Professional Goals, Hopes and Dreams

• What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work?

The basis of my work as a Quality First Coach is solely focused on raising quality of care and education for children birth through age 5. We hope that the efforts to change the early childhood care and education system will "trickle up" to the early elementary years. This is one of the big topics of discussion right now. Some early educators in the elementary system are in a state of unrest as standardized testing and developmentally inappropriate practices are pushed on them and their students. I hear about kindergarten teachers leaving their jobs because they are being forced to implement timed math tests; stories circulate about 3rd grade teachers who are trying to give their students opportunities for hands-on, student directed learning with no support from administration.

The other major topic of discussion is whether a degree really leads to quality teaching. I believe that formal education is one indication of the potential for quality teaching. However, continuing education through on-going, high-quality professional development may be equally as important. This is particularly important when the degree was obtained several years ago when a different philosophy and understanding of best practice was promoted. Perhaps the most important indicator of quality, in relation to teacher education, is how the information is processed and used by the person receiving the professional development. I know teachers with Bachelor's degrees who show less understanding of best practice than teachers who have a CDA and continue to educate themselves through books, articles, and high-quality professional development sessions. So, the debate continues- is a college degree equal to a high-quality teacher?

• What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

     The requirements for professional development in Arizona depend on which yardstick you are using to measure. Basic licensing requirements only include training hours as follows.

However, the QRIS measures formal education (CDA or college level coursework) as an indication of quality.

At the 3 star level a minimum of the following is required:

The next level (necessary to reach 4 and 5 star ratings):

The highest quality level is more rigorous, still.

The opportunity for professional development also varies depending on what type is required and/or desired. Quality First participants are eligible for college scholarships for CDA, AA, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees. Additionally, and alternatively, there are many opportunities for continued education workshops through the Arizona Early Childhood Workforce Registry.

• What are some of your professional goals?

My biggest goal, the one that stems from the smaller goals within the bigger picture, is to take part in creating a community of caring, educated, and respected early learning professionals.

• What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?

     One challenge I feel nearly ready to face is my plan to write a book that I have blogged about here before. The goal I wrote about above is also a dream and hope. The magnitude of the amount of work it will take to get here is daunting. But, big dreams also tend to have the biggest impact when they are finally realized. However, through continuing professional development that is tailored to meet adult learning styles and needs there is the opportunity to create a community full of life-long learners who are committed to the ECE field.

Sharing Web Resources- A Deeper Investigation of NAECTE

Follow some of the outside links that you have not yet explored. Where do they lead?

As I have explored the NAECTE website this week I have had an opportunity to discover a section titled Related Organizations. This is the only area of the website where I have discovered outside links. The outside links include a number of these related organizations. These range from American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education to Australian Early Childhood Association and, unsurprisingly, the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Thoroughly search one area of the site. What do you find?

One area of the site that I was particularly interested in was the space for job announcements. NAECTE offers this space as a way to advertise "for positions or events of interest to early childhood teacher educators" (NAECTE, 2017).Currently, I was able to discover 3 listed positions- Director of Science Education, Tennessee Aquarium, Assistant Professor of Education, Early Childhood/Elementary Education, and Department Chair Teacher Education, Miami University. After clicking on the links to the jobs I found information about the position responsibilities, requirements for qualification, and contact information for submitting the required application materials. I was surprised to see there are not more positions (or any events listed) but realized that I did not even know this space existed until this week so I suppose it might not be a well known avenue for teacher educator recruitment.

If you receive an e-newsletter, follow a link related to one of the issues you have been studying. What new information is available?

Unfortunately, there is no newsletter that is available for subscription. However, in reading back through some of the past issues that are available on the website I did find one article within the September 2013 issue that relates to Online Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education.

"The Online Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education ResearchNet will provide opportunities for multiple scholars with diverse perspectives to disseminate their research results and opinions, and investigate or propose best practices for online teaching in early childhood and elementary education to provide insights for higher education institutions and the NAECTE members" (NAECTE, 2013).

Does the website or the e-newsletter contain any information that adds to your understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education?

By its nature the NAECTE website relates to equity and excellence when we consider the importance of qualified teachers as a mark of quality. The dedication of NAECTE to providing high-quality teacher education as an avenue for raising quality in the early childhood classroom is apparent in each E-letter that describes their bi-annual conferences. In their connections to similar organizations NAECTE also shows a dedication to raising quality in the field and the awareness of those in the field to encourage advocacy. However, I did not find any evidence that specific work is being done to increase accessibility or responsiveness when it relates to targeting specific populations.

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

While I am glad that I chose this organization as the one to review this semester, I am also disappointed that I was unable to gain more insights or information through it. I suppose this is an insight within itself- it might be necessary to research additional teacher education organizations if I want to continue to research this topic.  This website is a little "thin" in what is available. So, I will continue to research other teacher education organizations and compile what I find from each source to build my own knowledge and capacity as a teacher educator.

