact sheet explores data from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) report, “Voting With Their Feet: A State-Level Analysis of Public Charter School and District Public School Trends.” Specifically, we examine enrollment trends for district public schools and public charter schools in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.

Transforming Minnesota's Early Care And Education Infrastructure, Nicole Frethem

Student Scholarship

In 2021, the Minnesota legislature authorized the Great Start for All task force to present recommendations for how the state can provide “access to affordable, high-quality early care and education that enriches, nurtures, and supports children and their families,” to “all families” in Minnesota.

The early care and education landscape in Minnesota has experienced dramatic changes in programming and investments over the last twenty years. In the early 2000s, the state’s primary child care subsidy program, the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), was moved from the Department of Children, Families and Learning to the Department of Human Services in an …

State School Finance In The Mountain West, 2019, Kristian Thymianos, Ally M. Beckwith, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

K-12 Education

This fact sheet examines K-12 school finance indicators drawing from an original report by Albert Shanker Institute and Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. These indicators show whether states are funding school districts to national standards. This fact sheet examines state-level data for the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) from the State School Finance Profiles report for the 2018-2019 school year.

The Importance Of Parent-Teacher Communication And Collaboration And How To Enhance Them For Various Types Of Families, Madeleine O'Neil

Senior Honors Projects

An educator is defined as someone who provides instruction to others. What this definition does not include is how the role of a teacher or educator goes far beyond merely providing instructions and teaching others. In order to be effective, teachers must learn how to adequately communicate and collaborate with their students, other education professionals, and families. Especially in the education field, teachers must learn how to communicate and collaborate with each student’s family to help create positive, productive, and beneficial professional relationships.

Communication should be ongoing and should be carried out in a manner that works for both the …

Children's Book On Pragmatics, Emily Conners

Senior Honors Projects

Pragmatics of communication is the use of social language skills when communicating with others. These skills are important in learning how to appropriately communicate and in building relationships. This is one area of communication that children can have difficulties with when they are developing language skills.

This children’s book focuses on one pragmatic skill learned during development, using language to request permission, with the goal of teaching children aged two to five about its importance. I used my background knowledge in pragmatics and child development to write a story about a boy named Jacob that struggles to ask his Grandpa …

Thinkmed: Inspiring The Future Of Stem, One Project At A Time, Steven Trinh, Lauren Dudley

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

ThinkMED is a nonprofit initiative offering a four-week curriculum specifically designed to develop critical thinking and encourage evidence-based decision making. Each week’s content material revolves around the use of a ThinkBOX science kit containing four (4) wet-lab experiments designed to supplement the curriculum. Each experiment is formulated to be inclusive of all California Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) K-5. At the end of each week, students get the opportunity to speak with university professors & scientists from a multitude of subject areas including chemistry, anatomy, computer science, physiology, and bioengineering. ThinkBOXes are donated to children and families who do not …

Curiosity, Motivation, Autonomy, And Lifelong Learning In Education And The United States Marine Corps, Cynthia Malmquist

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Curiosity, intrinsic motivation, and autonomy-supportive teaching all promote lifelong learning in both the classroom and Marine Corps. Humans are all born with curiosity. Children inherently practice forms of intrinsic motivation. Most would agree that they do not like being micromanaged - they enjoy a sense of freedom when completing tasks. Despite this, many students learn in a controlling environment and many Marines work under controlling leaders. Though a large amount of time is spent on learning through the first 18 years of life, lifelong learning does not come naturally and is not commonly practiced. The research and ideas discussed below …

Oral History: A Tool For The Elementary And Middle Classroom, Jessica Keiser

Senior Honors Theses

Modern historical instruction requires educators to cover broad expanses of history and prepare students for standardized testing. In the push to meet state standards and cover the vast curriculum in short periods of time, many educators have begun to teach to the textbook. Much to the detriment of students, this educational practice has favored periodization and content quantity over the development of crucial historical skills. Rather than adhering to popular education trends, teachers can consider implementing oral history projects within their elementary and middle school classrooms. Oral history is a methodology that employs first-hand accounts to teach about key historical …

Teach A Person To Fish: An Examination Of The Functionalities Of Outdoor Classrooms In Windsor-Essex County, Loretta M. Sbrocca

