Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Representation In Engineering-Focused Children's Literature: A Critical Content Analysis, Angela Eckhoff

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Children’s picturebooks have long been understood as a powerful medium for exploring aspects of children’s lives, experiences, and identities serving as mirrors which allow children to see themselves reflected, as windows through which they can gain insight into the experiences of others, and as sliding glass doors when children are connected to the story and characters in meaningful ways. Utilizing a critical content analytic approach, this research examined the identity markers and engineering practices found in contemporary children’s picturebooks with an engineering focus. The analysis yielded key themes that highlight the ways children can interact and connect to the characters …

Multicultural Awareness And Educational Continuity Among Early Childhood And Elementary School Teachers In South Korea, Seongryeong Yu, Minyoung Gil, Sung-Ryung Lyu, Kyunghoon Son

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Early childhood and elementary education scholars have argued that multicultural education is vital to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion. However, its consistent and coherent implementation across different educational stages remains relatively understudied. This research examines the levels of multicultural awareness among educators in childcare centers, kindergartens, and elementary schools in South Korea, focusing on the continuity of multicultural education between these stages. Based on responses from 176 educators, the study found that childcare center teachers had lower levels of multicultural awareness compared to kindergarten and elementary teachers, suggesting gaps in early childhood training. Although educators across all levels recognized the …

Culturally Responsive Ai Module In Early Childhood Teacher Education: An Action Research, Xin Li, Seongryeong Yu

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Recently, the focus on emerging AI in early childhood education has predominantly centered around the technological aspects of AI integration. However, it is critical to support all children from diverse backgrounds while applying AI in early childhood settings. A substantial body of literature emphasizes the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy, especially for children from diverse backgrounds. Despite the necessity for culturally responsive pedagogy among educators, most of the AI studies focus on users’ attitudes toward AI and its impact on task performance, but studies and concerns regarding the incorporation of AI remain less unexplored. This study endeavors to address this …

Science Learning Centers In Early Childhood Classrooms, Callie Wright, Isabella Whitmore, Dawnita S. Gallo

Essays in Education

This manuscript explores the importance of science centers in an early childhood setting. In constructivism, Piaget (1959) clearly states that learning comes from the active role of children’s understanding of the world around them. When interacting with science-based learning materials in preschool, children learn to ask questions to receive new knowledge. According to Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory, children who are actively engaged in group work develop vocabulary skills, critical thinking, and adequate social skills. While engaging in inquiry-based play in the preschool classroom science center, young children learn to interact with one another and the world around them; growing as …

Paternal Negative Lifestyle Choices Affect On Maternal Pregnancy And Birth Outcomes: Bmi, Smoking, Drinking, Domestic Violence, Partner Involvement, Estrella Lopez

Nursing | Senior Theses

Paternal lifestyle choices are often overlooked yet are a crucial factor in maternal pregnancy and fetal outcomes. While maternal health behaviors have been the primary focus that determines a healthy pregnancy and child outcomes, this thesis explores how a paternal's (father's) harmful behaviors such as high body mass index (BMI), smoking habits, alcohol consumption, exposure to domestic violence, and lack of partner involvement, can contribute to diminishing the health of both mother and baby. After analyzing six research articles, this thesis revealed how a father's negative lifestyle choices affect maternal pregnancy and fetal outcomes. Using a quantitative, non-experimental descriptive design, …

Transitive Pedagogy In Creative Teaching: The Lived Experiences Of K–6 Teachers Who Intentionally Adapt For Creativity, Rebekah Marie Andersen

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

Creative pedagogy in the K–6 classroom is being increasingly recognized as an essential tool for increasing student engagement, practicing critical thinking, and fostering higher-order learning. However, research gaps in creative pedagogy are contextualized accounts of teacher thinking, planning, and enactment of strategies for student creativity. This study explored the lived experiences of teachers as they constructed and enacted creative lesson adaptations and how they identified and supported creative behaviors in students. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed, involving semi-structured think-aloud and stimulated recall interviews with five K–6 teachers who consistently adapt instruction to promote student creativity. Findings revealed that; (a) …

