Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Indigenous early childhood educators'

Previous research indicates that burnout leads to issues such as attrition and poor practitioner health in early childhood education and other helping professions. This study examined self-care as a potential buffering factor against burnout in preschool teachers. Maslach’s three-dimension construct of burnout, trauma stewardship, and the coping reservoir model formed the theoretical foundations for this research. This study used semi-structured, open-ended interviews to collect qualitative data from four preschool teachers at different points in their careers to understand how early childhood educators conceptualize and practice self-care, experience burnout, and perceive the relationship between self-care and well-being. The findings show that preschool teachers experience multiple levels of work-related stress, that several types of factors can increase resilience to stress and burnout, and that self-care is highly complex and dynamic. These results point to the necessity of promoting self-care at the individual and organizational levels, treating self-care as a professional imperative, providing burnout interventions at the individual, organizational, and societal levels, and encouraging teachers to practice self-care in dynamic, adaptive ways to best support their unique needs and situations. The field would benefit from further studies exploring the relationship between self-care and burnout specifically in early childhood education, ways in which organizations can promote self-care practices in employees, and what characteristics or practices exist among teachers who have demonstrated resilience in the face of chronic work-related stressors.

The quality of educators’ teaching practices is a crucial aspect of children’s learning. This is why researchers, policy makers, teacher educators and educational leaders have focused their efforts on developing methods and programs to support educators’ teaching practices. Although teachers are the ones who actually apply the contents and skills learned in professional development programs, there is little research that considers their perspectives. The purpose of this study was to explore Latina immigrant early childhood teachers’ professional identity and perspectives about their professional learning and development (PLD) experiences. Data collection consisted on eight in-depth face-to-face interviews with early childhood educators who work in four multicultural Head Starts, and who self-identified as Latina Spanish-speaker. Data analysis was conducted using open and axial coding techniques. The main findings suggest that Latina immigrant teachers share some values, beliefs and experiences that might play a role in shaping their careers, as well as their identities as teachers and learners. Also, the findings suggest that teachers present a positive attitude towards ongoing professional learning. However, they believe that in order to be effective for their learning, PLD programs should include more active, collaborative and contextualized approaches. Additionally, the findings indicate that teachers perceive that their work environments constrain their possibilities to fully exercise their profession.

The purpose of this current study was to examine the effect of a preschool teacher intervention around the use self-monitoring and the online learning modules. The interventions were delivered online using: online learning modules that provided exemplars of the operationally defined instructional language supports. The study included 12 Head Start classrooms, with 21 lead and assistant teachers who were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: (a) graphed feedback based on self-reported data, or (b) written feedback based on performance data from videos. An experimental research design was conducted to evaluate the treatment effects for teachers and children (n = 107). The results suggested that regardless of condition, the majority of teachers increased their total frequency of language facilitation strategies. Additionally, the results suggest that teachers’ receptive vocabulary skills and their role in the classroom (lead or assistant) may mediate the effect of the professional development intervention.

This qualitative ethnographic collective case-study of two Nigerian Early Childhood Education (ECE) practitioners focused upon the practitioners’ reflections over a three-day period in February 2014 (and then a 3-month period from February through April 2014) of their first 18-months of implementing constructivist curriculum after participating in a week-long workshop in October 2012 on constructivist education theory and practice. The reflections were framed by seven questions, and their sub-questions, addressing their impressions of the most efficacious sections of the workshop, what worked and did not in their classrooms, their frustrations and successes, and their recommendations for further workshops for additional ECE practitioners. The practitioners responded to the inquiries in three different formats, as follows: the face-to-face discussion of the seven formal interview questions, a three-month journal (from February 2014 through April 2014) with the formal interview questions, and informal afternoon chat sessions that were more free-ranging. A comparison among the answers, mediated by NVivo10 (2012) software thematic sorting, revealed differences in the quantity and emphasis of the answers to the questions, varied by written and verbal responses. The most surprising finding and one that qualifies as a central phenomenon was that without sufficient parent education and support that the smooth transition from the Rote systems to the constructivist curriculum could be slowed down and even halted at the school site, as the parents voiced their concerns that the students were not going to be well-educated under this new curriculum. In further workshops, it is now apparent that parental education and engaged support must be presented and discussed so that ECE constructivist curriculum can be more widely implemented in Lagos, Nigeria and elsewhere.

