These eight weeks have really flown by!! I've been so busy with work and all the busyness that comes with summer, time management has really come into play. I've enjoyed reading everyone's blog posts and I hope that you have enjoyed reading mine. Thank you for all of the great feedback and perhaps we will have more classes together in the future!!
There are many positives that I found with making the connection to Maria, who lives in Sweden. I feel lucky that I was able to do this because I know that a lot of people struggled. The first positive I found through learning about the early childhood community internationally was how it made Sweden seem like less foreign of a place and I was able to get a really good look at their early childhood programs. To me, the US always seems like a place that feels what we do is always right and it is always the best; rather it is our education system, our healthcare systems, etc.; that we don't take the time to look at other countries and learn about what they are doing. By looking at the early childhood program in Sweden, or any other country for that matter, we can learn what works for them and, if it is something that we do not already do, we can introduce it into our early childhood programs. Who knows, the methods or practices that other countries may be doing could bring great success to our own programs. Sometimes we get stuck in our own ways and the way things have always been done, that it is nice to take time out to look at how other countries fund their early childhood programs, what curriculums they teach and what kind of discipline methods they use to perhaps enhance our own programs.
The second thing that I enjoyed about conversing with Maria is that she brought up new ideas or things that I either had not thought of or had never heard of. For example, she talked about Save the Children and the Reggio Emilia philosophy. I have heard of both, but have never really looked into either or thought much about them. When she mentioned them, it made me curious and I wanted to learn more. It goes back to my first point, but when you are learning and discussing topics with someone who has different experiences than you do, there is a lot that you can learn from each other.
The last thing that I enjoyed about learning about the international community and talking with Maria is just the basic networking skills that come from it. On a personal level, my boyfriend and I really enjoy traveling and have been fortunate to take vacations to Europe the past couple years and now we have another contact to gain information from or to even potentially meet someday. Maria also has a group of friends who are teachers and I am sure that they have friends who are teachers, perhaps from other countries, and now the relationship has started and I could network with other educators from around the world, using Maria as my contact person.
The one goal that I would make for the Early Childhood Field is to make establishing contacts internationally begin at an early time in a teacher's educational path. During my time at undergrad, which was at a university that is known for their teaching program, we never discussed international education programs and never reached out to anyone working overseas. I think it is a great learning opportunity, especially for younger undergrads who could then maintain contact with foreign individuals or continue to network as they begin their careers. Establishing contact with international educators is a great way to get outside of your own bubble and it would be beneficial to everyone.
Once again, thank you for reading my blogs and good luck with your future courses!!!
Friday, June 22, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Getting to know international contacts-part 3
Maria has shared so much wonderful information with me. I decided to copy/paste two conversations we recently had because I think both of them give a great glimpse into what life is like in Sweden and what their preschool system is like. She was a wonderful contact and I am so lucky I was able to find her. The first conversation we had was about quality in preschools, which was suppose to be posted a few weeks back. I wasn't able to hear from her in time, so I did the alternate assignment, but I wanted to include what she wrote.
Yes, I agree that Sweden is a wonderful place with all the systems that we have. But we also pay about 33% in income tax, and 25% tax on clothes, 12 % tax on food, 25% tax on fuel, and so on. We pay tax on everything.
We also have very much to do at work right now. This last Friday we had a planning day when we evaluated our goals. Every fall we have to write our goals and how to work with the goals and how to work with the evaluation of our goals. We have discussed a lot about how we must be able to evaluate our goals and also how we can prove that these goals are reached. We also do a parent questionnaire to help us with what we can develop to reach a better quality of work.
We don’t have any inspections like you have. But I think the National Agency plans to do more inspection in the preschools, which I think is good because the quality is important.
In the fall we are starting to work with a systematic quality assurance. The plan is that we will be working more towards our goals. So we don’t just write our goal on a piece of paper and then we evaluate our goals in the spring. We have to work more systematically with our goals.
We also have very much to do at work right now. This last Friday we had a planning day when we evaluated our goals. Every fall we have to write our goals and how to work with the goals and how to work with the evaluation of our goals. We have discussed a lot about how we must be able to evaluate our goals and also how we can prove that these goals are reached. We also do a parent questionnaire to help us with what we can develop to reach a better quality of work.
