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Full-Text Articles in Education

The Persona Doll Project: Promoting Diversity Awareness Among Preservice Teachers Through Storytelling, Mary Ellin Logue, V. Susan Bennett-Armistead, Soojoung Kim Nov 2013

The Persona Doll Project: Promoting Diversity Awareness Among Preservice Teachers Through Storytelling, Mary Ellin Logue, V. Susan Bennett-Armistead, Soojoung Kim

Mary Ellin Logue

The Persona Doll Project describes an experiential intervention with undergraduate preservice teachers designed to increase awareness about diversity and apply this awareness to curriculum planning and advocacy for children. Sixty-three undergraduate students in a social studies methods class were each assigned a persona doll for the semester whose background differed from their own. Each was charged with becoming the advocate for the child, represented by the doll, by telling informed stories that would help other students better understand a level of diversity beyond what they knew from their own lives. Students heightened awareness of their own assumptions through narrative, inquiry …


Theory Guided Professional Development In Early Childhood Science Education, Soo-Young Hong, Julia Torquati, Victoria J. Molfese Nov 2013

Theory Guided Professional Development In Early Childhood Science Education, Soo-Young Hong, Julia Torquati, Victoria J. Molfese

Soo-Young Hong

The importance of early and developmentally appropriate science education is increasingly recognized. Consequently, creation of common guidelines and standards in early childhood science education has begun (National Research Council (NRC), 2012), and researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have shown great interest in aligning professional development with the new guidelines and standard. There are some important issues that need to be addressed in order to successfully implement guidelines and make progress toward accomplishing standards. Early childhood teachers have expressed a lack of confidence in teaching science and nature (Torquati, Cutler, Gilkerson, & Sarver, in press) and have limited science and pedagogical …


Context Influences Preschool Children's Decisions To Include A Peer With A Physical Disability In Play, Karen E. Diamond, Soo-Young Hong, Huifang Tu Nov 2013

Context Influences Preschool Children's Decisions To Include A Peer With A Physical Disability In Play, Karen E. Diamond, Soo-Young Hong, Huifang Tu

Soo-Young Hong

Understanding children’s decisions to include a child with a disability in activities is an important component of the social environment of children with disabilities. We examined preschool children’s understanding of the motor and social competence of hypothetical children with a physical disability, children’s decisions to include or exclude a peer with a physical disability in play activities, and children’s justifications of their inclusion/exclusion decisions. Children understood that a peer with a physical disability would have more difficulty with activities requiring motor skills than social skills and were more likely to include a peer with a physical disability when the activities …


Head Start Classrooms And Children’S School Readiness Benefit From Teachers’ Qualifications And Ongoing Training, Seung-Hee Claire Son, Kyong-Ah Kwon, Hyun-Joo Jeon, Soo-Young Hong Nov 2013

Head Start Classrooms And Children’S School Readiness Benefit From Teachers’ Qualifications And Ongoing Training, Seung-Hee Claire Son, Kyong-Ah Kwon, Hyun-Joo Jeon, Soo-Young Hong

Soo-Young Hong

Background Teacher qualifications have been emphasized as a basis of professional development to improve classroom practices for at-risk children’s school readiness. However, teacher qualifications have often not been compared to another form of professional development, in-service training. Objective The current study attempts to investigate contributions of multiple types of professional development to school readiness skills of low-income preschoolers. Specifically, we examined the significance of teachers’ education level, degree, teaching certificate, teaching experiences as well as specialized in-service training and coaching support as these teacher trainings are linked to preschoolers’ school readiness through proximal classroom practices. Method We used a multi-level …


Two Approaches To Teaching Young Children Science Concepts, Vocabulary, And Scientific Problem-Solving Skills, Soo-Young Hong, Karen E. Diamond Nov 2013

Two Approaches To Teaching Young Children Science Concepts, Vocabulary, And Scientific Problem-Solving Skills, Soo-Young Hong, Karen E. Diamond

Soo-Young Hong

The present study examined the efficacy of two different approaches to teaching designed to facilitate children’s learning about science concepts and vocabulary related to objects’ floating and sinking and scientific problem-solving skills: responsive teaching (RT) and the combination of responsive teaching and explicit instruction (RT + EI). Participants included 104 children (51 boys) aged four to five years.Small groups of children were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention groups (RT, RT + EI) or to a control group. Responsive teaching (RT) reflects a common approach to teaching young children, and the combination approach (RT + EI) includes explicit …


Child Care For Working Poor Families: Child Development And Parent Employment Outcomes: Community Child Care Research Project, Final Report, James Elicker, Carolyn Clawson, Soo-Young Hong, Tae-Eun Kim, Demetra Evangelou, Susan J. Kontos Nov 2013

Child Care For Working Poor Families: Child Development And Parent Employment Outcomes: Community Child Care Research Project, Final Report, James Elicker, Carolyn Clawson, Soo-Young Hong, Tae-Eun Kim, Demetra Evangelou, Susan J. Kontos

Soo-Young Hong

The results of the Community Child Care Research Project provide new data describing the child care experiences of low income working families in 4 communities in Indiana. Because the study participants were volunteers rather than randomly selected, and because the research design was correlational rather than experimental, conclusions drawn from these fi ndings necessarily have limitations. The fi ndings cannot be confi dently generalized to other low income working families and child care providers, nor can the links between child care quality and children’s development be assumed to be causal. For example, while it is quite possible that higher quality …


Young Children’S Decisions To Include Peers With Physical Disabilities In Play, Karen E. Diamond, Soo-Young Hong Nov 2013

Young Children’S Decisions To Include Peers With Physical Disabilities In Play, Karen E. Diamond, Soo-Young Hong

Soo-Young Hong

The authors examined factors related to preschool children’s reasoning about including a hypothetical peer with a physical disability in different play activities. They hypothesized that children’s inclusion decisions would be influenced by features of the physical environment, attention to issues of fairness and equity, and individual child characteristics. Participants comprised 72 children enrolled in inclusive preschool classrooms. Children’s ideas about inclusion and their inclusion decisions were gathered in response to vignettes reflecting experiences that children are likely to encounter in preschool. The authors found that children were significantly more likely to say that they would include a child with a …


The Effects Of An Intervention That Includes In-Class Coaching On Preschool Teachers And Children, Amber K. Oliveira Jan 2013

The Effects Of An Intervention That Includes In-Class Coaching On Preschool Teachers And Children, Amber K. Oliveira

Amber K Oliveira

The impact of high quality early learning experiences on a child's development is profound. Teacher quality has been deemed an important predictor of classroom quality, but currently teachers in Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) in the state of Florida are required to meet minimal training requirements. The purpose of this study was to examine an intervention including in-class coaching as a means of professional development to better prepare preschool teachers. The present study included and examination of the changes in environmental quality, child outcomes, and teacher perceptions after the intervention. Scores obtained were compared before and after the intervention. A two-tailed t-test …