Education Publications

ABSTRACT

Outdoor classrooms are valuable learning environments that are adaptable in the face of differing terrain, climate, geography, weather and changing educational requirements. They can be used to teach all subjects, engage students in personal development goals and organizational priorities, and promote community involvement. How can educators harness the vast potential of outdoor classrooms as a learning tool? Understanding their functionalities is one means. This research employs an online questionnaire and optional follow-up interviews with various types of educators throughout Windsor-Essex County to help participants understand the functionalities of their own outdoor classrooms. Results showed that educators had different interpretations …

Values In Early Childhood Education (Ece): A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study Of Values For Ece Expressed In Policy Documents, Jolene Pearson, Arve Gunnestad, Sissel Mørreaunet, Sobh Chahboun

Education Faculty Publications

Purpose

This comparative study identifies core values expressed in Early Childhood Education (ECE) official policy documents from a sample of thirteen countries.

Design/Approach/Methods

This study employs document analysis as well as content and thematic analysis. ECE values identified in the policy documents are categorized into three groups: political and society-related values, educational values, and individual and relational values.

Findings

Document analysis reveals the values that are common across countries and those that are more specific to just one or a few countries at most. This study discusses the characteristics of these values from the perspective of globalization. In doing so, …

Thinkmed: Providing An Environment For Disadvantaged Students To Explore Stem, Steven Trinh, Lauren Dudley, Peter Chang

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

ThinkMED is a nonprofit initiative offering a four-week curriculum specifically designed to develop critical thinking and encourage evidence-based decision making. Each week’s content material revolves around the use of a ThinkMED Science Kit containing a wet lab experiment designed to supplement the content curriculum. Each experiment is formulated to be inclusive of all California Next Generation Science Standards K through 5. Contained within each week’s ThinkMED Science Kit is a unique QR code that directs the student to an interactive simulation of the experiment created by our team of computer scientists and graphic designers. At the end of each week, …

"Read It Again!": Storytelling To Imitate The Great Teacher, Kate Whatley

Senior Honors Theses

The student’s mind is bent on stories, asking mothers around the world to ‘read it again’. These stories preserve information and emotions for centuries. In the classroom, stories enliven motivation and empathy in ways that result in higher academic achievement and social awareness. Learning to use stories as a key instructional strategy will allow for more equitable opportunities in classrooms, encourage mental health and truth telling for the teacher and the student collectively, and allow the academic community to imitate Christ by contributing to the bigger story taking place across time. In application of using stories as teachers, this thesis …

Challenging Deficit Discourses: Human Services And Trauma-Informed Practice, Brielle Lamphere

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study by Kaiser-Permanente has significantly influenced trauma practice in many contexts. As a medicalized model, ACEs was intended to collect population information about traumatic experiences. However, many of its current applications are harmful in practice and in need of critique. More specifically, school systems must reconsider how ACEs is used in curriculum since providing screenings or “trauma-informed” models off of this study often portrays trauma as a deficit. By carefully examining my own education on ACEs and trauma theories at Western Washington University, alongside the experiences of other students and several professors, this deficit discourse …

Effects Of Creative Video Games On Creativity, Haiqal Sazalli, Sharil Sungkono, Mohammed Rashaun, Khalis Muzakir

Introduction to Research Methods RSCH 202

The purpose of this research is to find the effects of creative games on the Creativity Quotient of human beings. Assessing creativity is based on divergent thinking consisting of fluency, originality and uniqueness in thinking methods. The theoretical framework assesses the creative thinking of candidates through a 4-week gaming programme consists of a pre-and post-assessment of the Creativity Quotient Test which consists of 10 critical thinking questions. These questions will test the fluency, originality and uniqueness of the candidates. To provide a fair result, the same questions will be used for the pre-and post-assessment. Results will prove that games are …

Intergenerational Learning: An Exploratory Study Of The Concept, Role And Potential Of Intergenerational Learning (Igl) As A Pedagogical Strategy In Irish Early Childhood Education (Ece) Services, Anne Fitzpatrick

Doctoral

This study investigates the concept, role and potential of intergenerational learning (IGL) as a pedagogical strategy in Irish early childhood education (ECE) services. It explores the perspectives on IGL of educators(5), children(70) and their parents(43) in five Irish ECE services in city, town and suburban locations. The theoretical and conceptual framework was informed by socio-cultural theories of learning aligned to key principles of IGL. A qualitative methodological approach was adopted to access these perspectives.Specifically, the methods used to gather data were semi-structured interviews with educators, draw and talk strategies with children and informal written feedback with parents. Educators played a …

Fine Arts Integration In Early Childhood Education Classrooms, Emily K. Flach

Education: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This study seeks to define the place of fine arts in all early childhood classrooms regardless of subject. This research explored how fine arts can enhance a lesson or a student’s learning experience and the perceived effects of art integration on students and teachers. Research methodology included conducting interviews with practicing teachers in both general and special area education to understand their perspectives on fine arts integration.

