Sharing Web Resources- Exploring the NAECTE Website

What specific section(s) or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?

I was most intrigued by the Journals and information about their past conferences. Unfortunately, the Journal is only available by subscription. However, it is possible to locate articles from the Journal in the Walden Library. The articles I was able to read this week related to teacher education and my work with providers to help them discover how to implement practices that span many aspects of the early education field. This is important to my own professional development because I need to continue to learn about how to provide teacher education in ways that meet their needs and align with my own philosophies. One particular article was of interest to me- Promoting Communities of Practice and Parallel Process in Early Childhood Settings. Peer learning and the parallel process are at the root of my own beliefs about adult learning.

Which ideas/statements/resources, either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you find controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways?

The information available from NAECTE really would not be considered controversial by any means. While there might be articles in the Journal that could evoke some strong responses I did not find any this week. However, in the most recent (unfortunately, January 2016) newsletter from one of their affiliates (SCAECTE) there was a letter that I found interesting. It was written by a woman named Mary Hipp M.Ed., the Director of the Office of Educator Services South Carolina Department of Education, and was focused on the difference in the grade spans of elementary teacher certification across the country. I had no idea that such large gaps existed in the consistency of grade spans in elementary education certification. While most states certify for K-6, others begin with first grade or Pre-K, and South Carolina is the only state that consider only grades 2-6 for certification. I had not thought about this as an issue before but continue to learn more and more about the variance of teacher education through my exploration of NAECTE.

What information does the website or the e-newsletter contain that adds to your understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field?

Unfortunately, there was nothing on the website or in the e-letters that addressed anything about economists, neuroscientists, or politicians in relation to the early childhood field.  I thought there would be a slew of Journal articles related to these professions but that was not the case and there is nothing on the website or in the e-letters. The only article I found by searching each profession as a key word was Engagement in advocacy and policy research: The critical role of motivation, obstacles, and resources which addresses political influences on funding of early education.

What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain from exploring the website or e-newsletter?

I have discovered a new way to describe the hands-on adult learning approach to teacher education that I had never heard of before. The praxeological approach seems to be basically aimed at  dispensing with the idea that everything can be learned through pedagogy (theoretical study at the University) and that a combination of pedagogy and actual practice lead to a more prepared teacher. This links to NAECTE because I found this research when I conducted a search on the website and up popped information for a book written by an NAECTE member.

Winterbottom, C. & Lake, V. (Eds.). (2016). Praxeological Learning: Service-Learning in Teacher Education

A synopsis:

With the most recent educational reform through the implementation of the Common Core Standards, Praxeological Learning: Service-Learning in Teacher Education can provide a fresh look at educational transformation through the lens of service-learning in teacher preparation. As Butin (2003) referenced over a decade ago, “service-learning rejects the banking model of education, where the transferences of information from knowledgeable teachers to passive students is conducted in 45-min increments. It subverts the notion of classroom as graveyard – rows and rows of silent bodies – for an active pedagogy committed to connecting theory and practice, schools and community, the cognitive and the ethical.”

The pedagogy of service-learning has significant implications for teacher education. Its transformative aspects have far reaching potential to address teacher candidate dispositions and provide deeper understanding of social justice. Knowledge of the pedagogy and how to implement it in candidates’ future classrooms and in the community could modify education to a more powerful experience of democracy in action and enhance the civic mission of schools. The current and ongoing research found within this textbook is meant to continue supporting the notion of educational reform.