Methodology for Research with Early Childhood Education and Care Professionals

This open access book addresses the growing trend in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) research named collaborative knowledge building in which researchers and ECEC personnel collaborate. This kind of research encompasses a number of approaches, such as design studies, action studies, Learning Studies, Lesson Studies, and combined research and development studies. There are important differences between these approaches, but they also share some features, which makes it possible to see them as examples of a particular tradition of knowledge building. Collaborative knowledge building constitutes close ties between developing practices of early childhood education and care, and generating empirically grounded theoretical knowledge. This book contributes to the methodology of practices-developing research by mapping this movement through exemplifying themes actualised in such studies, and through conceptualizing important and recurring gains and challenges. It also describes how the latter can be taken on

Chapter 1 : The Foundations of Intentional Education Practice

The problem related to teaching effectiveness includes failure of institutions to identify process improvements, ascertain appropriate stakeholders to accomplish institutional goals, and implement streamlined classroom processes to ensure instructors have the appropriate professional support needed to apply intentional educational practices in graduate programs. Consequently, current performance measures of educational programs illuminate issues in processes within instruction, quantity of trained instructor mentors, professional support networks, and existing programming which may need improvement, yet is not being addressed in educational environments. Performance measurement factors impact long-term institutional effectiveness service quality of HE (educator quality, educational services, activities, technology, continuous improvement, educational leadership, and IEPT (teaching style)

Web 2.0 technologies for learning: the current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions

This is the first report from research commissioned by Becta into Web 2.0 technologies for learning at Key Stages 3 and 4. This report describes findings from an additional literature review of the then current landscape concerning learner use of Web 2.0 technologies and the implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and policy makers

Methodology for Research with Early Childhood Education and Care Professionals

This open access book addresses the growing trend in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) research named collaborative knowledge building in which researchers and ECEC personnel collaborate. This kind of research encompasses a number of approaches, such as design studies, action studies, Learning Studies, Lesson Studies, and combined research and development studies. There are important differences between these approaches, but they also share some features, which makes it possible to see them as examples of a particular tradition of knowledge building. Collaborative knowledge building constitutes close ties between developing practices of early childhood education and care, and generating empirically grounded theoretical knowledge. This book contributes to the methodology of practices-developing research by mapping this movement through exemplifying themes actualised in such studies, and through conceptualizing important and recurring gains and challenges. It also describes how the latter can be taken on

Sociocultural Learning: A Perspective on GSS-Enabled Global Education

Virtual teams are rapidly developing in organisations of the new economy. As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that our students are appropriately prepared for work in the virtual workspace, where teams may cross time, geographical, and cultural boundaries. In this article, the culturally sensitive theory of sociocultural learning is combined with GSS (Group Support Systems) in an illustration of how cross-cultural, globally distributed virtual teams of students located in The Netherlands, Greece, and Hong Kong work on vested interest projects. Finally, a set of critical success factors that inform virtual learning contexts is derived from our findings and recommendations are made for operational practice in the virtual work space

Exploring young people's collaborative and creative processes using keyboard and computer based music technologies in formal and non-formal settings

In many UK music education settings, young people (11-17 years old) make music collectively. Despite this we currently lack understanding of the processes involved when collaboratively creating music, particularly when working around music technologies. To date, research has tended to focus on classroom-based collaborative interactions on well-defined tasks, where there is only one correct solution. As a result we know little about 1) the kinds of learning practices that emerge outside of school settings and 2) the processes young people engage in when working on open-ended, creative tasks. Addressing these areas, this research specifically set out to explore the nature of the creative process when composing music collaboratively using keyboards and sampling software, in school, community centre and music camp settings. The contextual relations or features of these different settings, such as the task setting, instruction and technology used and their influence on the creative music-making processes were examined. This was achieved through analysis of the young people's verbal dialogues, which resulted in greater understanding of the relations between context and creativity. The findings show that how the creative and musical content is organised, rather than the physical setting within which it takes place, plays a fundamental role in the types of talk and creative processes that emerge. Drawing on the results of the studies carried out, creativity was conceptualised as a cyclic process, with interdependent phases of exploration, discovery, elaboration, critical listening, refining and editing, recording and saving; with problem finding and discovery being central underlying drivers. Finally, the kinds of verbal dialogues that emerged across all the settings strongly indicated that traditional logical-deductive types of reasoning and talk are not necessary and may even be inappropriate for certain phases of the creative process. This finding is interesting and presents some challenges to our current understanding of collaborative learning. Consequently, it warrants further investigation. In sum, given the contemporary educational emphasis on self-directed and creative learners, the questions addressed in this thesis and the findings on the context and nature of the creative processes, and informal and formal learning, are considered timely and relevant

Capacity Building for Community Development among Educators in Guatemala

This study reports on a multi-year capacity building research partnership between the Center for Child and Community Development a Guatemalan non-profit and public schools in State of Sacatep quez in Guatemala We explore finding from phase 1 of the research involving a survey study and capacity building activities with 39 elementary school teachers The surveys examined a teacher professional develop-ment b instructional strategies c resources needed and d parent community involvement The findings suggest that socio-economic differences levels of teacher preparation linguistic and cultural issues are the key points of leverage that need to be addressed through capacity building activities for Guatemalan educators The findings also provide contextual evidence for future program planning and curriculum implementation across public schools in rural and urban area