This qualitative research examined how two early childhood educators initially integrated tablet technology in the curriculum through classroom observation, interviews and a review of documentation. The overall question was: how are early childhood educators initially integrating tablet technologies in the curriculum? The researcher also asked three sub-questions to further delve into developmentally appropriate practice while choosing apps. The three sub-questions ranged from what the early childhood educators believed about the impact of tablet technology within the curriculum, to how the early childhood educators were choosing developmentally appropriate apps.

The results of the research were the early childhood educator were initially integrating tablet technology at a cautious pace, but were not aware if the apps were developmentally appropriate. The researcher observed for seven weeks with 14 observations per educator. The observations and unobtrusive documentation showed that the iPads were used as a teacher driven goal. The children did not get to choose an app during the 7 weeks study. Each educator had an app in mind for each observational period. The researcher observed that many of the children, in one particular room, never had an opportunity to use the iPad.

The data collection strategies for this study were unobtrusive documentation, interviews, and unobtrusive observations. The unobtrusive documentation was the lesson plans submitted by one of the educators and app lists. The researcher arranged pre- and post-interview for the two educators. Though the unobtrusive documentation, observations and interviews, the researcher answered the initial research questions as well as the three sub-questions.

Seven themes emerged from the data. The themes included: a slow and cautious pace of integrating technology, the limited access to iPads, evidence of the lack of emphasis in lesson planning, need for more and continuous professional development, a trial and error approach to app selection, educators reliance on others for app selection, and uninformed app selection.

The purpose of this dissertation study is to describe, explain, and analyze teachers’, supervisors’, and educational administrators’ perspectives, or self-reported opinions, regarding their current practices and policies of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Saudi Arabia (SA), and the challenges and the benefits of adopting the Reggio Emilia approach (REA) into early childhood institutions in SA. ECE faces many challenges in SA, such as: the traditional role of the teachers, a standard curriculum that is planned in advance, lack of collaboration with families, centralized education management, and the image of the child as passive learner (Metwaly, 2007). With these in mind, I argued that implementing the REA in Saudi kindergartens in a way that suits the social, culture, and religious context may help overcome some of the challenges that are confronting ECE in SA today.

Three theoretical frameworks guided this study: social constructivist theory, the community of collaboration perspective, and the theoretical foundation of ECE in SA. The social constructivist theory and community of collaboration perspective offered a comprehensive understanding of the RE philosophy and its core principles by explaining how children learn and the critical importance of community collaboration. In addition, examining the theoretical foundations of ECE in SA guided my understanding of current Saudi ECE practices and policies.

This study used in-depth interviews to explore and analyze ECE teachers’, supervisors’, and educational provincial administrators’ perspectives in Riyadh about the potential benefits and challenges of implementing the REA into the Saudi ECE context. Audiotapes and transcriptions from individual interviews with participants were used as data sources, along with documents and analytic memos. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative analysis approach; this can provide opportunities to explore the participants’ opinions about the likelihood of implementing the REA, what it would take to adopt it if possible, and how it could be modified to fit the social, cultural, and religious context in SA.

This study examines the professional identities of early educators with master's degrees in the United States. While other democratic nations have begun to move toward fully funded early care and education that offers qualified teachers a living wage, early education in the U.S. continues to be vastly underfunded and inconsistently regulated. Through semi-structured interviews with five teachers I identified specific ways in which highly qualified early educators have constructed professional identities within a marginalized profession. Results indicate that the attainment of a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education [ECE] positively influences teachers' abilities to take a leadership role, reflect critically on the field, and participate within the broader public sphere to enact change. Implications of this study highlight the pivotal role that early educators with master's degrees play in shaping the future of ECE in the U.S.

Keywords: Early Care and Education, professional identity, professional status, reflection, leadership