A Growing Sense of Complexity?

At the beginning of the semester, students write about an experience from their childhoods and analyze it briefly. As the semester progresses they read articles, books, and web-based material related to the theme of their personal story, adding new perspectives to what they know from personal experience. They develop a simple multimedia project with PowerPoint in which they illustrate their story and link ideas from their research to their story. This research investigates the trajectories of their knowledge acquisition, querying what a multimedia presentation can display about how new information "meshes," as a student from a previous semester said in an interview, with students' thinking. more...

A Student Project: Dreaming of the Stars

One student wrote about her second grade science teacher. She researched professional ethics in ECE and introduced her project by saying, "When I started this project, I thought it would just be about a teacher of mine who fell asleep in class.... As I did all my research I realized that this is a very important issue. As a child I didn't realize that children were supposed to be respected the way adults were. I didn't know that there were advocates for the rights of children.... Just because you're the teacher doesn't mean that you can do anything that you want. There are limits to what you can and can't do. That's exactly the point of this project." more...

The Project Process

After the students write stories about their childhoods, they complete a steady stream of assignments in which they report on their readings, select and paraphrase choice quotes, and compare what they read to what they see and hear when they observe in classrooms and meet with families. A "Key Ideas" assignment teaches them to pull together supporting material on common themes from each of their readings and activities. In their final projects, students synthesize their readings, their experiences in and out of class, and their story. They transfer their story to PowerPoint slides and insert graphics and sound. They make slides that elaborate on elements of their story, based on their readings and citing sources, and they link these slides to the story. more...

Project Overview
This document gives students an overview of the project.

Interview or Observation
After they have researched written materials, students interview someone or observe in a classroom to gather more information about their topics.

Key Ideas Assignment
This assignment guides them as they sift through their notes to consolidate what they've gathered.

Storyboards
This assignment serves as a draft. To complete it, students have to have their PowerPoints prepared. The map I teach them to create then shows the links they will insert.

Final Project Guidelines
This is the checklist I used last semester. I have since developed a rubric that is explicit about gradations within five categories: clarity, quality of information, organization, use of sources, and mechanics (which includes good use of audio and visuals).

ECE 102 at BMCC

This is the first course for students who have chosen Early Childhood Education as their major. It offers a broad overview of the history of thought in Early Childhood Education, theories that have influenced Early Childhood practice, the nature of programs, curriculum, environments, and teacher roles. Besides classwork and work in the computer labs, students visit early childhood programs together. Since the course covers so many topics, each student investigates a single issue during the entire semester to have the experience of depth as well as breadth. 

Links

Catherine Snow Quote
Snow talks about the relationships between theory and practice in teacher education.

A Student Project: Letting Go....

One student wrote about her first day in kindergarten. Leaving her mother was hard, but her teacher helped her get involved with activities and other children, which eased her transition to school. Her research during the semester brought the affective component of early childhood teaching to the fore for her. more...

Analysis Guided by Students

Using some of the students' words, I analyzed their work for evidence of:

• Learning that there are many topics to learn about in ECE
• Discovering a lot is required of teachers
• Realizing "dealing with children" is not just "a piece of cake"
• Becoming aware of teaching's affective component in addition to the academic
• Gaining new understandings, such as of the power of adults, a respect for children and for a child's point of view
• Thinking in greater depth about issues they had thought about before
• Taking a broader view of an issue, for example, considering societal vs. individual responsibility
• Rereading their past experiences critically, including taking a new look at the adult's role
• Finding there are "endless possibilities for solving problems" and for analyzing situations with children, rather than "one right way."

more...

Links

Mid-semester Survey Analysis
Mid-semester students answered questions about their research anonymously. For each question you can see my coding and/or my notes to myself about the students' responses.

Final Survey Analysis
I've sorted the students' anonymous responses to the three questions I asked them at the end of the semester.