The Mosaic approach views children as ‘experts in their own lives’, and offers a creative framework for listening to young children’s perspectives. At a time of shifting policy in early years, this second edition offers a timely reminder that listening to young children is still important for reviewing service provision.The Mosaic approach has been applied by practitioners throughout the world. This new edition reflects on the authors’ original ground-breaking work, with new introductions, updates and examples of how the Mosaic approach has been adapted, and offers case studies that will encourage practitioners to use the framework in their own setting.will be of interest to policy makers, practitioners in nurseries, children’s centres, pre-schools and schools and residential settings. It will also be welcomed by early childhood students and other researchers who are engaged in searching for new theoretical, practical and imaginative ways of listening to young children.
The Agency by Design guide to implementing maker-centered teaching and learning Maker-Centered Learning provides both a theoretical framework and practical resources for the educators, curriculum developers, librarians, administrators, and parents navigating this burgeoning field. Written by the expert team from the Agency by Design initiative at Harvard's Project Zero, this book Identifies a set of educational practices and ideas that define maker-centered learning, and introduces the focal concepts of maker empowerment and sensitivity to design. Shares cutting edge research that provides evidence of the benefits of maker-centered learning for students and education as a whole. Presents a clear Project Zero-based framework for maker-centered teaching and learning Includes valuable educator resources that can be applied in a variety of design and maker-centered learning environments Describes unique thinking routines that foster the primary maker capacities of looking closely, exploring complexity, and finding opportunity. A surge of voices from government, industry, and education have argued that, in order to equip the next generation for life and work in the decades ahead, it is vital to support maker-centered learning in various educational environments. Maker-Centered Learning provides insight into what that means, and offers tools and knowledge that can be applied anywhere that learning takes place.
The key aims of early childhood education and care (ECEC) are to offer children from all social backgrounds a good start in their lives, to support parenting as well as families’ workforce participation, and, thereby, to sustainably strengthen the national economy over current and future generations. High-quality ECEC has been shown to improve child outcomes and be a buffer against developmental risk factors. For these reasons, governments, ECEC providers, and researchers are placing an increasing focus on the frameworks and systems that underpin quality as well as the measures that assess quality. At the same time, however, research on ECEC as a multidisciplinary endeavor has shown that the aims and benefits of high-quality ECEC can only be reached when all stakeholders’ needs are acknowledged and sufficiently met. For example, recent evidence suggests that the acceptability and social validity of quality assessment and improvement methods are contested among some stakeholders, and thus, the sustainability of these quality efforts may be in doubt. New challenges also include the ever-changing nature and circumstances affecting ECEC stakeholders, for example, the greater flows of refugee families and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This Frontiers Research Topic will contribute to an updated knowledge base in order to inform governments, providers, and the scientific community about best practices and new solutions for conceptualizing, measuring, and improving ECEC quality. The aim of the proposed Research Topic is to generate a worldwide kaleidoscope of research studies that explore and discuss models for gathering the perspectives of multiple stakeholders and considering the meaningfulness of stakeholder views for conceptualizing, assessing, and improving quality in ECEC. We believe that greater attention needs to be given to the diversity of stakeholders who are invested in ECEC, including government regulatory authorities, service providers, educators, families, communities, and children. We also believe that wide-ranging stakeholder input will generate innovative methods for assessing and improving quality that keep pace with our rapidly changing information society. Two further foci are set on ECEC practices: (1.) that support participation, diversity, and inclusion of all children and families and (2.) that are suitable for developing countries and diverse populations within countries. In this, the focus is not only on best practices but also on the limitations of practices. In soliciting research articles on ECEC stakeholder perspectives, we describe stakeholders as inclusive of government/non-government regulatory agencies, service providers, teachers and caregivers, families, communities, and children. Themes of interest include but are not limited to: • Assessment of quality in ECEC, including self-assessment approaches; • The design of and use of quality frameworks in ECEC; • Effects of quality and of quality improvement on children and families; • Drivers and indicators of quality improvement; • Acceptance and sustainability of quality efforts among ECEC stakeholders; • Policy expectations of quality rating and improvement systems (e.g., funding policy); • The role of teacher and caregiver professionalization; • All types of center-based and home-based ECEC. We are interested both in quantitative and qualitative research designs as well as in mixed-methods research. Cross-sectional, longitudinal, (quasi-)experimental and case study designs are welcome. The following article types are welcome: original research, empirical studies, systematic reviews, community case studies, policy briefs articles, and brief research reports.
