Education Commons^™

Developing A Vocabulary To Talk About Race In The White Home: One Family’S Experience, Rhianna K. Thomas

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

Studies have shown white parents actively avoid talking about race as the primary method of racial socialization of their white children (Bartoli et al., 2016; Pahlke, Bigler, & Suizzo, 2012). This limits children’s ability to talk about and therefore think about race in nuanced ways, resulting in white children who consider their own race meaningless and do not identify racially (Bartoli et al., 2016). Antiracist education breaks these white discourse norms, and directly addresses systemic racism (Escayg, 2018). This paper describes how one white family attempted to enact antiracist education in the home with a focus on developing a shared …

Play Behaviors Of Young Children With And Without Expressive Language Delay: An Exploratory Study, Brianna Hendrickson, Shari L. Deveney, Lisa Kelly-Vance

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

The association between language and play development during the early years of children’s lives is important as tremendous growth in development occurs in both at this time. Literature has suggested that if children have less developed language abilities, they may also have less developed play skills. The aim of the current exploratory study was to observe and categorize children’s play behavior using a comprehensive play assessment tool. This tool, the Play in Early Childhood Evaluation System (PIECES) coding scheme developed by Kelly-Vance and Ryalls (2005, 2014), provides information on differences in percentage of time in exploratory, simple pretend, and complex …

Uno News Maverick Daily January 19, 2016 Buffett Institute Launches New Program To Support Early Childhood Research, Uno News

Student Learning

OMAHA - A new fellowship program announced today by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska will provide financial support and mentoring for advanced doctoral students within the university system.

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute Graduate Scholars program will award 1- and 2-year grants - each worth up to $25,000 annually - to a maximum of four doctoral students every year. The program is designed to foster the growth of diverse, exceptional graduate students conducting research about young children and their families, with particular attention to children placed at risk as a consequence of poverty and social …

Transforming Teacher-Family Relationships: Shifting Roles And Perceptions Of Home Visits Through The Funds Of Knowledge Approach, Kristin Whyte, Anne E. Karabon

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Education has embraced the idea of an ‘asset approach’ to working with families and children, creating a focus on developing collaborative relationships with families by building on what they bring to the table. In this paper we explore what happened when early childhood teachers entered homes to learn from families and identify their Funds of Knowledge. The findings show how issues of power and perception surfaced when teachers attempted to shift their role from that of teacher to learner. In analyzing teachers’ experience before, during, and after ethnographic home visits we saw their general desire to adopt an asset-based mentality. …

Uno News Maverick Daily, November 24, 2015 Inclusive Early Childhood Major Approved For 2016, Uno News

Student Learning

OMAHA - Starting with the Fall 2016 semester, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) will offer a Bachelors of Science in Education with an Early Childhood Inclusive focus.

The degree program, which was approved last week by the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education (CCPE) brings together faculty from UNO's Teacher Education Department and Special Education and Communication Disorders Department to prepare future educators to support a wide range of needs young learners may face during their formative years.

Imagining A Future In Prek: How Professional Identity Shapes Notions Of Early Mathematics, Elizabeth Graue, Anne E. Karabon, Katherine Kresin Delaney, Kristin Whyte, Jiwon Kim, Anita Wager

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

This article describes how early childhood teachers engaged in a public preK professional development program. We examine how developing teacher identities mediated engagement with the discourses of developmentally appropriate practice, early mathematics, and funds of knowledge and how they connected present practice to an imagined future. We found that helping them to connect practice experience and new mathematical content knowledge through play allowed them to envision a meaningful place for math with young children.

Early Childhood/Child Welfare Priority, Nancy Edick, Samantha K. Ammons, Melissa Cast-Brede, Ann Coyne, Karen Falconer Al-Hindi, Shari Hofschire, Lisa Kelly-Vance, Jay Killion, Sajda Qureshi, Bridget O. Ryalls, Peter Simi, Peter Wolcott

Foundational Documents

This is the executive summary of a white paper that describes the context, current capacity, areas of opportunity, and next steps for the UNO Early Childhood/Child Welfare Priority (ECCW). It responds to the need for comprehensive integrated systems of services designed to give all young children (birth through age eight) access to what they need in the early years to succeed in school and in life. In this context, UNO recognizes ECCW as critical to our metropolitan university mission. Further, we must come together with early childhood service providers, P-12 districts, parents, policy makers, other University of Nebraska campuses, community …

Exploring The Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scales-Revised (Ecers-R) Evaluation On Preschool Children's Pre-Academic Progress, Jennifer L. Fundus

Student Work

The purpose of this study was to determine the physical, social, cognitive, and language outcomes of targeted Title I preschool students participating in programs not meeting and programs meeting Nebraska Department of Education, Early Childhood Evaluation Rating Scales-Revised (ECERS-R) requirements. As more requirements are being required for preschools to require, the exploration of the effectiveness of these requirements needs to be explored.

The Impact Of Elementary Principal Supervision On Public Prekindergarten Classrooms And Student Development, Lisa A. St. Clair

Student Work

This study examined the impact of public elementary principal supervision, and prior prekindergarten coursework/experience on the measured quality of public prekindergarten classrooms and students' developmental outcomes. Pretest-posttest results indicated that students' developmental outcomes significantly improved across six early learning domains in all three of the independent variable principal conditions where (a) principals supervised and had prior prekindergarten coursework/experience or (b) principals supervised and did not have prior prekindergarten coursework/experience or (c) principals who did not supervise their prekindergarten classrooms. However, posttest-posttest results comparing student's developmental outcomes indicated no patterns of significant differences between the three principal conditions. Furthermore, posttest-posttest classroom …