Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Professional Development Program Addressing Teachers’ Well-Being: A Natured-Based Intervention Approach, Carmen Chow

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

ECE Teachers are often exposed to a number of stressors in their professional environments that place demands on their physical and psychological well-being. Maintaining work well-being requires a multidimensional approach, including holistic professional development programs, stress interventions, recovery experiences, as well as a social support network. Nature-based intervention has been proven to alleviate stress, decrease depressive symptoms, and lower blood pressure in individuals. This school improvement project raises awareness towards promoting teacher well-being at an institutional level by implementing a nature-based well-being professional development program to increase staff capacity.

The Research-Based Strategies To Help Trauma Students In A Preschool Classroom, Amber Murray

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

Trauma in young children is an event that undermines a child's sense of physical or emotional safety or poses a threat to the safety of the child's parents or caregivers. There are different levels of trauma. Small changes in classroom interactions can make a big difference for traumatized students. Up to two-thirds of U.S., children have experienced at least one type of severe childhood trauma, such as abuse, neglect, natural disaster, or experiencing or witnessing violence. Trauma is the most significant public health issue facing children today. When teachers are proactive and responsive to the needs of students suffering from …

Examining California’S Title 22 Community Care Licensing Regulations: The Impact On Inclusive Preschool Settings, Aja Mckee, Audri Sandoval Gomez, Sardis Susana Rodriguez, Janice Myck-Wayne, Scott Turner, Markus Trujillo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Access to general education preschool in California has varied for children with disabilities. One reason for the disparity of educational placement is the preschool regulations outlined in California Department of Education’s Title 22: Community Care Licensing guidelines. These regulations, particularly in preschool, support or hinder preschool inclusion. Examining the preschool section of Title 22 through document analysis resulted in identifying three major themes that embrace or deter inclusive practices: (a) language (i.e., supportive language, antiquated language, and ambiguous language); (b) training, experience, and education; and (c) staff-student ratio. California’s educational leaders should consider these results to provide opportunities for preschool …

Exceptional And Able: Supporting The Social Communication Skills Of Gifted Neurodiverse Students In The Classroom, Victoria S. Henbest, Brenda L. Beverly

APLL Lab Presentations

These are the presentation slides from the 2022 MEGA Conference (Mobile, AL) sponsored by the Alabama State Department of Education.

Who's There For The Directors?, Mark K. Nagasawa

Straus Institute for Thriving Children & Families

This third report from the Listening to Teachers study’s second year focuses on a subsample of early childhood program leaders (n=113) in NYC. Among the key findings in this report:

• Support from supervisors lowered the odds of survey participants reporting potential burnout.
• However, the odds of program leaders reporting potential burnout were 1.7 times higher than for other respondents.
• The odds of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) respondents being in leadership roles were significantly less than their white colleagues.

While this study's self-selected sample makes these findings ungeneralizable, they do raise the critically important question, What is …

Exploring Teachers' Perceptions On The Fidelity Of Implementing Teaching Strategies Gold, Shucrea Yamina Victor-Cameron

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to assess the fidelity of implementation of the school readiness/kindergarten preparedness program and the training being used, called the Teaching Strategies GOLD®, through the perceptions of preschool teachers from a Head Start program in southeastern Florida. This study addressed the crisis with the school readiness outcomes in the state of Florida. Specifically, children are entering school underprepared for kindergarten. The Florida Kindergarten Readiness Screener data revealed failing test scores at the selected study site during the 2017–2018, 2018–2019, 2019–2020, 2020–2021, and 2021– 2022 school years. Implementing and measuring the efficacy of this …

How Can Professional Development For Early Childhood Educators On Trauma-Informed Practices Help Support Whole Child Development?, Kacy Carlson

Graduate Teacher Education

Research findings have indicated that early childhood educators are requiring additional knowledge and skills than what is currently provided to better support the development of young children after they have experienced a traumatic event (Alisic, 2012; Kim et al., 2021; Loomis & Felt, 2020). Approximately one in four children have experienced a traumatic event by the time they turn two years old (Loomis & Felt, 2020). This paper examined the impact of professional development opportunities for early childhood educators on trauma-informed practices to better support the whole child. In addition to professional development opportunities, the research suggested that curriculum enrichment …

Trauma-Informed Practices In Early Childhood Education, Michelle King

Graduate Teacher Education

Young children who have experienced trauma risk falling behind peers academically, and socially, and may have lifelong mental and physical impairments (Bartlett, 2021). Half of the young children in the United States have been victims of early childhood trauma (Bartlett, et al., 2017). Findings analyzed for this paper show that trauma-informed care (TIC) can increase children’s chance of recovering and thriving, despite trauma (Bartlett, 2021). The following studies showed how early childhood teachers can best prepare themselves for students of trauma in their classrooms. Preparation included TIC that focused on strong social-emotional development (SED), helping build resilience, and preparing for …

How Can A Play-Based Curriculum Foster Social And Emotional Self-Regulation Skills In Early Childhood Classrooms?, Kalei Stephens

Graduate Teacher Education

Play is an essential aspect in the early childhood years, especially during the years of preschool and kindergarten when children’s social and emotional skills are developing rapidly (Denham et al., 2012; Kangas et al., 2015; Kroll, 2017). Even though play is an essential part, allowing children to partake in pretend play during school hours has decreased tremendously due to the push of academics within the school (Aras, 2015). With the rising importance of play as part of the curriculum, there have been previous studies and research explaining the why and the benefits of play and how play has allowed children …

