Research Around the World

While reading the Blog assignment for week 5, I have learned several things from the Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) website. To further develop African ECD leadership capacity as a key strategy in support of child, family and community well-being and broader social and economic development is the ideal goal of the Early Childhood Virtual University.

As I looked further into the research conducted by the students in Sub-Saharan Africa, I noticed that the majority of their current international research topics talked about how they could improve the development of young children in Africa. For instance, they wanted to increase children’s safety, development, father interaction, staff training, and program quality.

The surprising insight that I learned by exploring this international early childhood website was the fact that they are struggling with the same issues as America. No matter where you are in this world if it involves young children than you will nine times out ten deal with the same issues as other countries. Also, I learned that they use the Inclusive Quality Act Tool to measure the quality of early childhood services just like we do in American. I did not know that tool was being used all over the world.

Reference

Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Developed and maintained by the University of Victoria, Canada, this virtual university is the international gateway for early childhood research worldwide. Through the link below, you can access ECDVU’s Sub-Saharan Africa portal. The second link takes you to a list of current early childhood research conducted by students in Sub-Saharan Africa.
http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php
http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

While reading articles about positive research, I came across this website http://childrenshospitalblog.org/stem-cell-research-a-fathers-story/ which talked about how stem cell research helped save a child’s life.

Andres Trevino is the father of Andy Trevino and he has a very personal take on the NIH’s recent stem cell guidelines. Here, he talks about his son Andy’s rare genetic condition, the daughter whose stem cells saved Andy’s life and the potential stem cells hold for curing other diseases (Children’s Hospital Boston, 2009).

Please take a look at this website, so you can see a positive example of research. Although, I am still undecided about research and its methods, I can say that this article has helped broaden my thoughts. I was happy to read about how the stem cell research was able to help save Andy’s life.

You can read the article at this website:
http://childrenshospitalblog.org/stem-cell-research-a-fathers-story/

Reference

Children’s Hospital Boston. (2009, July 7). Stem Cell Research: A Father's Story. [Blog message]. Retrieved March 16, 2012, from http://childrenshospitalblog.org/stem-cell-research-a-fathers-story/

My Personal Research Journey

I have chosen to do research on how to run a private Christian preschool. So far, I have been reading resources to inform on how to determine the difference between high-quality research and self-publish research. I can now tell the difference between the two. Those resources have become vital to my understanding of high-quality research. Another form of a method that has helped me in my growth to become a more confident user of research is the research chart. The research chart helps me to determine whether the articles or journals are published work of professionals. There are certain things that high-quality research article or journal should have, and this chart gives me things to look for, so I can determine if the article or journal is of high-quality. Although, I am starting to learn how to do my own research, and determine the difference between good and fake research, I am still a little scared.

So, if there is anything you guys could suggest that could help me with this process or this course? I would be glad to hear your feedback. This class is new to me, and if you have already done something like this in your previous course feel free to share your insight.

Here are some resources I found to help you understand research articles and journals:

Evaluating web pages. (2007). Duke University Library. Retrieved March 10, 2012, from http://library.duke.edu/services/instruction/libraryguide/evalwebpages.html

Locating and Evaluating Scholarly Articles. (2011). University of Maryland University College Library. Retrieved March 10, 2012, from http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/articles.cfm

Finald Blog Assignment

While getting to know my international contacts, I have learned several things about them and their country. For instance, what they do professionally, the issues and trends that their country suffers with when it comes to their educational system and the projects they are developing to reduce poverty in their country.

Getting to know someone can be fairly easy, but getting to know someone from another country can be a challenge. Once I established contact with my international professionals, I was very intrigued by their passion towards helping children. They helped show me that there are children all across this world that lacks the educational growth they deserve. They gave me websites to help strengthen my growth in learning about their poverty issues. They also helped me to see that having international contacts are not a bad thing. They have become a great asset to my professional growth.

Hopefully, we will keep in contact with one another after this course is over. I can use some international resources to help strengthen my growth. They seem to be very respectful, positive, and supportive when it comes to them helping me with my blog assignments. Those are the type of people I like have in my circle.

I would like to thank my international contacts as well as, my colleagues that I have gotten to know while taking this course. I have enjoyed getting to know you all. I wish you all the best in the future on all your endeavors. Good Luck!!!!!!

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

I haven’t heard back from either of my contacts yet, so I decided to tell you about some things that are going on in my life, and my hopes and dreams in life. Once I hear back from them, I will post their answers.