References

NAECTE. (2017). Related organizations. Retrieved from http://naecte.org/about/related-organizations/

NAECTE. (2013). Spring 2013 e-letter. Retrieved from http://naecte.org/wp-content/uploads/NAECTE-Spring-2013-E-letter-host.pdf

Researching Early Childhood Issues- a Podcast Review

     One option for this week was to locate another podcast (since the originally assigned podcast does not seem to exist) that would help us to locate information and insights about early childhood education. I am addicted to true crime podcasts but had never really considered a podcast that would support my professional growth. However, I was immediately intrigued to see what I would discover.

So I located The Preschool Podcast on Stitcher 

One of the first episodes that caught my eye is titled Supporting Men in Childcare. This is a topic I have done some research around before. Even with that research in mind I was surprised to hear that only 2.8% of the ECE workforce is comprised of males. On this episode, Soren Gall, Infant/Toddler specialist at the Denver Early Childhood Council, spoke about his work in advocacy for men in the ECE field. He says there is not enough advocacy for men in ECE and believes the focus should be to  keep the men who are already working in the field instead of trying to recruit more men to the field. I found that pretty interesting because I have known for a long time that most men who enter the field end up leaving it or at least leaving the classroom and taking administrative positions.

         This understanding is based on formal research but also on observation. Think about the few males we have seen in our multimedia presentations in our classes. None of them were classroom teachers; they were all in high profile administrative positions. Soren discussed some support avenues for men in the ECE field such as these 2 Facebook pages: Men in Childcare and Men in Early Childhood-Colorado. He also mentioned how women can support men in this female dominated workforce. He said women should not focus on the fact that they are male, rather on their work in the field and education they have pursued. Don't give them the door prize at a training because they are the token male!

           

The second insight/episode I chose to share with you is The Science Behind Sleep and Brain Development in Children. This episode features an interview with "Cindy Davenport, Co-Founder and CEO of Safe Sleep Space, an Australian organization that supports parents and educators with sleep and settling for young children" (Stitcher: The Preschool Podcast, 2014b). Cindy shares her knowledge about children who present sleep challenges and how to support those babies. It turns out that 40% of babies present sleep challenges. However, more interesting to me than the statistics, or brain development information, was the advice Cindy shared for caregivers who are trying to get multiple babies to sleep at the same time.

       First and foremost, parent communication is necessary so that parents can provide information about cues that they use with or notice from their baby during sleep time. Then, observing for the baby's temperament is critical so that we are aware of the baby's specific needs for settling. The sounds of patting and shushing are sounds that infants hear in-utero (from the gastro-intestinal system, placenta, and mother's heartbeat) and can be quite comforting when trying to help babies fall asleep. However, when a teacher/caregiver is alone in a room with several infants or toddlers and cannot pat each of them Cindy suggests putting yourself in a central location and patting your own leg so that the sound of the patting that the baby is used to is still present. She recommends including the shushing sounds, too. You can find more information about safe sleep, helping babies settle, and the unique ways we can support toddlers in their sleep and settling at safesleepspace.com.au and/or safesleepspace.education.

The third and final episode I will discuss here, Leading for Children by Empowering Teachers, introduces the listener to Judy Jablon. I have a personal relationship with Judy through my work with her as a facilitator of several of my professional development sessions I have attended as a Quality First Coach. I was excited to see her name appear as one of the interviewees of the podcast and knew her work and words would be important to share. Also, my work with teachers and directors often focuses on helping them to build leadership capacity within the ECE field. "As Judy says; empowerment comes with decision making and good decisions come with a clear understanding of the 'why'" (Stitcher: The Preschool Podcast, 2014a).
       Judy, along with being an amazing professional development facilitator and coaches' coach, is also the Executive Director of Leading for Children. Judy touches upon empowerment as a parallel process. If we want to empower children to think critically and be inventive decision makers then we must first empower those who teach and care for children. This happens when we can help teachers think about the why behind their work. Judy specifies that it is not in order to score better on an ERS or CLASS assessment but to provide opportunities for children that help them to learn a skill, pass a milestone, or develop in some way. Thinking about the why behind our work is often forgotten but I try to stress this with the providers I work with because it is incredibly important. Check out more about empowering early childhood educators at the Leading for Children website.

If you want a quick glimpse into the power of considering the why- check out Simon Sinek's TEDtalk Start With Why- the below is a short version of the complete TEDtalk. Although, not about education, the principles are the same: why=passion, motivation, power.

I was extremely excited to find this podcast and have already added it to my list of favorites!

                                    References                                                 

Stitcher: The Preschool Podcast. (2014a). Leading for children by empowering teachers. Retrieved from http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/himama/the-preschool-podcast/e/leading-for-children-by-empowering-teachers-49877212

Stitcher: The Preschool Podcast. (2014b). The science behind sleep and brain development in children. Retrieved from http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-preschool-podcast/e/50388640?autoplay=true

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.

UNICEF- New Zealand

We all know that poverty is rampant in underdeveloped countries. So, I wanted to find out about children in poverty in an industrialized country. As a trend in my blog posts I have chosen to focus on early education in New Zealand. So, I decided to research what UNICEF had to report about child poverty in this industrialized country. I found a few insights to share with you here about child poverty in New Zealand.

