Jill Englebright Fox

Retaining Quality Teachers

This study investigated teacher attrition and retention in seven Virginia school divisions representing urban, suburban, and rural localities. Focus group interviews of teachers who stay in their school divisions and telephone interviews of teachers who migrated to another school division or who left the teaching profession revealed a hierarchy of organizational influences on teacher attrition and retention. A menu of state, district and building level recommendations are offered for retaining quality teachers.

Young children's development of swinging behaviors

This investigation examines the development of young childrens psychomotor behaviors on swings in the outdoor play environment. The Guttman scale outlined in this study describes the development of swinging behaviors in hierarchical stages. Early swinging behaviors focus on maintaining balance and achieving movement. Children consolidate basic movements into proficient swinging skills and then extend into experimentation with the physical properties of the swing and with the social context. Modeling, informal instruction, and practice contribute to the successive stages of swinging behaviors. The Guttman scale provides a tool for teachers and researchers to observe childrens development in a natural play environment.

Swinging: What young children begin to learn about physics during outdoor play

The outdoor play environment provides an appropriate laboratory for young children’s early explorations of physics principles. Swings, as life-sized pendulums, provide three-, four-, five-, and six-year-old children opportunities to experiment with balance, force, gravity, resistance, and resonance. Findings of this study indicate that through play on swings young children accommodate and assimilate the physics principles associated with pendulums. Implications for early childhood and elementary classrooms are discussed.

Mary Munford Model School and Virginia Commonwealth University: Unexpected Benefits in a Working..

Located in urban Richmond, Mary Munford Model School (MMMS) serves a diverse population of almost 500 children prekindergarten through Grade 5. The Professional Development School (PDS) relationship between MMMS and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is almost 5 years old. Focusing on the goals of the Holmes Partnership, PDS-related activities at MMMS have included the on-site preparation of preservice teachers, professional development for inservice teachers, and classroom-based action research. At its conception, those of us most closely involved in this partnership anticipated that it would be beneficial to everyone involved. We were unsure, however, of what shape or form

Implementing Intel's® teach to the future curriculum in early childhood teacher education: Lessons learned at the university and in the field

A little over a year ago, I was part of a team of teacher education faculty from Virginia Commonwealth University who co-wrote and submitted a grant proposal. Intel® had issued a request for proposals from universities interested in implementing its Teach to the Future curriculum in pre-service teacher training programs. Teach to the Future is an initiative to train pre-service teachers on using computers to effectively promote inquiry-based learning (Candau et al., 2001). If our proposal were funded, the grant would provide technology training for us as faculty and enable us to look at ways that computer technology might be integrated into existing courses in our programs. I participated on this grant-writing team with some excitement. My own knowledge of appropriately using technology in early childhood classrooms was limited. I needed the training. And most importantly, I needed the time and the opportunity to sit down and think about meaningful ways to integrate technology into the courses I regularly teach in the Master of Teaching in Early and Elementary Education program at VCU. The team was enthusiastic when our proposal was funded, anticipating that this would be a tremendous learning experience, not only for our students, but for us as well. This paper describes the implementation of the Teach to the Future curriculum and just a few of the things that I learned along the way.

Teaching teachers to teach teachers

The Professional Development School relationship between the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Education and Mary Munford Model School (MMMS) was established in 1994. As a member of the Holmes Partnership, activities in this relationship had three goals: (1) the development of preservice teachers; (2) the on-going development of in-service teachers; and (3) action research to enhance teaching and learning. The goal of this paper is to describe partnership activities related to the first goal, the development of preservice teachers. Mary Munford Model School is located in the heart of Richmond, Virginia and serves a diverse population of approximately 550 children, prekindergarten through grade five. Each semester, between 10 and 15 VCU students from the Master of Teaching in Early and Elementary Education program are placed at MMMS to complete a 40-hour practicum. Between one and three interns from the same program are also assigned there for their semester-long final field experience. Although a VCU faculty liaison spends one day each week at the school working with teachers and elementary students, the MMMS faculty largely carries the responsibility for planning and supervising the teacher preparation field experiences (Fox & Branch, 1999). Because of the well-established relationship between VCU and the school, faculty and administration at both facilities have been able to identify several strengths in the field experiences that