Susanne Garvis

Beginning generalist teacher self­efficacy for music compared with maths and English

In 2008, 201 beginning generalist teachers throughout Queensland, Australia, responded to a questionnaire intended to create a snapshot of current self-efficacy beliefs towards teaching music. Beginning teachers were asked to rank their perceived level of teacher self-efficacy for music, English and maths. Results were analysed through a series of repeated measures ANOVAs to compare the mean scores for statistical difference. Findings suggest that generalist beginning teacher self-efficacy for music declines as years of teaching experience increase, while teacher self-efficacy for English and maths increases during this period. Results provide key insights for teacher educators, school administrators and policy makers into the likelihood of long-term music teaching in the generalist classroom. Greater support is required to reverse the documented snapshot of low teacher self-efficacy for music education in Queensland generalist teacher classrooms.

Teaching resilience: a narrative inquiry into the importance of teacher resilience

This study set out to explore how high school teachers perceive their resilience as they teach a scripted social and emotional learning program to students with the goal of promoting the resilience skills of the students in their pastoral care classes. In this emerging field of research on teacher resilience, there is a paucity of research regarding the resilience of high school teachers in regard to the roles they must fulfill outside of their main function as a subject specialist teacher. In particular, a key role of pastoral care teacher is often layered on to teacher work and there is little professional support provided. This qualitative study took place over eighteen months in an independent faith-based Preparatory to Year 12 School in Queensland, Australia. It employed a narrative inquiry case study that engaged with teachers, managers, and parents. The data collection consisted of a series of three in-depth interviews for each of the seven participant teachers, field notes, and a researcher journal. The data are analyzed by reflecting the themes that occur in the teachers’ stories. The findings reveal that these high school teachers had some tacit knowledge of their resilience, that is, they identified common factors from the literature that constitute resilience in their personal life; however, they did not explicitly apply this knowledge to their professional practices.

Curriculum to the Classroom: Investigating the Spatial Practices of Curriculum Implementation in Queensland Schools and its Implications for Teacher Education

Change is something that both pre-service and practising teachers face regularly throughout their professional lives. Curriculum change and consequential implementation is a case in point. This paper investigates the perspectives of a number of school-based stakeholders in regard to the implementation of the C2C materials in Queensland schools and how this has potential consequences for teacher education programs. It shows that often contradictory spaces emerge in regard to curriculum enactment and argues that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is not the most effective way to implement new curriculum. A transformative third space is offered whereby teachers are accorded with a voice in the way in which implementation occurs; ultimately allowing pre-service teachers to learn important skills required to be effective teachers.

Enhancing the Australian early childhood teacher education curriculum about very young children

Research has shown that the care and education of infants and toddlers is an under-represented area in early childhood teacher education. This is also the case in Australia, meaning that pre-service teachers have few opportunities for learning about infants and toddlers and thus tend to have limited theoretical and practical knowledge about infancy and early development. The project reported in this paper targeted this need by providing an online learning resource called U3Vid (u3vid.com.au) for early childhood teacher educators and pre-service teachers to gain knowledge and experience for the education and care of very young children. Overall, the U3Vid website has proved to be an effective online resource for Australian early childhood teacher education for understanding the pedagogy and curriculum associated with children aged birth to three years. This paper reports on findings from the project on pre-service teacher perspectives of engaging with online learning focusing on very young children. Findings from the online survey provide important insights into the suitability of online learning in early childhood teacher education as a way of engaging with reflective practice to combat the gaps in early childhood teacher education regarding infants and toddlers.

Collaboration is key: The actual experience of disciplines working together in child care

