Integrated curricula have become a major educational focus in Korea. Policy changes began in 2009 when the Korea Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology announced a new curriculum ...incorporating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM). Various stages of educational reform have occurred since that time. This study represents the first opportunity for readers of English-language journals to learn about these changes. The aims of the current study are to demonstrate the potential for engaging elementary school pre-service teachers in development of STEAM lesson plans within a science methods course and to elucidate the challenges in this instructional approach. Participants were 119 elementary pre-service teachers in their third year of study at a national university in Korea. Results show that developing STEAM lesson plans had a positive influence on elementary pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward STEAM. Specifically, we found significant improvement on a pre-post survey for participants’ awareness, perceived ability, value, and commitment for STEAM. Secondly, qualitative coding analysis of open-ended surveys revealed pre-service teachers’ views of the potential benefits and challenges of developing STEAM lesson plans. Finally, we provide a rubric for evaluating pre-service teachers’ STEAM lesson plans, based on our experience with teaching this skill within a science methods course.
This research to practice paper summarizes a study on a coaching model that was used with three child care center teachers as they implemented strategies connected with three targeted items from the ...Teaching Pyramid Model, a comprehensive framework for supporting children’s social and emotional development. Additional information is also provided concerning teacher attitudes toward the model and data on child social and emotional development. The coaching model was effective at improving teacher implementation of strategies.
Objective: This study aimed to replicate and extend previous work showing an association between maternal pre‐pregnancy adiposity and risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ...symptoms in children.
Methods: A Swedish population‐based prospective pregnancy–offspring cohort was followed up when children were 5 years old (N = 1,714). Mothers and kindergarten teachers rated children’s ADHD symptoms, presence and duration of problems, and emotionality. Dichotomized outcomes examined difficulties of clinical relevance (top 15% of the distribution). Analyses adjusted for pregnancy (maternal smoking, depressive symptoms, life events, education, age, family structure), birth outcomes (birth weight, gestational age, infant sex) and concurrent variables (family structure, maternal depressive symptoms, parental ADHD symptoms, and child overweight) in an attempt to rule out confounding.
Results: Maternal pre‐pregnancy overweight and obesity predicted high inattention symptom scores and obesity was associated with a two‐fold increase in risk of difficulties with emotion intensity and emotion regulation according to teacher reports. Means of maternal ratings were unrelated to pre‐pregnancy body mass index (BMI). Presence and duration of problems were associated with both maternal over and underweight according to teachers.
Conclusions: Despite discrepancies between maternal and teacher reports, these results provide further evidence that maternal pre‐pregnancy overweight and obesity are associated with child inattention symptoms and extend previous work by establishing a link between obesity and emotional difficulties. Maternal adiposity at the time of conception may be instrumental in programming child mental health, as prenatal brain development depends on maternal energy supply. Possible mechanisms include disturbed maternal metabolic function. If maternal pre‐pregnancy obesity is a causal risk factor, the potential for prevention is great.
Aim
In Germany, preschool teachers supervise children up to six years of age and are also responsible for supervising older pupils after school. This study explored the impact of a teaching session ...on epilepsy for teachers in charge of children from 1 to 10 years of age.
Methods
We evaluated the benefit of a teaching session offered to all preschool teachers in Leipzig, Germany, in 2014–2015, by asking them to complete the same questionnaire 12–24 months pre‐intervention, and 12 months postintervention.
Results
Both questionnaires were completed by 123 teachers. The number of teachers who felt they were prepared to handle an acute seizure rose from 36 (29%) pre‐intervention to 65 (53%) post‐intervention (p < 0.001) and their willingness to administer a prescribed rescue medication rose from 66 (54%) to 93 (76%, p < 0.001). The session also increased the number of teachers who were prepared to take children with epilepsy on excursions under any circumstance from 38 (31%) to 52 (42%, p < 0.05). In addition, the number of teachers who would place a solid object in the child's mouth during an attack fell from 16 (13%) to seven (6%) (p < 0.05).
Conclusion
Providing a teaching session on epilepsy increased the teachers’ knowledge and willingness to act and reduced obsolete, counterproductive measures.
Nowadays, early science education is well-accepted by researchers, education professionals and policy makers. Overall, teachers' attitudes and conceptions toward the science subject domain and ...science education influence their ways of teaching and engagement. However, there is a lack of research regarding factors that affect this engagement in pre-school years. The main assumption of this study is that teachers' attitudes regarding science in pre-school can shape children's engagement in science and develop their scientific curiosity. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are to investigate the attitudes of pre-school teachers toward engaging in science and to explore their views about the nature of curiosity: who is a curious child and how can a child's natural curiosity be fostered? An extensive survey was conducted among 146 pre-school teachers by employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Results indicate that most of the participants believe that scientific education should begin in early childhood; very young children can investigate and take part in a process of inquiry; and scientific activities in pre-school can influence children's long-term attitudes toward science. Despite these views, most participants felt they did not possess sufficient scientific knowledge. Furthermore, participants expressed diverse opinions when asked to identify what constitutes curiosity, how the curious child can be identified and how a child's curiosity can be fostered. The research findings carry significant implications regarding how to implement scientific activities in pre-school, and how to encourage pre-school teachers to engage children in scientific activities in a way that will nurture their natural curiosity.
This study aims to examine the effectiveness of an intervention program based on the PROSPER, a comprehensive framework which emphasises the importance of positivity, relationships, outcome, ...strength, purpose, engagement, and resilience in pre-service teachers' well-being in Hong Kong. Participants were pre-service pre-school teachers (N = 77) who participated in a 1-month randomised control trial with four intervention workshops. They were randomly assigned to either intervention (n = 40) or wait-list control conditions (n = 37). A survey with measures that assessed PROSPER well-being components was administered to participants before and after the intervention. Findings of repeated measures MANCOVA revealed no significant time x group interaction effect, Wilks' Lambda F(7, 50) = 1.66, p = .14, η
2
= .19. Results of univariate analyses showed that a significant time x group interaction effect existed in relationship component (η
2
= .08), indicating that the intervention was effective in facilitating pre-service pre-school teachers' positive relationships with their peers. Findings underscore the potential benefits of designing positive psychological interventions for teachers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Listening differently: A pedagogy for expanded listening Gallagher, Michael; Prior, Jonathan; Needham, Martin ...
British educational research journal,
December 2017, 2017-12-00, 20171201, Volume:
43, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Mainstream education promotes a narrow conception of listening, centred on the reception and comprehension of human meanings. As such, it is ill‐equipped to hear how sound propagates affects, ...generates atmospheres, shapes environments and enacts power. Yet these aspects of sound are vital to how education functions. We therefore argue that there is a need to expand listening in education, and suggest that listening walks could provide a pedagogy for this purpose. Using interview data in which early years practitioners reflect on a listening walk, we show how the method can: (i) produce heightened multisensory experiences of spaces; (ii) generate forms of difficulty and discomfort that produce new learning; and (iii) influence practice, particularly practitioners’ ability to empathise with young children. Listening walks function by disrupting everyday sensory habits, provoking listeners to listen anew to their own listening, in an open‐ended way that is not tied to predetermined learning outcomes. The method therefore has wider pedagogic potential for rethinking education and childhood beyond rationality, representation and meaning.
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