We don’t have any inspections like you have. But I think the National Agency plans to do more inspection in the preschools, which I think is good because the quality is important.
In the fall we are starting to work with a systematic quality assurance. The plan is that we will be working more towards our goals. So we don’t just write our goal on a piece of paper and then we evaluate our goals in the spring. We have to work more systematically with our goals.
The second conversation we had was about the assignment for this week: opportunities for professional development, her professional goals and her hopes and dreams. She gave such great info!!
I think you need to have commitment to your work to develop professionally. At the moment here in Sweden the topic of the children’s influence in early childhood is discussed very much. The children spend many hours of their childhood in the preschool so they should have some influence over their time. But what can they have an influence on?
Our curriculum was revised in 2010 to add the three U’s. Monitoring (in Swedish: Uppföljning), Evaluation (in Swedish: Utvärdering) and Development (in Swedish: Utveckling).
"The quality of the preschool shall be regularly and systematically documented, followed
up, evaluated and developed. Evaluating the quality of the preschool and creating
good conditions for learning requires that the child’s learning and development
be monitored, documented and analysed. Supporting and challenging children in their learning entails knowledge of each child’s experiences, knowledge and participation,
as well as influence over and interest in the different goal areas. This also requires knowledge of how the child’s exploration, questions, experiences and involvement
are used in the preschool, how the child’s knowledge changes and when they experience the preschool as interesting, fun and meaningful.
The aim of evaluation is to obtain knowledge of how the quality of the preschool i.e. its organisation, content and actions can be developed so that each child receives the best possible conditions for learning and development. Ultimately this involves developing
better work processes, being able to determine whether the work takes place in accordance with the goals, as well as investigating what measures need to be taken in order to improve the conditions for children to learn, develop, feel secure and have fun in the preschool. Analyses of the results of evaluation indicate areas that are critical for development. All forms of evaluation should take the perspective of the child as the starting point. Children and parents should participate in evaluation and their views are to be given prominence.
Guidelines
Preschool teachers are responsible
• that each child’s learning and development is regularly and systematically documented,
followed up and analysed so that it is possible to evaluate how the preschool provides opportunities for children to develop and learn in accordance with the goals and intentions of the curriculum,• that documentation, follow-up, evaluation and analysis covers how the goals of the curriculum are integrated with each other in pedagogical work,
• that the preschool as a whole i.e. its conditions, organisation, structure, contents, activities and pedagogical processes are documented, followed up and evaluated,
• that documentation, follow-up and analysis covers how the abilities and knowledge of children change over time in the goal areas in relation to the preconditions for learning and development provided by the preschool,
• that evaluation methods, how documentation and evaluation are used and influence the contents and working methods of the preschool, as well as the child’s opportunities
for development and learning in all goal areas are critically examined, and
• that the results of documentation, follow-up and evaluation in systematic work on quality are used to develop the quality of the preschool and thus the child’s opportunities
for learning and development.
The work team should
• regularly and systematically document, follow up and analyse each child’s learning
and development, as well as evaluate how the preschool provides the child with opportunities for learning and development in accordance with the goals and intentions
of the curriculum,
• use different forms of documentation and evaluation to provide knowledge of
the conditions for the child’s learning and development in the preschool, as well
as making it possible to monitor the child’s acquisition of knowledge in different goal areas,
• document, follow up and analyse
– communication and interaction with and between children, their participation and influence, as well as the occasions when children experience preschool as interesting, meaningful and fun,
– how the child’s skills and knowledge change continuously over time in the goal areas in relation to the preconditions for learning and development provided by the preschool,
• document, follow up, evaluate and develop
– the child’s participation and influence in documentation and evaluations, where and how the child can exercise influence, and how their perspective, explorations, questions and ideas are used, and
– influence of parents in the evaluations, where and how they can exercise influence, and how their perspectives can be used." (Curriculum)
We don’t have a requirement for professional development. It's in every manager's interest to offer the possibility for development for their employees. We have been to some lectures, and some of the employees have taken some courses. Right now we work a lot with equality, degrading treatment and values. The teachers are supposed to share the knowledge they have received from the courses. Unfortunately the cost for professional development is so high that only a few of the employees have the opportunity to take some courses. We take advantage of the knowledge each preschool teacher has. I have good knowledge about computers for example, so I have helped many of my colleagues. We also have one teacher who is good at maths. So we help each other very much and that is also a way to develop.
