Perspectives on Diversity and Equity

Hello Group 3

Hoping this course can give me an opportunity to reflect in my own indentity, and develop an understanding on how to work with diverse families.

Research Around the World

Australian Early Childhood Website

I found a very interesting information in the Australian Early Childhood Website.  They have a series books about Everyday Learning Series to provide wonderful suggesstons about how to create positive environments for young children.  The books draw upon endless possibilities offered by everyday experiences.  What it called my attetion is that address not only parents, but also included grandparents and cares providing endless ideas on how to make the ordinary, extraordinatry, and by assisting them maximising yourng children's play, exploration and discovery, and discovery and development with familiar environments.

 

A media report that I also found interesting related to the wages (attached)

March – Media Release – Wages investment supports quality early learning

MEDIA ALERT
Tuesday 19 March 2013

Today’s announcement of a $300 million investment to fund wage increases for early childhood education and care workers in approved Child Care Benefit services, will help attract and keep qualified educators in the sector according to the peak children’s body Early Childhood Australia.
ECA CEO Samantha Page said the announcement was a step in the right direction towards providing strong and practical support to address inadequate wage rates in the sector.
“An essential part of providing a positive early learning experience for children is having qualified educators who can lead a play based curriculum that supports children in their learning and improving educational outcomes.
“But without sufficient wage increases it is difficult for services to attract qualified educators.”
Ms Page said improving the qualifications of educators in early childhood education and care services was a crucial aspect of the early years quality framework introduced just over a year ago.
“We commend the Federal Government’s commitment to National Quality Reforms and welcome this response to the sector’s concerns about workforce issues.
“The benefits to children of good quality education and care in their early years cannot be overstated: they are immediate and lifelong.
“There is broad consensus within the sector on the importance of the reforms but there is a cost involved and this needs to be addresses through government funding - nobody wants to pass that
cost on to families.
“Today’s announcement will provide support for some services to deliver the early learning experiences that children deserve.
“More work will need to be done to address wages and conditions for others within in the sector not covered by this initiative including out of school hours care, preschools and other services.
Ms Page said the sector needed a commitment from the government to long-term investment in wage increases which are available to all services providing early and middle childhood education and care across Australia.
“We would support a gender equity case to Fair Work Australia to secure better wage rates for everyone working with young children - our most important asset.
“The funding announced today is a good first step but it is not sustainable. Locking in sufficient wages for workers into the future will require further investment.”

Research that Benefits Children and Families

Blog Assignment: Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

I found the research Coaching as a Key Component in Teachers Professional Development – Improving Classroom Practices in Head Start settings a confirmation to what I have previously witnessed in my work setting.  Two years ago, we have a grant to open few preschool classrooms in a near rural area.  This time the agency decided to hire coaches to supervise the education piece in these classrooms, instead of Early Childhood Specialist that we have in the other programs.  I could not understand then what the difference was, but the Director of Education from our agency, and the Outcome specialist did a research to implement what will be the best practice, taking in consideration the short period of time the grant will be awarded.  The research about coaching as being a key component for teacher’s professional development, has the answer for some of the questions I have had before with our agency decision to hire coaches for the new program in our agency.  The coaches focus in the classroom only, supporting teachers, and providing feedback to staff on how to implement curricula and how to improve strategies in working with children.  Our agency keeps record of children outcomes, and even when we did not participate in a research study, we observed how having coaches in these preschool classrooms helped keep the educational focus to one of quality, benefiting the children enrolled. 

The research study concluded the following “Coaching as a form of professional development offers the opportunity to greatly influence the quality of experiences that both teachers and children in early childhood education settings receive.  Implementation of a strong coaching component, however, is a complicated endeavor that should be undertaken with strategic planning and advisement.  Program administrators should carefully think through and resolve multiple factors, including the kind of coaching model they will employ, the type of skills needed by coaches to support the model, the people they will hire, and the best way to support the implementation and sustainability of the model.

The lessons presented here constitute a first step toward articulating a core set of broad principles regarding coaching implementation. As the research base grows and data from this demonstration continue to be analyzed, forthcoming reports will shed even more light on emerging promising practices in this burgeoning field.”

If I have the opportunity to be in charge to hire staffs to oversee education in preschool program, I would hire coaches to focus in observing classrooms and provide feedback to teachers to increase their professional development, which at the end will bring children’s outcome to a maximum.

Resource:

Chrishana M. Lloyd and Emily LL. Modlin (20012). Coaching as a Keyy Compoonent in Tea chers’

Profeessional Devvelopment: Immproving Classroom Praactices in Heead Start Settings. OPRE

Reportt 2012-4, Waashington, DDC: Office off Planning, RResearch annd Evaluaation,

Administration for Children andd Families, UU.S. Departmment of Heaalth and Humman

Services.   Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/coaching_key.pdf

My Research Journey

My Personal Research Journey  

The topic I have chosen for my research simulation is about “How low-income families are helping their children getting ready for school?” My interest in this topic is because I have seen families in our Head Start program struggling in helping their children with the necessary skills to succeed at school.  I strongly believe that parents can make a difference in their child’s life, even with limited resources. 

So far, this course has helped me to identify quality sites, where I can find accurate, reliable information to support my research topic.  I still struggle in getting websites, providing full-text document of research papers, journals, etc.  

Please share with me any resources that I can trust to get full-text research papers at no cost.  What database search engine would you recommend?  I found in occasion the Walden Library is down, unable to access the database ERIC (often use).  I would love to know other options to access high quality research journals or papers.

EDUC 6163 Building Research Competence

  Hello Everyone!

I'm hoping to have a better experience this time!