Should Students Pull The Plug?: How Ai Redefines Creativity In The Classroom, Labiba Hassan

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) tools, specifically ChatGPT as a tutor for students (ChatGPTt), reshapes creativity in the classroom. Does AI undermine or enrich creativity by altering its relational and self-disclosive dimensions? Engaging with Lindsay Brainard’s critique that AI erodes creativity by disrupting human connection and self-expression, I argue for a redefinition of creativity as a dynamic process sustained by emotion, intention, novelty, risk, and spontaneity — conditions adaptable to AI-mediated contexts. The paper challenges the premise that creativity depends on interpersonal connection, showing that self-disclosure can emerge through meaningful engagement with external systems, such as ChatGPTt. By …

Assessing The Content Validity And Usability Of An Implementation Fidelity Checklist For The Assessment, Evaluation, And Programming System, 3rd Edition (Aeps-3), Cameron A. Tyrrell

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

The included studies examined the content validity and useability of an implementation fidelity checklist for the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System (AEPS) for Infants and Young Children 3^rd Edition (AEPS-3). Study 1 assessed a revised version of an implementation fidelity checklist for item clarity and criterion clarity. After further revisions, Study 2 asked administrators of early childhood educational programs to implement the fidelity checklist in a classroom environment and assess the clarity of items, criterion, and feasibility of scoring different items. In addition, administrators included the length of time it took the implement the checklist and the strengths and …

Beyond The Bin: Transforming Relationships With Waste Through A Collaborative Inquiry-Based Environmental Education Curriculum, Kaylee V. Morris

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis presents Beyond the Bin, a collaborative inquiry-based environmental education curriculum designed to transform how young learners understand and interact with waste. Motivated by the limitations of current downstream waste education—focused primarily on consumer behavior and individual disposal practices—this project argues for an upstream approach that identifies the underlying cause of these prevalent systems of disposability. Grounded in environmental education theory, affective learning, and ecological literacy, the curriculum encourages students to rethink waste as a material with creative potential rather than something to discard. Through creative engagement, experiential learning, and community-based initiatives, the curriculum fosters collaboration between students, teachers, …

The Impact Of Pre-Kindergarten Programs On Literacy Achievement In Primary Grades In Rural Southeast Alabama Title I Schools, Courtney Sonntonya Thorton

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how pre-kindergarten impacts the literacy achievement of students in Alabama Title I schools. This quantitative study employed a causal-comparative (ex post facto) research design to examine the impact of Alabama’s First-Class Pre-K (FCPK) program on early literacy and school readiness, as measured by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and the Alabama Early Learning Inventory (AL ELI). The design was selected due to its appropriateness for studying naturally occurring groups and its capacity to explore potential cause-and-effect relationships without researcher-controlled intervention.

The independent variable was Pre-K attendance (attendee vs. …

The Relationship Of Preschool Variables To Kindergarten Early Literacy Skills, Michele Davis Thomason

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the impact of Pre-K experiences on kindergarten early literacy skills in Alabama. A convergent parallel mixed-methods research design was utilized to analyze assessment data from My Teaching Strategies AlaKiDS and Renaissance STAR Early Literacy for kindergarten students in a rural Alabama district. The students were divided into three groups for comparison: students who attended Alabama First Class Pre-K, those in private programs using the Abeka curriculum, and students with no formal Pre-K experience. The dissertation utilized Vygotsky’s constructivist theory to assess the influence of early educational environments on the cognitive development through scaffolding and the Zone of …

I'M Trying To Love Garbage (2021) By Bethany Barton, Peter Shea

Picture Books

Bethany Barton writes great books for kids about how minds change. In this one, the character’s arc is from thinking about garbage as just smelly icky stuff through empathizing (a little) with the creatures that feed on garbage, to eventually coming to see that all garbage is not equal; some needs special handling or it will clutter life up for a long time. The conclusion: I want to act like someone who thinks more about garbage, about what trash I create and where it ends up.”

