Jane Page

Masterly preparation: embedding clinical practice in a graduate pre-service teacher education programme

This paper describes the implementation of the Master of Teaching degree which was introduced at the University of Melbourne in 2008. The programme aims to produce a new generation of teachers (early years, primary and secondary) who are interventionist practitioners, with high-level analytic skills and capable of using data and evidence to identify and address the learning needs of individual learners. The programme marks a fundamental change to the way in which teachers have traditionally been prepared in the University of Melbourne and builds a strong link between theory and practice. This linking occurs within a new partnership model with selected schools. The model was influenced by the Teachers for a New Era programme in the USA and by the clinical background of senior faculty. The programme sees teaching as a clinical-practice profession such as is found in many allied health professions; this understanding is also embraced by the university’s partnership schools. These schools are used as clinical sites, actively involving their best teachers in the clinical training component. These teachers are recognised as members of the university and are highly skilled professionals who are capable of interventionist teaching and who use appropriate assessment tools to inform their teaching of individual children.

The four and five year old's understanding of the future: A preliminary study

Abstract A significant imbalance exists in the lack of research on young childrens understandings of the future. Recent studies highlight the difficulties experienced by young people in coming to terms with the future, which is generally viewed with trepidation and ambivalence by children as young as ten years of age. While there is a growing body of research in this area, there has been very little undertaken on how younger children think about these issues. To focus our attention on younger childrens understandings and attitudes in this area would improve our understanding on the development of young childrens thinking on time and the future and assist us to implement strategies to counteract the negativity and pessimism experienced at later years.

Learning and Teaching in the Early Years

Learning is vital to each childs sense of well-being and development, and yet, talking about learning in any context - at home, among professional colleagues or peers, with children, in early years centres, or through formal studies - reveals a wide range of understandings of the term and its meaning, and the relevance and significance of learning in the first phase of life. Learning is the bedrock of education and, in the early childhood years from birth to age eight, is both a personal and social enterprise that occurs within all the formal and informal contexts inhabited by the child. In this chapter, we argue that learning about learning is essential prerequisite knowledge for any adult intending to engage productively with infants, toddlers and young children, where they are at home or in early years centres and classrooms.

Getting Early Childhood onto the Reform Agenda: An Australian Case Study

Many Governments around the world turned their attention to early childhood policy and service provision throughout the early 2000s, and the Victorian State Government within Australia was no different. Over the past six years, the Victorian Government has reformed the early childhood education and care system substantially. The factors leading to this emphasis on early childhood reform were not straight-forward. This article adapts Richmond’s and Kotelchuck’s (1983) model for examining the interacting forces shaping public policy to make sense of how early childhood so successfully found itself at the centre of the Victorian Government’s reform agenda. It concludes that far from being random, it was a combination of political will, a rich, expanding and interdisciplinary knowledge base and a well-developed social strategy for the application of the knowledge base that led to early childhood being at the centre of the reform agenda. It concludes that much of the evidence by which the reform agenda was informed came from studies conducte d internationally and that more Australian research is needed to investigate early childhood program effectiveness in our own local context if the momentum is to continue.

Symbolizing the future—towards a futures' iconography

Abstract This essay brings the art historical methodology of iconography to bear upon symbolic representations of futures issues. The discipline of iconography was developed as a way of analysing symbolism as it evolved from antiquity to the Baroque in order to identify and interpret the meaning of symbols within their wider cultural context. Symbols constitute significant indicators of the aspirations, belief systems and neuroses of the cultures which generate them. As such, they constitute fundamental tools in any analysis of past and contemporary attitudes towards science, technology and the future. With this in mind the essay considers symbolic images of the three fundamental aspects of futures studies—the interconnectedness of past, present and future, the plurality of options for the future, and the importance of the human input into technology and the creation of the future.

Teachers as Brokers

This paper explores a small sample of Australian early childhood teachers’ perceptions of the rights-based concepts participation and agency . We recognise and reconcile some of the perceived tensions between the debates on participation and protection and how these play out in the teaching and learning spaces of early childhood education. Teachers’ reflections on these concepts in relation to practice are highly significant to the field, connecting the concepts of children’s rights to the reality of everyday practices in early childhood education and care settings. As brokers or conduits to participation in early learning environments, a better understanding of teacher’s professional stance enables opportunities for young children to be better heard. An understanding of complexities and relatedness within these settings, can lead to more consistent and clear policy implementation.

Critical features of effective coaching for early childhood educators: a review of empirical research literature

Abstract There is a growing body of evidence that coaching early childhood educators leads to improved instruction, and influences children’s learning outcomes. Despite this, consensus is lacking about how coaching as a form of professional development is defined, what it should involve, and how much should be offered. This paper outlines the findings of a review of English-language empirical research literature on successful coaching interventions in early childhood education. It identifies critical features of successful coaching, as well as areas warranting further exploration and implications for practice. The comprehensive review, drawing from methods of systematic review and rapid appraisal, confirmed that observation, feedback, goal-setting and reflection are common elements of successful coaching programmes. Analysis of the structures and processes of successful coaching interventions identified that in order to bring about practice change, the amount and content of coaching should be aligned with educators’ characteristics, skills and contexts. It further confirmed that effective coaching should allow educators opportunities to apply new skills, and support them to reflect on their practice and set self-directed goals. Further research is needed to explore not just what works, but why and in what context.

Enabling the exercise of choice and control: How early childhood intervention professionals may support families and young children with a disability to exercise choice and control in the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme

THE NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE Scheme (NDIS) is progressively being implemented across Australia. The Scheme aims to more equitably and sustainably support families and young children with a disability to optimise independence and participation in all aspects of their lives, including early childhood education. A key platform of the NDIS is for people with a disability to have choice and control over decisions about service provision. It is imperative to review the research that investigates what the notion of choice and control over service provision means for families and children with a disability, and how early childhood intervention (ECI) professionals can effectively support this decision making. In this article we argue that to effectively support families and children to experience choice and control, ECI professionals must build and share specialist knowledge and expertise to support informed decision making, engage in positive relationship-building practices and develop a shared approach to accountability with families.

BEYOND QUALITY, ADVANCING SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUITY: INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATIONS OF WORKING FOR EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

In this chapter, we used a research-based case study titled “The Desirable Prince Meeting” to explore how interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives on the child can be used to prompt critical reflection on socially just equity praxis in early childhood education. We argue that using multiple theoretical perspectives to analyze teaching and learning can generate and drive critical reflection on equity praxis more effectively than using a single perspective that presents a single truth about teaching and learning moments.