The Impact Of A Pilot Virtual Synchronous Group-Based E3 Parent Education: A Qualitative Study, Yu Jiang

Graduate Teacher Education

This study evaluated the accessibility and effectiveness of a pilot virtual synchronous group-based E³ Parent Education (E³PE) program initiated in Whitefish, Montana, in January 2021. It is a qualitative study of a model designed initially for a virtual live group-learning setting to empower parents in building a nourishing family environment. Parent education has been proven as an effective intervention and prevention of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and K-12 student mental health problems and behavioral issues. However, a lack of universal access and the busyness of parents are significant barriers to participation. The Literature Review showed rapid …

Using Cognitive Coaching To Facilitate Instructional Reflection, Brooke Walczak

Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive Coaching is a model (Costa & Garmston, 1985) designed to help teachers to become more self-directed in both their workplace and their lives. This single case study sought to analyze the effects of the Cognitive Coaching Model on instructional reflection. It also examined the coach's reflection on their strategies and how these strategies affected instructional reflection. One Reading Education graduate student conducted four coaching rounds with one veteran teacher who was teaching preschool for the first time. Data included video recordings, observational notes, Cognitive Coaching Self-Assessments, and researcher journals. This data was analyzed using a comparison/grounded theory that used …

Improving Read-Aloud Instruction In An Autism Preschool Classroom, Amanda M. Bruffy

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to look at what literacy strategies can be implemented to engage autistic preschool students during read-aloud instruction. Through this qualitative case study, I conducted research to find strategies that would engage my students in a way that is purposeful, effective, and create instruction where students take something meaningful away from the lesson. The research was conducted in a self-contained preschool classroom with a focus on Autism. A teacher's journal, family questionnaire, observational and anecdotal notes were used and collected to analyze data from read-aloud instruction. The data that was collected was analyzed through the …

The Play Workforce In Wales – Perceptions From Local Authority Play Sufficiency Lead Officers, Pete King, Justine Howard Dr

International Journal of Playwork Practice

As part of the Welsh Play Workforce Study, seven lead local authority officers responsible for facilitating the three-year Play Sufficiency Assessment (PSA) were interviewed in respect of Matter G: Securing and developing the play workforce development. Thematic analysis constructed three themes from the findings: play profile, collaboration and funding. Although each lead officer was passionate about the importance of play, their play profile differed concerning their play and playwork experience, knowledge and qualifications. The study indicates the importance of collaborative and partnership working both within and external to the local authority, especially with the ever-changing play-related policy and potential funding …

Enacting Relationships Through Dialogic Storytelling, Erin E. Flynn

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study investigates the dialogic affordances of story circles, a small group storytelling activity, enacted in three lower socioeconomic status preschool classrooms. Results show that children employed a range of dialogic strategies from ideationally populating their stories with other children to negotiating participation and making evaluative appraisals of children’s stories. Boys, in particular, engaged in a more pronounced co-constructive storytelling style as the children used stories to enact relationships through the discourse systems of ideation, negotiation, and appraisal. The children’s storytelling reveals the importance of child-led, dialogic talk for supporting meaning making in early childhood education.

Infographic: Four- And Five-Year-Olds' Achievement During The Pandemic, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

A recent study has analysed the experience of over 3000 children aged four and five attending preschool in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Children's achievement in prime learning areas, as well as their overall development, during September 2020 and July 2021, were compared to national pre-pandemic averages recorded in the 2018/19 school year.

Using A Cultural Response To Select Multicultural Social Studies Read Alouds In A Kindergarten Classroom, Meredith Shockley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to examine student interactions before, during, and after the reading of multicultural literature in kindergarten during the science and social studies instruction. The texts selected were picked based on information about the students' Funds of Knowledge, family make-up, and culture within the particular classroom. Over the course of two months, five multicultural texts were read aloud and discussed. Recorded book discussions, student drawings, and one-on-one interview questions were used to gather data. After all the data was collected, the following themes became apparent: family connections, diversity, and student engagement. Based on the data, …

Coding Protocol: Early Math Interventions In Informal Learning Settings: Attention To Literacy, Hannah Carter, Gena Nelson, Peter Boedeker

Literacy, Language and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this document is to provide readers with the coding protocol that authors used to code 51 studies that met inclusion criteria for a systematic review. This systematic review focused on how literacy is incorporated into informal math intervention studies for children in preschool to third grade. We investigated what types of literacy activities were integrated, how literacy was a part of data sources collected, and in what ways literacy was mentioned explicitly by authors in research reports. We coded studies in this systematic review to answer the following research questions: (1) How is literacy incorporated? (2) What …

The Long-Run Effects Of High-Quality Pre-K: What Does The Research Show?, Timothy J. Bartik

Testimonies

No abstract provided.

Long-Run Effects Of High-Quality Pre-K: What Does Research Show?, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

High-quality pre-K results in long-run effects of higher educational attainment, lower crime, and higher earnings for former child participants as adults.

Enrollment, Academic Persistence, Social Leveraging, And Social Support: A Multiple Case Study Of Ccampis Campus-Based Child Care, Ariel Sylvester

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

The research informs the public about the CCAMPIS (Child Care Access Means Parents In School) grant program and how it is improving the academic persistence of five single-mother college students. Besides offering affordable on-campus child care that is both convenient and high quality, the CCAMPIS grant also provided these five single-mother college students the ability to improve their social leveraging and social support networks. Social support is having a support system to turn to in times of need. Social leveraging is having network ties to increase social mobility. This includes improving finances, access to better housing and job opportunities, and …