My professional goals have always been to run my own preschool some day, my friends and I have always said that when we were studying to become preschool teachers. At our preschool we are inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy. Are you familiar with Reggio Emilia? Another of my goals is to learn more about the Reggio Emilia philosophy.
My hopes professionally are that when I am 65 (retirement age) I hope I like this work as much as I do now and that I feel that I keep developing as I teacher and person. My dream is my goal: to run my own preschool.
Our curriculum was revised in 2010 to add the three U’s. Monitoring (in Swedish: Uppföljning), Evaluation (in Swedish: Utvärdering) and Development (in Swedish: Utveckling).
"The quality of the preschool shall be regularly and systematically documented, followed
up, evaluated and developed. Evaluating the quality of the preschool and creating
good conditions for learning requires that the child’s learning and development
be monitored, documented and analysed. Supporting and challenging children in their learning entails knowledge of each child’s experiences, knowledge and participation,
as well as influence over and interest in the different goal areas. This also requires knowledge of how the child’s exploration, questions, experiences and involvement
are used in the preschool, how the child’s knowledge changes and when they experience the preschool as interesting, fun and meaningful.
The aim of evaluation is to obtain knowledge of how the quality of the preschool i.e. its organisation, content and actions can be developed so that each child receives the best possible conditions for learning and development. Ultimately this involves developing
better work processes, being able to determine whether the work takes place in accordance with the goals, as well as investigating what measures need to be taken in order to improve the conditions for children to learn, develop, feel secure and have fun in the preschool. Analyses of the results of evaluation indicate areas that are critical for development. All forms of evaluation should take the perspective of the child as the starting point. Children and parents should participate in evaluation and their views are to be given prominence.
Guidelines
Preschool teachers are responsible
• that each child’s learning and development is regularly and systematically documented,
followed up and analysed so that it is possible to evaluate how the preschool provides opportunities for children to develop and learn in accordance with the goals and intentions of the curriculum,• that documentation, follow-up, evaluation and analysis covers how the goals of the curriculum are integrated with each other in pedagogical work,
• that the preschool as a whole i.e. its conditions, organisation, structure, contents, activities and pedagogical processes are documented, followed up and evaluated,
• that documentation, follow-up and analysis covers how the abilities and knowledge of children change over time in the goal areas in relation to the preconditions for learning and development provided by the preschool,
• that evaluation methods, how documentation and evaluation are used and influence the contents and working methods of the preschool, as well as the child’s opportunities
for development and learning in all goal areas are critically examined, and
• that the results of documentation, follow-up and evaluation in systematic work on quality are used to develop the quality of the preschool and thus the child’s opportunities
for learning and development.
The work team should
• regularly and systematically document, follow up and analyse each child’s learning
and development, as well as evaluate how the preschool provides the child with opportunities for learning and development in accordance with the goals and intentions
of the curriculum,
• use different forms of documentation and evaluation to provide knowledge of
the conditions for the child’s learning and development in the preschool, as well
as making it possible to monitor the child’s acquisition of knowledge in different goal areas,
• document, follow up and analyse
– communication and interaction with and between children, their participation and influence, as well as the occasions when children experience preschool as interesting, meaningful and fun,
– how the child’s skills and knowledge change continuously over time in the goal areas in relation to the preconditions for learning and development provided by the preschool,
• document, follow up, evaluate and develop
– the child’s participation and influence in documentation and evaluations, where and how the child can exercise influence, and how their perspective, explorations, questions and ideas are used, and
– influence of parents in the evaluations, where and how they can exercise influence, and how their perspectives can be used." (Curriculum)
We don’t have a requirement for professional development. It's in every manager's interest to offer the possibility for development for their employees. We have been to some lectures, and some of the employees have taken some courses. Right now we work a lot with equality, degrading treatment and values. The teachers are supposed to share the knowledge they have received from the courses. Unfortunately the cost for professional development is so high that only a few of the employees have the opportunity to take some courses. We take advantage of the knowledge each preschool teacher has. I have good knowledge about computers for example, so I have helped many of my colleagues. We also have one teacher who is good at maths. So we help each other very much and that is also a way to develop.
