Online early childhood teacher education program: Practices and future possibilities

The study aimed to test the effectiveness and the feasibility of Zoom and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) for early childhood teacher education (ECTE) at a university in Pakistan. The study addresses how a Community of Inquiry (COI) framework can be embedded within Zoom and VLE to make the online course meaningful, interactive and accessible. This is an exploratory case study with a mixed method approach. Data was gathered through survey, focus group discussion, reflective journals, observations and meeting notes. Pre- and post-online knowledge tests and assignments were used to assess changes in participant’s knowledge and understanding. Survey result indicated positive attitude of participants toward using Zoom and VLE. The knowledge test scores improved at the end of the course. The study outlines insights into adapting creative and resilient online pedagogies for ECTE in emergency as well as normal circumstances. The paper will be of value to university faculty and policy makers, particularly in developing countries for designing teacher education programs

International pre-primary maths teaching guide: Year 3 workbooks A and B

This new series for pupils of pre-primary classes (Pre-nursery, Nursery and KG) comprises 6 workbooks that carry all the concepts necessary to develop skills associated with numbers for this level. The colourfully illustrated workbooks teach number counting and writing, patterns, sequencing, one more, one less, shapes, money, and fractions besides many other concepts to prepare pupils for the primary level mathematics. Each level of 2 workbooks is accompanied by a guide with lesson plans and additional activities. Each workbook has an interactive CD for further practice.https://ecommons.aku.edu/books/1086/thumbnail.jp

International pre-primary maths teaching guide: Year 1 workbooks A and B

This new series for pupils of pre-primary classes (Pre-nursery, Nursery and KG) comprises 6 workbooks that carry all the concepts necessary to develop skills associated with numbers for this level. The colourfully illustrated workbooks teach number counting and writing, patterns, sequencing, one more, one less, shapes, money, and fractions besides many other concepts to prepare pupils for the primary level mathematics. Each level of 2 workbooks is accompanied by a guide with lesson plans and additional activities. Each workbook has an interactive CD for further practice.https://ecommons.aku.edu/books/1084/thumbnail.jp

International pre-primary maths teaching guide: Year 2 workbooks A and B

This new series for pupils of pre-primary classes (Pre-nursery, Nursery and KG) comprises 6 workbooks that carry all the concepts necessary to develop skills associated with numbers for this level. The colourfully illustrated workbooks teach number counting and writing, patterns, sequencing, one more, one less, shapes, money, and fractions besides many other concepts to prepare pupils for the primary level mathematics. Each level of 2 workbooks is accompanied by a guide with lesson plans and additional activities. Each workbook has an interactive CD for further practice.https://ecommons.aku.edu/books/1085/thumbnail.jp

Impact of parent’s education on child development

Introduction: Community base education and its approaches enriched a range of parenting skills that promote health and development of children in later life.The Aga Khan University-Human Development Progarmme (AKU-HDP) is striving to promote best child development practices through parent’s education under the Early Child Development Project, Balochistan (ECDP-B) and established a Faimly Resource Center (FRC) in three districts of Balochistan. Objectives: 1. To promote parenting skills and knowledge on ECD 2. To improve parents’ engagement and communication with young children Method: AKU-HDP used applied a quasi-research intended to explore the existing knowledge and practices of parents related to ECD. A parent education and parenting support model was implemented in three districts Balochistan; Quetta, Kila Saifullah and Gwadar for children (0- 8 years) primarily through FRC that will combine health, nutrition, nurturing and early education activities. A module based educational sessions were delivered to mothers on hygiene practices ,dietary needs of children from 6 months to 2 years, balance diet and other themes related to child development. Results: Mothers reported that these sessions are very helpful to enhance child rearing practices. Most of them are satisfied with the methodology of the sessions such as group work, role play and discussions. They also highlighted the significance of sessions related to dietary needs of children from 6 months to 2 years which give them awareness related to the development of good eating habits in early years such as intake of low salt and sugar in child’s meal. Conclusion: The community base education models which focus the health education in parenting skills can heighten the child growth and development. Keywords: FRC, ECD, Education, Parent

Professional and Institutional Discourse: A Case Study of Media Discourse

Professional discourse has established in the last few decades. As a control, many applied etymologists and discourse experts have managed it in an insightful way. The main striking work on professional discourse is The Construction of Professional Discourse (Gunnarson et al., 1997). This quantitative study's objective was to identify the professional discourse and define the types of discourse. For this data was collected from Three Pakistani TV news channels named ARY Digital, Express News and Geo News. The data consisted upon the one week recording of TV news channels. Audio recording transform into text format and one corpus-based file was developed. Further corpus analysis tool AntConc version 3.5.9 was used to get the data's frequencies and concordance. On the base of extracted concordance and frequencies descriptive analysis was done and then subjectively analyzed to get the professional discourse from media channels. The study's findings presented that media is a vast profession and has its own particular vocabulary that identifies their profession. Media discourse has specific domains and topics for discussion. This study's findings will help the learners of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis in their case studies