Early Learning
What Is This I See Before Me?: Teachers' Perceptions of Learning and School Readiness in Kindergarten Children
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Patricia Carson
This paper reports on the results of a research study entitled “Who is that I See Before Me?” Teachers’ Perceptions of Learning and School Readiness in Kindergarten Children. This research was primarily concerned with giving voice and validation to kindergarten teachers by exploring their perceptions, assumptions, and understanding as to what, and how, do learning readiness and school readiness present in kindergarten children. In order to answer the research question “How do kindergarten teachers perceive and understand the concept of learning readiness and school readiness?” The research was conducted within a social constructivist framework and employed an Interpretive Phenomenology Approach (IPA). Data were collected in three phases using semi-structured interview questions. Each interview focused on a different aspect of readiness. The first interview looked at the perceptions and understanding of interviewees regarding learning readiness. The second interview focused on school readiness. Both interviews also examined how teachers' pre-service and teaching experiences influenced their understanding of learning and school readiness. The final interview allowed the teachers to share what they considered important for new kindergarten teachers to know concerning the concepts of learning and school readiness. A reflective journal allowed the researcher to explore her own biases, preconceptions, and experiences of the phenomenon being studied. This research aims to increase kindergarten teachers understanding and awareness of how learning readiness and school readiness are presented, and understood, by those teachers who live the experience in the classroom every day.
Saadhya - Exploring the Landscape of Early Childhood Education in Hyderabad, India: Project Funded by Australia India Research Student (AIRS) Fellowship for Early Career Researchers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Vijaya Tatineni
The landscape of Early Childhood Education in India underwent a significant transformation with the introduction of a formalized syllabus and curriculum under the National Education Policy (NEP) of 2021, with a particular focus on the National Curricular Framework for Early Childhood Education (NCFFS) in 2022. Despite these advancements, the training of early childhood teachers has yet to adapt to effectively impart the new and ambitious play based curriculum. Our research delves into this gap in teacher education by conducting interviews with 20 early childhood educators (in Hyderabad, India) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, including two international schools catering to higher SES children, one serving the middle-class income group, and another addressing the lower middle SES group. Serving as a pilot study for a larger three-phased project aimed at developing micro credentials for teacher training in India, our investigation explores how teachers' values, often rooted in non-western and contextual perspectives, influence the ways in which early years children are prepared for formal schooling. The findings shed light on the responsiveness of teachers' educational values to the societal and economic needs of Indian parents, reflecting their aspirations for the academic readiness of their children in the early years. Project funded by Australia India Research Student (AIRS) Fellowship for Early Career Researchers.
Values Education in the Early Years: Practices and Challenges in Early Childhood Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sandra Wu
In Singapore, there is a diverse early childhood education landscape situated in a multiracial, multicultural and multireligious society. The diversity of the country has important implications on how values are cultivated in children from young, interpreted and lived out. Early childhood education is offered by a myriad of operators in a market system that is government regulated. This has implications for the quality of early education, in particular, values education as Singapore is a secular society. At the pre-school level, there are four values explicated in the revised Nurturing Early Learners framework, a national curriculum framework for pre-school education in Singapore that was launched in November 2022. Since the revised framework was recently launched, this article seeks to unpack what these values mean in the pre-school context with the view that values are sociocultural constructs and shed light on the current practices in values education. It draws upon a qualitative project that includes multiple perspectives solicited from government officials, religious leaders, early childhood leaders and teachers from various operators. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted and the data is coded, analysed, interpreted and triangulated using thematic analysis. The findings offer insights to the Singaporean interpretations of the four values, shed light on how values have been taught and the challenges teachers and leaders face.