My professional goals have always been to run my own preschool some day, my friends and I have always said that when we were studying to become preschool teachers. At our preschool we are inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy. Are you familiar with Reggio Emilia? Another of my goals is to learn more about the Reggio Emilia philosophy.
My hopes professionally are that when I am 65 (retirement age) I hope I like this work as much as I do now and that I feel that I keep developing as I teacher and person. My dream is my goal: to run my own preschool.
I have gained so many new insights from Maria. The preschool where she works sounds very similar to the center where I work, with the different guidelines and lessons that they follow. I was also amazed how much they pay in tax for everything!! And I thought we paid a lot of tax. After seeing how much they pay in tax, I understand how the government is able to have money to fund the things that they do. If we taxed like that, we'd have more money too. I also liked how she talked about professional development opportunities because it sounds very similiar to the opportunities that I have where I work. We have been dealing with budget cuts and the opportunities are there for professional development, but it is out-of-pocket and expensive. Overall, it was great having the chance to discuss different things with Maria and find out that the place where she works in Sweden is more similiar to where I work in America, than it is different.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Sharing Resources Revisited
Well it has been another exciting and busy week. At work, we had our NAEYC 5-year accreditation surprise visit on Thursday and Friday and it made for some very busy days at work. I saw so many correlations from NAEYC standards to our topics this week: availability, accessibility and affordability, so that was interesting and nice to see the overlap.
This week was my first time to look at my new e-newsletter from the zero to three website and what an amazing website it is!!! If you still haven't had a chance to take a look, it is definately worth viewing. There are so many resources on there, it is amazing. It is a great resource to share with parents too. The newsletter that was emailed to me focused on prolonged separation of children and parents/foster parents. The article was entitled "Foster Care in the Hospital". I didn't read the entire article, but it discussed the hardships foster care children face when they are ill.
I proceeded to the zero to three website and found the WHATS NEW tab. There was a wonderful video that I shared the link with below entitled "Starting Life Without a Home" and it was based on the first congressional hearing, which just happened on Feb. 16, 2012, about homeless families and children, specifically homeless infants and toddlers. The video was great and contained wonderful information. Judy Bigart, from Illinois, was the politician responsible for leading the hearing and she said that 1/45 children are homeless in America and 42% of those homeless children are 0-5 years old. The video discusses development of homeless children and how a supporting relationship can help a child so much. The video is about 8 min. and definately worth watching.
Under FEATURED RESOURCES, there is an article entitled, "Conversation with Experts" and it was suppose to talk about how teachers can better support parents. It looked like a great article, but was $15 to read and honestly I didn't really feel like paying the money for it. I did notice though on the side of the page was a link called "From Baby to Big Kid" and it was a free e-newsletter about children from birth to age three. It is meant for parents to offer helpful strategies to them and I thougth it was a great resource we could pass along to parents who may need extra information.
I also chose to look under the tab about military families, since that is part of the population that I work with....Wow....there is a ton of great information here!!! They offer free duty to care training that helps professionals understand their role and how to help families of deployed solidiers through all the stages of deployments. I was also able to sign up for another free e-newsletter, "Coming Together Around Military Families", which will be another way to assist my military families at work. We have a group of dads getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan in Aug, so I may be needing some of these resources.
I checked my old website I was viewing-www.naecte.org to see what was new there. They did have a new newsletter up (Summber 2012--that made me laugh thinking teachers wrote that), but I only found one worthwhile thing in it. It discussed "Growing up Wild", a nature-based education program. The frustrating part was when I clicked on the link www.pw.GrowingUPWILD.org, it said the domain was not found.