•  According to the UNICEF New Zealand website 1 in 4 children are living in poverty in New Zealand. This was an alarming statistic to me. For some reason I felt the percentage would be much lower. This also caused me to question how many children in other industrialized countries live in poverty. According to the Children's Defense Fund nearly 20% of children in the US are living in poverty- that's 1 in 5 children. A report from Global News reports the same statistic of children living in poverty in Canada. So, the number of New Zealand's children living in poverty is not far off from these other statistics.

• The cost of remediating poverty might be less than the cost of leaving children in poverty on society overall. When children live in poverty they are more likely to drop out of school and to engage in criminal acts later in life. In New Zealand, the cost to the justice system due to this is approximately $2 billion per year.

• The largest impact on child poverty occurs when policy and budget changes occur within the government. Policy changes that affect family income and housing are among the most influential on child poverty along with those that address education and health. " (UNICEF, n.d.). So, advocacy efforts are key to the changes that we want to see in child poverty levels in all countries. 

One of the best ways to get involved is by donating to UNICEF: New Zealand here.

References

Children's Defense Fund. (2016, Sept. 13). Children’s Defense Fund Child Poverty in America 2015: National Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/data/child-poverty-in-america-2015.pdf

Global News. (2015, Nov. 24). Nearly 1 in 5 Canadian children living in poverty: report. Retrieved from http://globalnews.ca/news/2360311/nearly-1-in-5-canadian-children-living-in-poverty-report/

UNICEF: New Zealand. (n.d.). Child poverty in New Zealand. Retrieved https://www.unicef.org.nz/learn/our-work-in-new-zealand/Child-Poverty-in-New-Zealand

Sharing Web Resources

      The organization I am investigating this semester is  the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) and can be located at this address http://naecte.org/. This organization focuses on  teacher education and providing a variety of opportunities for continuing education. The two largest focuses seem to be their Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education and their annual conferences- which actually occur twice a year in conjunction with the NAEYC Annual Conference and the NAEYC Annual Professional Development Institute.

      NAECTE publishes an E-Letter 3 times per year (Spring, Fall, and Winter) and the focus is usually something to do with one of their conferences. There is also a contribution from the current President of NAECTE in each issue. In the most recent issue President Kelly Baker discussed her collaboration with representative from NAEYC and the work they plan to engage in together in the upcoming year.

      The Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education is where I located some information that is connected to this week's topic of diversity and changing demographics. Due to this being a publication about teacher education, not about educating young children, please be prepared for a shift of perspective. When we think about diversity and demographic changes we often think of race or ethnicity but cultural changes encompass a wide range of changing realities in our society. One of these is addressed in the article Community-based collaboration for early childhood teacher education: Partner experiences and perspectives as co–teacher educators. When we shift our perspective to include the need for a different approach to teacher education that reflects a parallel practice to how we educate young children (hands-on, community based, culturally responsive, child-directed) we can see the value of a change in the way that higher education institutions address how teacher education is implemented.

Here is a figure from the article which highlights the principals of the field-based (ie. hands-on) teacher education model:

Here are some of the aspects of teacher education and how the traditional university-based model compares to the Teaching, Learning, and Leading with Schools and Communities (TLLSC) model:

(I know this is a little difficult to see on the blog but you can read it more easily if you click the link above for the full article)

      With the shift in demographics in classrooms, teachers should be educated with communities and partnerships in mind.

      We, as Walden students, have access to the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education through the Walden Library. I highly recommend checking out the vast array of articles that are available in the journal.

Getting Ready—Expanding Horizons and Expanding Resources

Part 1:

The World Forum site and radio/podcast station were not available at this time. Therefore, I will be completing the alternative assignment for Part 1. At first I thought I would just pick one of the 2 sites at random. However, I realized I wanted to know more about the organizations before I chose which one to learn more about over the next 8 weeks. So, I went to the Charity Navigator website.  On this site you can discover many things about non-profit organizations.

After conducting some research I decided to focus on the Global Fund for Children. There were a few factors that helped me to decide. One of the most important factors was that I found that the Global Fund for Children only makes an annual revenue of $6,222,710 compared to the $641,045,550 (more than 10 times higher) revenue of Save the Children. It got me thinking that any additional exposure that can be granted to The Global Fund could help them to do that much more good work.

This mission statement, retrieved from Charity Navigator, speaks to how the organization focuses on not only direct service to children, but contributions to social change in different ways.

Part 2:

For this section I chose to investigate the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) website and newsletters. Unfortunately I cannot seem to figure out how to actually subscribe to the newsletter. Since it is a quarterly publication I will be able to at least go back and read several previous issues.

I actually attempted to choose a few other options from the resource list first but they all seemed to have broken links. In the end I am glad that I chose NAECTE since my work now and in the future will be focused on educating teachers. I do not know a lot about the organization yet but I definitely look forward to learning more about this organization that focuses on teaching teachers!