Quality is one of the main issues that we discuss in my work place. My principal wants to make our school one of the top preschools in Memphis. For instance, we are now working on our NAEYC book, so we can be NAEYC accredited. Becoming NAEYC accredited will help get our name out there and show people in our community that we are here for children and their families. I work in a community where we serve low-income families, and we are trying to provide the families and their children with most highly qualified preschool they deserve. As, for as professional growth, we have the opportunity to go back to school by using a system called TECTA. TECTA is a program here in Memphis Tennessee that will allow teachers to take up at least to classes per semester for free. All you have to do is take one of their 30 hr seminar, and they will start paying for your classes once you receive your certificate. Although, I have the certificate, it doesn’t help me because I can only use it for a school that is located and establish right here in Memphis Tennessee. Walden University is not located in Memphis, so I can’t use their money to pay for school.

Once I finish grad school, I plan on owning my one school right here in Memphis Tennessee, finishing up my teaching certification, and probably going back to school to get my Ed. D. I hope that one day I will complete all of my goals before I am 35. I am 28 now, so I have time. One of my challenges that might get in the way is starting a family. I don’t have any children right now, but I do want one. So, starting a family will be a challenge for me but I know I can do it because God said all I have to do is ask, and I shall receive.

Sharing Web Resources

While following other links that I haven’t explored yet, I found out some interesting things about the Step by Step Program Foundation. For instance, they are involved in a "Promoting Access to Quality Education and Desegregation of Roma" Project, which is similar to the discussion we are talking about this week in my class. Here, is some information about the project and its goals.

In 2001 the Education Program Area carried out “The Roma Schools in Bulgaria” research. Its findings showed and confirmed the data of some previous research on the nationwide phenomenon of Roma dropouts as a result of interrelated economic, social and educational reasons. This research points to the educational stages, which are critical for Roma children according to the dropout rate.

Based on the above mentioned the current situation and needs, and considering the results of all projects and the expertise in this area, the Open Society Foundation – Sofia developed an integrated project, whose aim is to promote the provision of equal opportunities to children and youth of Roma origin in the entire education process and to increase their access to high quality education (from nursery to secondary education).

The project objectives focus on retaining the children at school and providing quality education and adequate preparation for social realization through:

• Improving the desegregation policy at a municipal level in connection with the integration of Roma children in mixed schools;
• Supporting the process of integration through attracting, including and successfully retaining Roma children at school hence increasing the opportunity for their passing to higher educational levels;
• Involving dropouts and children not covered by the educational system through strategies like community based programs and improving the receiving schools, where the children will be integrated;
• Supporting Roma children to continue their education through increasing the number of Roma children enrolled in mixed schools and improving their school performance.

This project proposal aims to implement these objectives through a new, integrated approach applied to the educational chain as a whole and involving all participants in the education process. This approach involves comprehensive partnership activities designed to improve the quality of education through teacher training, community development, school improvement and effective use of resources. These activities and trainings within programs as Education for Social Justice, Step by Step, Reading and Writing Critical Thinking, Health and Woman Programs under the School Improvement Initiative umbrella create opportunities for equal access to quality education for Roma children. In that sense, this is a pilot project not only for OSF – Sofia but also for the country.

Also, in the context of the Framework Program (FP), the project seeks to enhance schooling of children at educational institutions and encourage them to pass to higher levels of education. This is achieved through helping them leave “Roma” preschools and schools and enroll in mixed institutions. Again in the context of the FP that foresees measures against racism in the classroom, the project envisages teacher and parent training for overcoming biases.

This website contributed to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education. For instance, it showed me that no matter where you live in this world, everybody goes through the same thing one way or the other. Also, there are people out there who do care and wants to help individual succeed no matter their cultural differences.

Reference

Step By Step Program. (2001). Step By Step Program – Bulgaria. "Promoting Access to Quality Education and Desegregation of Roma" Project. Retrieved February 10, 2012, from http://www.stepbystep-bg.org/display.php?page=project3

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

According to my international contact Emil, the European countries have been largely successful in maintaining public pre-primary education for 3-6s, with high enrolment rates. Yet, the quality and outreach of these services could, in many instances, be greatly improved. Nations vary in the extent to which they view the quality of national early education services as a critical responsibility to be supported by adequate funding, research, quality initiatives and the continued training of educators. In purely economic/educational terms, the return on investments in young children is potentially great. Such returns are foregone when societies do not provide comprehensive supports to families with young children and, in particular, fail to ensure a good start in life for excluded children.

The additional information about issues of equity and excellence that I acquired from my international sources was teacher-guided and collaborative playful learning interactions with relevant content (e.g. emergent academic language, literacy, numeracy, science, citizenship) is particularly promising in this regard, avoiding two often observed but much less adequate approaches in early childhood care and education: the ‘drill and kill’ approach, when the contents and learning formats of primary school are simply copied, and the ‘laisser faire’ approach, when the curriculum predominantly consists of free activities without teacher guidance.

Reference

Emil (personal communication, February 1, 2012) noted her personal experience with Issues related to excellence and equity in the early childhood field.