After looking through the zero to three website, I am so happy that I switched web addresses and e-newsletters. There is so much information on this website and it can be for teachers or parents. I can't wait to look through more of the military resources!!!
References
www.zerotothree.org
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid4853363001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAP1OrgE~,Pg4k-7G5h8q5f5a18Ed-9RBn57qq9pZW&bctid=1543532738001
This week was my first time to look at my new e-newsletter from the zero to three website and what an amazing website it is!!! If you still haven't had a chance to take a look, it is definately worth viewing. There are so many resources on there, it is amazing. It is a great resource to share with parents too. The newsletter that was emailed to me focused on prolonged separation of children and parents/foster parents. The article was entitled "Foster Care in the Hospital". I didn't read the entire article, but it discussed the hardships foster care children face when they are ill.
I proceeded to the zero to three website and found the WHATS NEW tab. There was a wonderful video that I shared the link with below entitled "Starting Life Without a Home" and it was based on the first congressional hearing, which just happened on Feb. 16, 2012, about homeless families and children, specifically homeless infants and toddlers. The video was great and contained wonderful information. Judy Bigart, from Illinois, was the politician responsible for leading the hearing and she said that 1/45 children are homeless in America and 42% of those homeless children are 0-5 years old. The video discusses development of homeless children and how a supporting relationship can help a child so much. The video is about 8 min. and definately worth watching.
Under FEATURED RESOURCES, there is an article entitled, "Conversation with Experts" and it was suppose to talk about how teachers can better support parents. It looked like a great article, but was $15 to read and honestly I didn't really feel like paying the money for it. I did notice though on the side of the page was a link called "From Baby to Big Kid" and it was a free e-newsletter about children from birth to age three. It is meant for parents to offer helpful strategies to them and I thougth it was a great resource we could pass along to parents who may need extra information.
I also chose to look under the tab about military families, since that is part of the population that I work with....Wow....there is a ton of great information here!!! They offer free duty to care training that helps professionals understand their role and how to help families of deployed solidiers through all the stages of deployments. I was also able to sign up for another free e-newsletter, "Coming Together Around Military Families", which will be another way to assist my military families at work. We have a group of dads getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan in Aug, so I may be needing some of these resources.
I checked my old website I was viewing-www.naecte.org to see what was new there. They did have a new newsletter up (Summber 2012--that made me laugh thinking teachers wrote that), but I only found one worthwhile thing in it. It discussed "Growing up Wild", a nature-based education program. The frustrating part was when I clicked on the link www.pw.GrowingUPWILD.org, it said the domain was not found.
After looking through the zero to three website, I am so happy that I switched web addresses and e-newsletters. There is so much information on this website and it can be for teachers or parents. I can't wait to look through more of the military resources!!!
References
www.zerotothree.org
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid4853363001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAP1OrgE~,Pg4k-7G5h8q5f5a18Ed-9RBn57qq9pZW&bctid=1543532738001
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Getting to know International Contacts-Part 2
Well, unfortunately I emailed Maria over a week and she has not gotten back to me, so I am not able to share any information from her on Sweden. It is a little frustrating to depend on someone else to complete an assignment, so I chose to do the alternate assignment this week.
I first went to the Global Children's intiative website and here is what I found:
Zambian Early Childhood Development Project-researchers had found that there was not a lot of research from Sub-Saharan African on education, to they created an assessment that tested how well the anti-malaria intiative was doing in Zambia. It started in July 2010 and there are follow-ups each year. I looked up information from the 2010 assessment final report and it talked about the country's background, the history of the test and development across Zambia (which varies). The assessment tests a variety of skills, such as fine motor and verbal skills. Through the assessment they found the intitiative is successful and is working well for children. Depending on where the children lived in Zambia depended on there overall successful because there was a large difference in areas.
Brazil-Nucleo Ciencia Pela Infancia--This center was to guide stronger policies and get more investments for early childhood programs that benefit young children and their families. They also want to adopt a center model curriculum, but include local context as well. I really liked the idea of having an established curriculum, but then also making sure to include the children's home cultures in their learning.