Walk In The Woods (2023) By Nikki Grimes, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

An unnamed Black boy walks in the woods near his home a week after his father’s funeral. Because the boy knows how to be mindful in nature—to move slowly, step carefully, and pay close attention—he becomes more connected to the woods and the creatures in it. Rediscovering is his father’s legacy of ecstatic, aesthetic reverence for nature begins to assuage the boy's anger-tinged grief.

How To Be A Nature Detective (1966) By Millicent E. Selsam, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

Coming up with the most reasonable explanation of the available clues is something we all do on a daily basis. This book describes animal tracks as clues from which children can make inferences about what kind of animal left them and what they were doing when they did.

How Beautiful (2021) By Antonella Capetti, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

The question of what is and isn’t beautiful occurs to the caterpillar in this elaborate picture book when a giant Unknown Thing (human) lifts him out of his familiar leaf bed world and tells him, “You’re so beautiful.” The caterpillar wonders, “But what does beautiful mean?” The question leads him on a day-long trek through the forest, where other animals offer a variety of perplexing answers.

Grasshoppers, Ants, And Philosophical Fables, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

Aesop contrasted the ant’s virtues of industry, forward planning, and group loyalty with the idleness of a cicada interested only in merry-making and music-making. That contrast is challenged in many picture book versions of his fable. What does it mean to work? What is the value of making music and art? Can finding delight in an occupation be as important as denying gratification? When is it right to refuse help to someone who asks for it? This review compares six picture books—Ant and Grasshopper by Luli Gray (2011), The Ant and the Grasshopper by Amy Lowry Poole (2000), The …

Boy Whose Head Was Filled With Stars: A Life Of Edwin Hubble (2021) By Isabelle Marinov, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

Barely a hundred years ago, Edwin Hubble changed the way we understand the universe and our place in it more dramatically than almost anyone else has ever done. As this picture book biography shows, his mind-boggling discoveries can be traced back to childhood questions. The discovery that the world is bigger than we had imagined happens in many ways, and learning that we have some choices in deciding how new facts, new experiences, and new perspectives can matter to us is a necessary part of education.

Sidewalk Flowers (2015) By Jonarno Lawson, Samantha Piede

Picture Books

JonArno Lawson's Sidewalk Flowers centers on a little girl accompanying her father on a morning walk across a grey landscape. On the way, she spots dandelions sprouting out of the pavement. The protagonist's attention to this tiny, beautiful detail catalyzes her expanding appreciation for the rest of her environment, spurring her to notice beauty in unexpected places. This review suggests that Sidewalk Flowers richly introduces children to the philosophical theme of attention not with words, but with color.

Possum That Didn't (1950/2016) By Arthur Frank Tashlin, Maughn Rollins Gregory, Peter Shea

Picture Books

The possum ‘that didn’t’ is a very contented animal who smiles in sunshine and rain, but when a group of human picnickers spot him hanging by his tail, they read his smile as a frown and call him stupid for insisting that he is happy. They decide to take him to the city to find amusement and, because he won’t climb down from the tree, they excavate it and transport tree and hanging possum together. Frank Tashlin's book goes philosophical in two different directions. One is the direction of satire: We laugh at humans taking a possum to a nightclub, …

I'M Going To Make A Friend (2025) By Darren Chetty, Peter Shea

Picture Books

Philosopher Darren Chetty’s first picture book playfully explores a sort of language-accident: we say we make drawings and machines–and also that we make friends. Chetty shows us a child who tries to construct a robot-friend. As the child thinks about the elements that go into a friendship, we’re reminded of the contradictory desires of childhood companionship: for space and comfort, adventure and familiarity, a private connection and an opening to the wider world. What would one put into an artificial companion? The problem is as old as Pinocchio and Pygmalion. As the construction proceeds, the other kind of “making friends” …