Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Leading Early Childhood Education In Iowa Schools, Alaina T. Daters

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Over the last 15 years, Iowa’s Statewide Voluntary Preschool Programs (SWVPP) have undergone significant growth. By the end of the 2021-2022 school year, 323 out of 327 (99%) of Iowa public school districts offered preschool (Iowa Department of Education, 2022c). As a result, well over 450 Iowa administrators are potentially responsible for leading their district’s preschool program.

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to gain an understanding of the experiences, knowledge, and pedagogical needs of licensed Iowa administrators that are responsible for their district’s SWVPP. Data was collected through a survey and analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis …

Preschool Teachers' Beliefs And Actions Concerning Creativity In The Classroom, Latisha Lynn Smith

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to examine preschool teachers’ beliefs and actions associated with creative pedagogy. This study partially replicated a study by Cheung (2017) and allowed for comparisons among American, Greek, and Chinese preschool teachers. This qualitative study used case studies to examine preschool teachers’ beliefs related to the definition of creativity, effective creative pedagogy, and contextual factors related to promoting creativity. Participants included three preschool teachers in rural settings in the Midwestern United States. Data included an initial interview, the completion of the Early Childhood Creative Pedagogy Questionnaire (Cheung & Leung, 2013), two lesson observations, and reflection …

Breathe In, Breathe Out: An Exploration Of The Impacts Of Yoga On Self-Regulation And Classroom Community, Shaylyn Trenkamp

Honors Program Theses

Research on the effects of yoga and mindfulness has demonstrated increased selfregulation and impacts on community in many settings, but specific data regarding the effects of mindfulness practices in the early childhood classroom is limited. The purpose of this thesis study was to take a closer look at yoga and mindfulness in the classroom and the impact it could have on self-regulation and classroom community for young students. Yoga and mindfulness lessons were taught in two kindergarten classrooms and student responses were collected throughout the project. Classroom teachers involved were also interviewed about how mindfulness affected their students and classrooms. …

An Investigation Of Early Childhood Outdoor Play Areas And Social And Emotional Play, Brandy A. Smith

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The earliest early childhood programs were thought of as a garden for children or kindergarten (Snider, 1900). The father of kindergarten, Frederick Froebel (1885), considered the garden space critical in early childhood programs. While there is an understanding of the importance of outdoor play for young children, many current issues and challenges have drastically reduced the amount of time children spend in the outdoor environment (Kuh, Ponte, & Chau, 2013). Much of the time children do spend outside is devoted to physical movement, often in environments with traditional manufactured playground equipment (Czalczynska-Podolska, 2014). Outdoor play holds potential for multi-dimensional (Nedovic …

Observations Of Music And Literacy In Early Childhood Education, Ann Strom

Honors Program Theses

Students spend as many as nineteen years in a classroom by the time they are twenty-two. They have countless teachers who all teach in a different style and say that it is the best way for their students to learn. Students have experienced classrooms where they are given a lecture for an hour and then expected to know and understand the content when the test comes. They have also experienced classrooms where they are up and moving, creating models, doing research, or conducting experiments, throughout the class to come to an understanding to share with their peers on the topic …

Cylinders And Spheres : Toddlers Engage In Problem Solving, Rosemary Geiken

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Every day more six million infants and toddlers (children under 3 years of age) enter some kind of out-of-home care, with 22% of this group attending center-based programs. Studies on the quality of care in centers indicate that 40% of these children are in poor quality settings while 51 % are in mediocre to medium quality settings. Two factors contributing to these low ratings are lack of age-appropriate materials and lack of learning opportunities. To address these data Piaget's theory of constructivism guided the design of a study to provide evidence of construction of knowledge that occurred when toddlers were …

Opportunity And Access For Children With Disabilities In The Inclusive Preschool Classroom, Jodi Meyer-Mork

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In this qualitative case study, I investigated how one teacher provided opportunity and access to full classroom participation for children with disabilities in the inclusive preschool classroom over two academic years. The site was a state-funded preschool program for children considered at risk for school failure. The principle participants included a preschool teacher with more than 22 years of experience and ten preschoolers identified with mild to moderate disabilities. In this naturalistic inquiry (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003), data were collected through participant observation over two academic years. Primary data sources included descriptive and analytic field notes as well as formal …

Early Childhood Teachers' Beliefs And Practices Related To Promoting Children's Conflict Resolution In Constructivist Classrooms: A Study Of Two Teachers, Yuko Hashimoto

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The study involved six weeks of classroom observations and in-depth interviews with two teachers, kindergarten and first grade, who are currently engaging in an on-going process of implementing constructivist education in a public school in Missouri and whose teaching practices are considered to be exemplary. The purpose of the study was twofold: (a) to describe and analyze the teachers’ practical approaches in promoting children’s conflict resolution in the classrooms and (b) to examine how the teachers’ beliefs and practices related to conflict resolution reflect the theoretical framework o f the constructivist program.

The results of the data collection were analyzed …

A Survey Of Elementary Principals, Kindergarten Teachers, And Kindergarten Parents Focusing On Preferences For Academic Or Developmental Programming At The Kindergarten Level, Dudley L. Humphrey

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the preferences regarding instructional practices at the kindergarten level and investigate the relationships of these preferences among elementary principals, kindergarten teachers, and kindergarten parents. A survey of a systematic sample of 217 Iowa public elementary schools provided perceptual data from 148 (68%) of these schools. Elementary principals, kindergarten teachers, and kindergarten parents were asked to complete a questionnaire based on the Hitz 1986 Oregon Department of Education questionnaire which provided insight to their preferences on developmental and academic instructional practices at the kindergarten level. Of the population, 132 principals out of …

Early Identifiers Of Learning Disabilities In Preschool Children, Richard Alan Rebouché

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The study identified learning disability (ID) characteristics from the diagnostic reports of 46 preschool age children. 21 children re-evaluated once at school age, and 6 children evaluated twice. The children were identified as learning disabled three to seven years later. The symptoms characteristics of preschool students and school age learning disabled students were identified as characteristic of learning disabled if the symptoms appeared in 50 percent or more of the student records.

In the preschool age group, expressive and receptive language, in addition to fine and gross-motor deficits were the most frequent symptoms of learning disability. Also, attention span and …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Seriation And Classification Skills In Young Children, R'Delle Marie Anderson

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The results of the Benziger Early Learning Assessment (BELA) classification and seriation subtests previously administered to 359 white, primarily middle-class preschool and primary grade school children were analyzed to determine the degree of relationship, interaction and parallelism between these two cognitive skills across age groups of children. In addition, the existence of any sex differences in performance was examined. The 359 children were grouped into three successive age groups at six-month intervals beginning with the age of four years and six months.

Results indicated that the relationship between seriation and classification, as measured by the BELA, was positive and quite …

Family Size, Intelligence, And Patterns Of Achievement In Preschool Children, H. Jane Reppas

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of membership in a large or small family to the patterns of achievement as revealed by the results of the subtests of the Iowa Test of Preschool Development (ITPD). Of interest also was the study of the relationship of membership in subgroups based on both race and family size to patterns of achievement.

The subjects of the study were eighty black and white preschool children. There were twenty children in each subgroup small black family, large black family, small white family, and large white family). The subgroups were similar in …