Montessori Approach In Public Schools, Sara Ronen

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In June 2020, amidst the COVID-19 crisis, Just Schools Fund, a non-profit organization supporting educational justice, held a seminar with all of the leading organizations in the field of education equity (Global education justice... 2020). The guest speakers agreed that traditional forms of education do not work for all students and that it was beneficial to focus on schools trying innovative approaches. The world needs schools that are progressive, inclusive, and fully supported by the community. These ideas echo an education revolutionary from a much earlier time, Dr. Maria Montessori. Dr. Montessori led an educational movement that pushed for children’s …

Achieving The Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence From The Longitudinal Parenting Across Cultures Project, Jennifer E. Lansford, W. Andrew Rothenberg, Sombat Tapanya, Liliana Maria Uribe Tirado, Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong, Liane Peña Alampay, Suha M. Al-Hassan, Dario Bacchini, Marc H. Bornstein, Lei Chang, Kirby Deater-Deckard, Laura Di Giunta, Kenneth A. Dodge, Sevtap Gurdal, Qin Liu, Qian Long, Patrick S. Malone, Paul Oburu, Concetta Pastorelli, Ann T. Skinner, Emma Sorbring, Laurence Steinberg

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Raw And Pure Education In The Society, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

What does education mean to individuals in the world today? Education is a way one can attain or improve his or her ability to lead and survive in the society of ours. Without educational training of the mind, it may be impossible to realize the importance of adaptability of living in the environment. Without education, It may also be difficult to embellish the use of both the mental and physical attributes possessed by individual beings.

What really is education? Education is the training of the mind to perform desire functions or to perpetuate the modality of obtaining an end or …

Arts 4 All Kids/Ymca: Cel Final Report, Sarah Collins

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

An account of my CEL experiences as a volunteer creative writing teacher for the London nonprofit organization, Arts 4 All Kids, and as an educator for the before and after school program from the YMCA. These experiences have allowed me to explore teaching in a classroom setting, planning/delivering activities and assignments, behaviour and classroom management, working with children with special needs, and working with children from struggling families.

Mccleary V. State And The Washington State Supreme Court's Retention Of Jurisdiction—A Success Story For Washington Public Schools?, Jessica R. Burns

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

No abstract provided.

The Educational Needs Of Children Ages 0-5 Born With Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome In Maine, Julia Casey

Honors College

The goal of this study is to better understand the educational needs of children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in Maine. This study will consider two questions. First, what is currently being done to help children born with NAS in Maine? To answer this question, I looked into previous studies that evaluate the needs of children born with prenatal drug exposure. I also looked into Maine’s Strategic Action Opioid Plan to determine what initiatives the state is taking towards helping these children. Second, what should Maine be doing to help the children born with NAS? To answer this question, …

Mirrors Of Our Own: Multiracial Representation In Children’S Picture Books, Kiana Foster-Mauro

Honors Scholar Theses

The United States multiracial population is a fast-growing portion of our population. As the multiracial population grows, so does the need for multiracial representation within books. This study analyzed the representation of multiracial individuals in children’s picture books for ages newborn-8. I identified 75 board and picture books published in the United States between the years 2009 and 2019 that feature mixed race characters. The identified texts were analyzed in a critical content analysis using a framework based upon Critical Race Theory. Through this framework, I examined how multiracial characters in the texts are portrayed, the power dynamics, and what …

Stories That Shape Us, Lauren Dubas

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

This club is a Mythology Club that explores popular greek myths through fun and interactive activities. These actives are designed with 4th and 5th graders in mind, and are meant to provide an interesting way to interact with the mythology material presented during each lesson. The lessons do not build off of one another, and can be used in any order and still retain understanding of that myth.