Play is serious business. Whether it's reenacting a favorite book (comprehension and close reading), negotiating the rules for a game (speaking and listening), or collaborating over building blocks (college and career readiness and STEM), Kristi Mraz, Alison Porcelli, and Cheryl Tyler see every day how play helps students reach standards and goals in ways that in-their-seat instruction alone can't do. And not just during playtimes. "We believe there is play in work and work in play," they write. "It helps to have practical ways to carry that mindset into all aspects of the curriculum." In Purposeful Play, they share ways to: optimize and balance different types of play to deepen regular classroom learning teach into play to foster social-emotional skills and a growth mindset bring the impact of play into all your lessons across the day. "We believe that play is one type of environment where children can be rigorous in their learning," Kristi, Alison, and Cheryl write. So they provide a host of lessons, suggestions for classroom setups, helpful tools and charts, curriculum connections, teaching points, and teaching language to help you foster mature play that makes every moment in your classroom instructional. Play doesn't only happen when work is over. Children show us time and time again that play is the way they work. In Purposeful Play, you'll find research-driven methods for making play an engine for rigorous learning in your classroom.
This timely and accessible text introduces, theorises and practically applies two important concepts which now underpin early years practice: those of ‘playful learning' and 'playful pedagogies'. Pat Broadhead and Andy Burt draw upon filmed material, conversations with children, reflection, observation, and parental and staff interviews, in their longitudinal study of outdoor and indoor play environments in an early years unit. This research-based text offers extensive insights into related theories, as well drawing on the authors’ skills and knowledge as researcher and as class teacher in order to provide opportunities for personal reflection and possibilities for practical application in early years classes and settings. Discussing both indoor and outdoor environments, the text explores ideas surrounding ‘open-ended play’, and ‘the whatever you want it to be place’. It illustrates how the themes of children’s play reflect their interests, experiences, knowledge gained at home and in school, and their cultural heritages. By showing how children become familiar and skilful within open-ended play environments, the authors illustrate how the children’s co-operative skills develop over time as they become connected in communities of learners. Alongside the examples of children’s playful learning, the book also considers the implications for resourcing and organising playful settings through playful pedagogies that connect with the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum (DfES 2007) and with the Tickell Review, ongoing as the book went to press. Understanding Young Children's Learning through Play uses children’s perspectives on their play to illustrate how rich their personal understandings are. It also includes parental reflections on what may initially appear a risky and unusual outdoor environment, and it draws attention to the importance of conflict resolution in play in order to extend children’s resilience and assertiveness. This insightful text will be of interest to students of early years education, early years practitioners, academics and researchers.
There has been a huge growth of interest in action research in educational settings over the past 20 years across the Americas, Europe, Australia and Africa - this Handbook provides a scholarly reference text that will inform the development of the field.
In this long-awaited sequel to Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge, two leaders in the field of practitioner research offer a radically different view of the relationship of knowledge and practice and of the role of practitioners in educational change. In their new book, the authors put forward the notion of inquiry as stance as a challenge to the current arrangements and outcomes of schools and other educational contexts. They call for practitioner researchers in local settings across the United States and around the world to ally their work with others as part of larger social and intellectual movements for social change and social justice. Part I is a set of five essays that conceptualize inquiry as a stance and as a transformative theory of action that repositions the collective intellectual capacity of practitioners. Part II is a set of eight chapters written by eight differently positioned practitioners who are or were engaged in practitioner research in K–12 schools or teacher education. Part III offers a unique format for exploring inquiry as stance in the next generation—a readers’ theatre script that juxtaposes and co-mingles 20 practitioners’ voices in a performance-oriented format. Together the three parts of the book point to rich possibilities for practitioner inquiry in the next generation. Contributors: Rebecca Akin, Gerald Campano, Delvin Dinkins, Kelly A. Harper, Gillian Maimon, Gary McPhail, Swati Mehta, Rob Simon,and Diane Waff “Cochran-Smith and Lytle once again prove themselves to be among the best at melding theory and practice. Instead of merely making the case for practitioner inquiry they go the next step to show us exactly what this genre brings to our field—rigor, relevance, and passion. The interplay of conceptual clarity and powerful exemplars make this a text we will read well into the next decade.” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Once again, Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle point the way to new and hopeful understandings of practitioner research. Rather than blame teachers for all that is wrong with education, they and their fellow authors remind us that if school reform is to have any chance of fulfilling its stated goal of equal opportunity for all students, teachers must have a significant voice in research, policy, and practice. With its focus on social justice and its view of practitioner research as transformative, this is a powerful and welcome sequel to their classic Inside/Outside.” —Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst “Inquiry as Stance should be a blockbuster. This brilliant sequel re-calibrates relationships between practitioner inquiry and social justice.” —Carole Edelsky, Professor Emerita, Arizona State University “This optimistic and generous book is sure to become a central reference for teacher-researchers in K–16 schools and their colleagues and supporters throughout the system.” —Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Director, National Programs and Site Development, National Writing Project, University of California, Berkeley “This view of the intellectual and personal work of teaching is a major counter to the contemporary emphasis on testing and packaged curricula.” —Cynthia Ballenger, reading specialist, Cambridge Public Schools “Once again Cochran-Smith, Lytle, and their colleagues bring us an invaluable book on the enormous possibilities of practitioner research.” —Luis C. Moll, College of Education, University of Arizona
