When I Think of Research....

This course has taught me a lot about early childhood research. The process of research includes :

-selecting a topic

-search and review the literature

-formulate a specific research issue/question

-design the research

-collect data/information

-process/analyse data

-draw conclusions

-write research reports.

It was new to me that research had steps to follow to make the design complete. I also learned that there are different types of research designs and you must chose and follow the design that fits your research question.

With planning, designing, and conducting research it is important for you to chose a research question that is measurable. You have to do a lot of planning before you start conducting the research. Your design plan must match the type of research. I learned that you must get permission of the participants.

One challenge that I encountered was with my research question. I had to change several times so that it was able to be measurable. My perceptions of early childhood has grown from this course. Research in early childhood is important and it affects the way early childhood is viewed today.

Research Around the World

The website that I researched is Early Childhood Australia. The international research topics range in topics. Some of the research topics that stood out to me were: Young Children as active learners, Young Gifted Children: Meeting their Needs, Engaging Families: Building Strong Communication, and The Early Years Learning Framework: Building Confident Learners.

From the website, I learned that Australia has some of the same concerns that the United States have about young children. We both want the rights of children to be heard, leadership, respect, collaboration, diversity, justice, and social inclusion of children.

I learned that the Early Childhood Australia’s Quality Assurance has six principles for evaluation. The six principles are relevance, authority, content, general design, navigation, and server performance and technical issues.

Research that Benefits the Children and their Families

The topic that I would chose to make a major contribution to children and their families is making Pre-K full day versus half day. Children will learn a lot more coming to school 8 hours versus 3 hours. The students will be more successful in Kindergarten. I know that Pre-K is their first experience in school but they can handle coming to school all day and learning a lot more. Students will have more time to socialize with children their age. They can focus on Science, Math, and ELA each day instead of working only one two each day.

With Pre-K being all day it will save parents a lot of money because they will not have a daycare bill. Children will get a hot meal twice a day at school plus a snack before they go home. Pre-K all day is going to benefit everybody.

Your Personal Research Journey

The first topic I chose was poverty in the early childhood setting but after I did some searching I decided to change my topic to technology in the early childhood classroom. I chose the topic because technology is the way of the world and everything today deals with technology in some way or another. I want to find out how technology plays a role in the classroom, does it affect students social interaction, and is it developmentally appropriate for technology to be in an early childhood setting.
The research chart has open my eyes up to another way of seeing the research process. The key terms really was an eye opening experience.  This journey is going to be a great one with this course breaking each step down during each week.  The process seems to be more manageable. 

Final Blog Assignment

This class experience has been a great one and I enjoyed every minute of it. I have gain a lot of information that is going to help me in my future endeavors. The first insight I gained was on poverty. I did not realize how poverty can affect the whole child. It was overwhelming when I read the stories about people that was in poverty. Poverty can come to anybody at anytime. The second insight I gained is knowing that every child does not get a good early childhood experience before they come to school. I thought this was just a local issue but I found out it is a world issue. Children get early childhood education depending on how much money their families have in their possession. The third insight is that diversity is being look at as a good thing in the education world. It is wonderful to know that education is respecting everybody no matter what they look like or where they come from.

My goal is get in contact with somebody from National Center for Children in Poverty to find our ways that I can help in my community. I want families to get out of the state of poverty to help their children to develop in every stage. I want the cycle of poverty to be broken so that children will have the opportunities to live out their dreams.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts Part 3

UNESCO mission is to support early childhood policy development with the aim to build a solid foundation for children as lifelong learners. They use two strategies to address early childhood. One is phasing and the other one is partnership. A phased plan is when they respond to the needs of young children with an overall commitment. Partnership deals with the care and education of the young child and well as the older child when it is closely linked with the family.
UNESCO plays a lead role in promoting literacy. UNSECO’s advocacy strategy is based on partnerships with governments, NGOs, international agencies, and many other partners. Literacy programmes need various key components:
1. Appropriate pedagogical approaches
2. Training of literacy personnel
3. Beyond basic literacy
4. A literate enivornment
UNSECO’s main goal in this area is to improve literacy policies and practices through qualitative and quantitative research.
　

Sharing Web Resources

The National Black Child Development website can take you to a lot of other sites that gives a lot of information. The one that stood out to me was the Foundation for Child Development. The FCD focuses on the disadvantage child and their well being. They have three programs that they promote. They support PreK-3rd Education, Child Well-Being Index, and New American Children. The one that caught my attention was PreK-3rd Education. This program focuses on children up to age eight. Children that fall behind have a slim chance of catching up.

The website gave information about books written by African Americans and they have the books separated by their age group. They also give some information about each book and a picture of the book.