Promoting young childrens academic and developmental outcomes can no longer be achieved by the single efforts of one profession, but requires professionals to work together in inter-professional teams to understand the complexity of young childrens lives. Collaboration in early childhood programs involves health professionals, educators, and other professionals sharing information, validating each others roles, and providing input around which strategies promote positive outcomes for all children. There are, however, limited studies available within early childhood education on inter-disciplinary relationships between nurses and teachers. This paper helps to fill this void by exploring the relationship of an early childhood teacher and maternal and child health nurse working alongside one another in an Australian kindergarten. Through a narrative approach, a number of characteristics of the relationship were identified as key elements to a productive relationship. Findings are important for health professionals working with early childhood educators. By understanding the complexity within and between disciplines, professionals can work effectively to support young children and their families.Promoting young childrens academic and developmental outcomes can no longer be achieved by the single efforts of one profession, but requires professionals to work together in inter-professional teams to understand the complexity of young childrens lives. Collaboration in early childhood programs involves health professionals, educators, and other professionals sharing information, validating each others roles, and providing input around which strategies promote positive outcomes for all children. There are, however, limited studies available within early childhood education on inter-disciplinary relationships between nurses and teachers. This paper helps to fill this void by exploring the relationship of an early childhood teacher and maternal and child health nurse working alongside one another in an Australian kindergarten. Through a narrative approach, a number of characteristics of the relationship were identified as key elements to a productive relationship. Findings are important for health professionals working with early childhood educators. By understanding the complexity within and between disciplines, professionals can work effectively to support young children and their families.

Flights of two female academics’ entry into the profession

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate what can be learnt about early career researchers through a narrative self-reflection of two academics’ moving towards the end of the early career into middle career stage. Design/methodology/approach – The two academics’ share their experiences as self- study reflective inquiries, specifically as a want and need for “more” through this respective involvement in critically thinking about and planning their career trajectory. Using Schwabs (1969) flights from the field as an interpretative tool, this event is the trigger used to story and re-story the personal experience of the academics through a reflective inquiry approach. Findings – Looking across the reflective self-studies, the final analysis reveals similarities, differences and tensions of the lived experiences of early career researchers’. Originality/value – Through listening to the voices of early career academics insights are gained that highlight the need for active agency in the academy wh...

Young Children and Early Childhood Arts Education: What Can We Learn from Current Research?

This chapter showcases a number of innovative early childhood arts education projects that have recently occurred inside and outside of the early childhood classroom. Early childhood is defined as children aged birth to five years. Starting with an overview of recent conceptions on the construction of the child, the chapter will then showcase three areas of emerging interest: (1) creativity; (2) digital technology; and (3) arts-making in home environments. The chapter concludes with a reflection of the potential of current early childhood arts education research for transforming the early childhood curriculum and enhancing relationships between the home and early childhood settings. The reflection provides key considerations for parents, teachers and the wider community.

Perceptions of Pre-Service Teachers Value of Art Museums and Galleries

Art museums and galleries provide many educational opportunities for generalist classroom teachers to engage in learning experiences with students. Beliefs about engagement with art museums and galleries can begin in teacher education programs. This paper explores the beliefs of pre-service teachers in a Bachelor of Education (primary) program in the state of Victoria, Australia, about engagement with art museums and galleries at the start of semester and at the end of semester after a visit to a gallery. Using a survey, open-ended questions, and course evaluations about the teacher education program, data was collected to show the changes in perceptions regarding beliefs towards engagement with art museums and galleries as a primary teacher. Findings highlight the importance of engaging with art museums and galleries during teacher education to allow pre-service teachers to experience and understand the importance within their teaching and educational contexts.

Digital Narratives and Young Children

The chapter examines children’s digital narrative meaning making as a co-constructional process. According to a sociocultural perspective (Vygotsky LS, Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978), communication is seen as the mechanism of learning, and taking such an approach necessitates an analytical approach that is responsive to unfolding interaction and communication when researching children. The chapter begins with an outline of narratives perspective on children’s digital narratives before examining a case study from an Australian kindergarten where iPads were introduced to create a digital narrative. The research found that digital narrative allowed a process of collaborative meaning making. The digital narrative created opportunities to communicate experience, organise plotlines temporarily and spatially as well as provide opportunities for episodic meaning. In particular, bodily forms of communication were represented.

Cultural considerations of ECERS-3 in Sweden: a reflection on adaption

ABSTRACT Quality in early childhood education is an important topic in many countries. Research suggests that high-quality preschool provides many long-term benefits for young children and society. How to measure early childhood quality however can be problematic. One approach has been the use of the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS), an observational scale of the learning environment created in the United States of America. The scale has been used in over 30 countries and translated into different languages. This article discusses cultural issues in relation to the use of ECERS-3 in Swedish preschools. While many of the indicators are easily transferable, some need cultural consideration. These include understanding the Swedish child perspective as expressed in the preschool curriculum, Swedish preschool design and Swedish pedagogy around interaction and safety issues. The article suggests that an adaptation of the scale is needed to be implemented effectively in the Swedish preschool context.