Chile-Un Buen Comienzo-This center wants to improve early childhood education through professional teacher development. I thought this was interesting because so many programs look at what they can do for the childrn and teacher development is a huge part of quality education. The center also wants to improve language offerings and include children's families.
I was able to find a really interesting podcast on early childhood education from http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/6156. It focused on the economic gains of early childhood education and Head Start. I thought this fit right along with our topics we have been discussing plus I am interested in knowing more about Head Start.
The podcast starts with the two men talking about and quoting James Hackman, who states "early childhood education is a great investment and their is a high rate of return on it." They went on to discusse that they best way to improve equity and combat inequality for all is to focus on disadvantaged individuals and improve Pre-K to make it assessable to all. Hackman is quoted as saying, "it's not just or fair, it would increase our overall productivity". When disadvantaged children have access to Pre-K their IQ is raised to normal cognitive levels and they have increased behavior. It has been shown that these same children than increase labor productivity and participate more in the job market.
The next conversation was about Head Start. They called it a high quality program that does a "decent" job of educating children. The two men felt their Pre-K programs were of better quality than most public or private Pre-K. Head start improves cognitive ability and has been shown to keep kids in school longer. They quote Jen Curry from Columbia who has discussed the "fade out" affect of Head Start (which I had not heard about before). There is a jump in cognitive skills for disadvantaged children while in Head Start programs, but as they get older, the jump in cognitive development disappears.
Even thought I learned a lot from the website and podcasts, I would have loved to shared with all of you more about Maria's school. Through the alternate assignment, I was able to learn about places that I do not know much about when it comes to education and I was also able to gain more insight on Head Start.
Resources
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/
http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/6156
I first went to the Global Children's intiative website and here is what I found:
Zambian Early Childhood Development Project-researchers had found that there was not a lot of research from Sub-Saharan African on education, to they created an assessment that tested how well the anti-malaria intiative was doing in Zambia. It started in July 2010 and there are follow-ups each year. I looked up information from the 2010 assessment final report and it talked about the country's background, the history of the test and development across Zambia (which varies). The assessment tests a variety of skills, such as fine motor and verbal skills. Through the assessment they found the intitiative is successful and is working well for children. Depending on where the children lived in Zambia depended on there overall successful because there was a large difference in areas.
Brazil-Nucleo Ciencia Pela Infancia--This center was to guide stronger policies and get more investments for early childhood programs that benefit young children and their families. They also want to adopt a center model curriculum, but include local context as well. I really liked the idea of having an established curriculum, but then also making sure to include the children's home cultures in their learning.
Chile-Un Buen Comienzo-This center wants to improve early childhood education through professional teacher development. I thought this was interesting because so many programs look at what they can do for the childrn and teacher development is a huge part of quality education. The center also wants to improve language offerings and include children's families.
I was able to find a really interesting podcast on early childhood education from http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/6156. It focused on the economic gains of early childhood education and Head Start. I thought this fit right along with our topics we have been discussing plus I am interested in knowing more about Head Start.
The podcast starts with the two men talking about and quoting James Hackman, who states "early childhood education is a great investment and their is a high rate of return on it." They went on to discusse that they best way to improve equity and combat inequality for all is to focus on disadvantaged individuals and improve Pre-K to make it assessable to all. Hackman is quoted as saying, "it's not just or fair, it would increase our overall productivity". When disadvantaged children have access to Pre-K their IQ is raised to normal cognitive levels and they have increased behavior. It has been shown that these same children than increase labor productivity and participate more in the job market.
The next conversation was about Head Start. They called it a high quality program that does a "decent" job of educating children. The two men felt their Pre-K programs were of better quality than most public or private Pre-K. Head start improves cognitive ability and has been shown to keep kids in school longer. They quote Jen Curry from Columbia who has discussed the "fade out" affect of Head Start (which I had not heard about before). There is a jump in cognitive skills for disadvantaged children while in Head Start programs, but as they get older, the jump in cognitive development disappears.
Even thought I learned a lot from the website and podcasts, I would have loved to shared with all of you more about Maria's school. Through the alternate assignment, I was able to learn about places that I do not know much about when it comes to education and I was also able to gain more insight on Head Start.
Resources
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/
http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/6156
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