Infant and Toddler Teacher – Job Description and Outlook Preschool teachers lead young children through art and science projects, activities.
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The activity encouraged students to become competent in labeling and analyzing child behavior according to the learning categories laid out in the state learning guidelines, as well as helping them to internalize reasonable expectations for child development during the preschool years. Meanwhile, the worksheet pages were also put into the classroom, where they started out as a blank book for each child but soon became embellished by the students.
They added observational information on their target children or any other children throughout the semester by recording snippets of speech and behavior on sticky notes attached to the appropriate widely held expectation giving them additional practice in analyzing and labeling behavior. Often, the students gathered these notes by watching more advanced students from the course Curriculum Methods in Early Childhood Education implement their lesson plans drawn up for the content domains e. Michelle Rupiper described how the course Curriculum Methods in Early Childhood Education took students one step further.
The students wrote and implemented detailed activity plans around identified curricular goals. By waiting until further into the semester, students were able to step back and view the activity through a broader lens than they were able to do at the start of the semester. Students were using and applying the skills of observation and documentation to go inside the learning process and analyze the thinking and behavior of children instead of remaining outside and simply portraying the child holistically. This change is illustrated by the sample products from both courses linked below.
From Preschool Prepracticum , there are blank worksheet pages, sample observations by one student, and two examples of filled-out pages for the Child Development Assessment Report. From Curriculum Methods, there is a sample Activity Documentation. Each faculty member of the co-inquiry group thus elaborated on how her course assignments addressed the acquisition of documentation skills.
Julie Jones-Branch, in presenting to the group, added an important perspective when she described how she had created a template of the documentation cycle of inquiry for use with her students in Preschool Student Teaching , the culminating preschool practicum in the IECE teacher education program. To show the faculty group, she brought along a diagram Jones-Branch, What information do I need to gather? What pictures can I capture to help me tell the meaning? This activity led the students into planning that supported what each child was interested in or trying to figure out.
What does it mean? Where can we go from here? The Portfolio Page also included either photos of the child in action or an artifact of some kind e. She also helped them to improve the aesthetic appearance and organization of their Portfolio Pages.
Teacher Work Environments
The students placed their Portfolio Pages in the classroom so that children, teachers, supervisors, and parents all had daily access to them. Parents were given the portfolios as keepsakes, and students photocopied them to add to their own professional teaching portfolios. Late in the semester, a similar type of inquiry process led students to use observation and reflection sheets, together with Portfolio Pages, as raw material for creating a Project Panel to display on the walls of the school and a Project Book to give to each family as a parting gift.
Julie Jones-Branch explained that she used the cycle of inquiry diagrams with her preservice teachers as a constant reference point to remind them how observing, interpreting, and planning are part of the same repeating cycle. The Portfolio Pages and other documentation were a marvel to parents, who were drawn into detailed discussions with student teachers about the significance of the ordinary moments of preschoolers.
Through this and subsequent discussions, the faculty members began to make plans to inform students about how their courses would help students learn to ask questions about their teaching and engage in the cycle of inquiry. The group agreed that it was useful for students to have different courses emphasize various techniques of gathering observations and artifacts, for instance, through observation checklists; anecdotal notes; parent, child, or teacher interviews; or photography of classroom life. Finally, the group agreed that different courses should offer students opportunities to master various formats for communicating, reporting, and displaying findings about teaching and learning, for instance, through child case study reports, child narratives, curriculum activity plans, literacy case studies, posters, and project panels.
Some of the formats involve more use of visual tools for documentation than do others, but virtually all involve the use of digital technology or computers. Whether drawing on words, images, or graphs and diagrams, each integrative activity offers an organized and accumulating series of experiences for the students. The students also learned to apply their documentation skills in addressing the learning of children across the range of abilities. Students observed a child in an inclusive environment over time, interviewed the teacher for desired expectations of all children, sought consultation from specialists by sharing what they knew and had tried to adapt the environment or teaching before writing instruction plans that brought about greater participation and engagement for the child.
The report was shared with the classroom teacher and used for evaluating student learning in the course; the poster 30 x 22 inches was used for the student's teaching portfolio printed 8. An example of such a poster is presented below and like the Portfolio Pages and Posters produced in Preschool Student Teaching approaches a level of quality appropriate for sharing with a public forum beyond the university for example, at a professional workshop or conference. To summarize what the group had learned through a year of co-inquiry, the faculty members decided to prepare some pages to be included in the IECE student handbook that Susan Churchill was beginning to prepare for all current and prospective students.
This page begins as follows:. As part of becoming a reflective educator, you are going to learn a new tool called documentation. The documentation process is more than gathering observations; it also includes reflecting, collaborating, planning, and communicating. The documentation process is part of a cycle of inquiry. The description goes on to show a diagram of the cycle of inquiry and to name the skills and formats of documentation that students would be learning. The description can be found on pages 11—12 of thecurrent student handbook http: Last, the co-inquiry group concluded the year of reflection by summarizing what had been learned about the teaching of the skills of documentation throughout the IECE teacher education program.
- Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
- The Teacher's Role in the Project Approach.
- The Big Adventures of Gizmo Goose and Friends.
The group constructed a chart titled The Skills of Documentation: In reviewing this chart pp. What kind of mathematical learners are they? They sifted and organized their evidence by analyzing their videotape and comparing their observations and notes with evidence on other children. To perfect their skills in professional communication, they made narrative and oral presentations to their college classmates and instructors. The faculty co-inquiry group contemplated the chart The Skills of Documentation: Students were experimenting with many different products of documentation that ranged from simple to complex and shifted between a focus on narrow problems and broad ones.
Looked at in this systematic way, it seemed clear that the Inclusive ECE program was providing a pathway for students to move from the novice awareness level in using the tools of observation and documentation toward a practitioner level, where they were refining and integrating their skills. The student panels and posters have a unique look to them—a particular touch—that we believe reflects not only our community identity but also the particular road we have traveled in trying to understand and master the documentation process.
Highlights
In the time since , faculty and students in the IECE program have continued to make further improvements in learning environments and the educational programs for children and to create new documents such as a Lab School brochure and Web page and electronic Individualized Education Plan IEP Progress Reports. Faculty in the teacher education program have continued to invest energy to improve the interdisciplinary program and their ability to articulate theory and practice that represents the underlying program philosophy but respects individual faculty variations in training, experience, research agenda, and teaching styles.
Faculty members in the teacher education program have joined college- and university-wide conversations on accountability and specification of student learning outcomes. The faculty collaboration described in this article was supported by a grant to the early childhood faculty team from the National Center for Information Technology in Education NCITE at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln http: Co-inquiry meetings for facilitated interchange.
Co-Inquiry Journal, 1 1 , Retrieved April 26, , from http: Making teaching and learning visible: Course portfolios and the peer review of teaching. Teachers, children and parents as researchers. Innovations in Early Education, 10 2 , Insights behind early childhood pedagogical documentation. Castle Hill, New South Wales: Negotiated learning through design, documentation, and discourse.
The Reggio Emilia approach—Advanced reflections 2nd ed. The importance of observation in early education. Retrieved July 12, , from http: Fu , Victoria R.
Collaborative exploration of the Reggio Emilia approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Two reflections about documentation. Teaching mathematics to the new standards: A tool for knowledge construction in a Reggio Emilia inspired teacher education program. Early Childhood Education Journal, 32 2 , A close examination of support in the inquiry process. Manuscript submitted for publication. Implications for the study and development of inquiry among early childhood preservice teachers: A report from one study.
Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 23 1 , The communicative and generative qualities of video-narrative as a mediational tool of mentor teacher inquiry.
leondumoulin.nl - The Teacher's Role in the Project Approach
Co-Inquiry Journal, 1 3. Moving toward visual literacy: Photography as a language of teacher inquiry. Documenting individual and group learning as professional development. The teacher has a key role in suggesting possible objects to represent and making available appropriate materials for the children to use.
The teacher is also essential to building a classroom culture of mutual assistance among the children. She may suggest to a child who is having some difficulties creating a cardboard construction representation that a particular classmate might be able to help because he or she has done similar things recently. Another important role of the teacher is to link the project work with local, district, or state standards. Project work engages children in a wide range of literacy skills depending on their ages as well as many mathematical concepts and skills.
For example, a kindergarten class did an extensive investigation of their school bus. Their work included one group counting the number of seats in the bus, another group measuring the length and width of the bus with a tied up collection of old neckties, and another group writing down all the signs they found, e.
Exit, Open, Close, Warning, etc. The teacher must be aware of the knowledge the children gained and be able to communicate it as evidence of learning in an appropriate manner. The teacher also helps determine when it is time to complete the project, and plan a culminating event. If, after watching and listening carefully to the children, the teacher feels they have reached this point, she or he might indicate at a group meeting that the topic may have been explored fully enough. Then it is a good time to plan a culminating event and to prepare some final documentation to help others appreciate what they have accomplished.
Depending upon the ages of the children, the teacher can offer detailed assistance on how to present their work at a special meeting for their parents. In addition, the teacher can involve the children in preparing a written report or summary of their work and involve them in completing the documentation of the project. Parents and others in the school and community are invited to see the final report of their work and to appreciate the extensive effort, knowledge, and skills involved.
Katz has lectured in all 50 states and 55 other countries. She has served as Visiting Professor at many universities in the US and 7 other countries, and has an extensive list of publications of papers, chapters as well as books related to young children, their parents and teachers.
Katz, I just started an MA program in Early Child at Pacific Oaks College and am writing a paper on the at risk child and community and came across this site. First off congratulations on all your successes. Secondly, I wasn't expecting to make a comment, but reading this article brings back a lot wonderful memories during my 12 years working as an ECE teacher in San Francisco implementing Project Based learning, which made our summers and holidays more eventful, adventurous, focused, educational, collaborative and fun.
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