'The Money-Making Machines': Creating Awareness on Child labor in Ghana through Art

As an artist, I consider myself as a conversation starter and a conversation changer. My works make comments on important social issues through the use of graphic illustrations. Growing up in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana I saw the struggles that the ordinary people had to go through to make a living. But the most heartrending was seeing little children between the ages of four to thirteen years, who struggled and managed to put food on their family’s tables. The notion of this act being the ‘norm’ in my culture and society is what I believe to be unacceptable. In my quest to understand the reasons as to why this situation exists, I create digital illustrations that give my viewers and myself a better understanding through visual story telling. Aside using illustrations, I am open to using any other medium that is available to me to communicate my ideas to my viewers.masters, M.F.A., Art & Design -- University of Idaho - College of Graduate Studies, 201

Examining the effects of a teacher training system on preschool teachers’ productive and non-productive conversation with children during the free play time: using a multiple baseline experimental design

Research shows that interaction and conversation (gestures, words, expressions, and etc.) with children on a daily basis are crucial for their development. Teachers spend a lot of time with children daily, it is important that teachers plan their interactions intentionally to help children make connections and extend their learning. Observing children and interpreting their thinking processes is a significant factor in intentionally planning curriculum that emerges from children’s thinking. There is a lack of high quality training for preschool teachers in the area of observing and interpreting children’s thinking. The present study investigates the effects of a training (Cycle of Inquiry System) on observation and interpretation of children’s thinking, on teachers’ productive conversation in the Head Start Classroom. The research question guiding this study is: “Does the Cycle of Inquiry Intervention (training teachers to observe, document and interpret their observations of children at play time) increase teachers’ conversations with children?” We hypothesized that the teachers’ productive conversations with children will increase after the training. Using a multiple baseline experimental design two simultaneous studies were conducted. The participants were 6 preschool teachers which included 3 new teachers, and 3 experienced teachers. The permissions were obtained from teachers and the parents of children in their classroom, the children whose parents did not consent were not videotaped during the data collection process. The teachers were videotaped twice a week in their classrooms working with children during the free play time. Each video was 30 minutes. The videos were coded for productive and non-productive conversation, based on the checklist that was used previously in a similar study. All the videos were coded by a research assistant and 30% of videos for each teacher were coded by another research assistant. The interrater reliability was obtained before and during the study. When the first participant reached a baseline (the amount of his/her productive and non-productive conversation approximately remained the same), she went through the Cycle of Inquiry System Training (COI) by the Principle Investigator (PI). The intervention is a one-day training on observing children during the play and interpreting their thinking. The first participant was videotaped twice a week after training and her videos were coded for productive and non-productive conversation, in addition, as a part of the training the teacher received mentoring form the PI bi-weekly during the intervention phase. Meanwhile all the other teachers were being videotaped until they reach a stable baseline and the process of training was the same for every one of them. The research is still ongoing but it is expected that the data will show an increase in teachers’ productive conversation with children after the training. We are in the early phases of the intervention for two participants. Positive results from this intervention, impacting the amount of productive conversation between teachers and children, will indicate that this might be a helpful training for preschool teachers

Teaching Preschool Teachers to Converse Productively with Children: A Single Case Design

Research shows that conversations and daily interaction among teachers and children is crucial for their development. Observing children and interpreting their thinking processes is a significant factor in intentionally planning curriculum that emerges from children’s thinking, assists them in making connections, and extends their learning. This article presents findings of a single case design study investigating the effects of the observation and interpretation processes in a Cycle of Inquiry System (COI) (Broderick and Hong in Early Childh Res Pract 13:1–14, 2011) intervention on preschool teachers’ productive conversations with children. The intervention for each teacher consisted of pre and post interviews, a 1-day COI training, use of COI observation and interpretation forms, and coaching meetings with the researcher. The participants were 4 preschool teachers in Northeast Tennessee. Teachers were videotaped in their classrooms working with children during the free play time and coded for productive and non-productive conversation strategies for determining the baseline and changes during the intervention. All the teachers show an increase in productive conversation strategies to differing degrees. The non-overlapping pairs analysis for all participants is represented by a large value. The findings indicate the benefit of training teachers to observe and interpret the meaning of children’s conversations to intentionally plan for productive conversations that impact learning