Early Childhood Education: Teachers' Perspectives, Effective Programs and Impacts on Cognitive Development

140 Pages·2015·1.014 MB·English

by  Kristina Vann

EDUCATION IN A COMPETITIVE AND GLOBALIZING WORLD

E C E
ARLY HILDHOOD DUCATION

T ' P ,
EACHERS ERSPECTIVES
E P
FFECTIVE ROGRAMS
I
AND MPACTS ON
C D
OGNITIVE EVELOPMENT

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E C
DUCATION IN A OMPETITIVE
G W
AND LOBALIZING ORLD

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EDUCATION IN A COMPETITIVE AND GLOBALIZING WORLD

E C E
ARLY HILDHOOD DUCATION

T ' P ,
EACHERS ERSPECTIVES
E P
FFECTIVE ROGRAMS
I
AND MPACTS ON
C D
OGNITIVE EVELOPMENT

KRISTINA VANN
EDITOR

New York
Copyright © 2015 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

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ISBN: (cid:28)(cid:26)(cid:27)(cid:16)(cid:20)(cid:16)(cid:25)(cid:22)(cid:23)(cid:25)(cid:22)(cid:16)(cid:28)(cid:28)(cid:25)(cid:16)(cid:24)(cid:3)(eBook)

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York
CONTENTS

Preface vii 
Chapter 1 Both Together: Social-emotional Learning and
Cognition Promote Academic Achievement in Early
Childhood Classrooms 1 
Katherine M. Zinsser, Claire G. Christensen
and Abby G. Carlson 
Chapter 2 Assessing Self-Regulated Learning and Its
Relation to Cognitive Performance in Early
Childhood Education 13 
Jesús de la Fuente, Jorge Amate 
and Mari Carmen González-Torres 
Chapter 3 Teaching and Learning in Natural Environments 37 
Brent Mawson 
Chapter 4 The Shift from Factual Teaching to Conceptual
Understanding in Early Childhood Education:
Challenges in Lesson Planning 67 
Maria Birbili 
Chapter 5 Metacognition and Student-Centered Teaching
Styles in Early Childhood 93 
Chatzipanteli Athanasia
vi Contents
Chapter 6 Reciprocal Teaching Style and Metacognition
in Early Childhood 109 
Chatzipanteli Athanasia and Dean Richard 
Index 121
PREFACE

This book assesses self-regulated learning and its relation to cognitive
education; teaching and learning in natural environments; factual teaching and
conceptual understanding in early childhood education; metacognition and
student-centered teaching styles; and reciprocal teaching.
Chapter 1 - While current education policy emphasizes academic
achievement, the authors argue for the importance of social-emotional learning
(SEL) and cognitive abilities as foundations of early academic success. This
chapter reviews positive interrelationships among social-emotional learning
(SEL), cognitive abilities, and academic achievement in early childhood. The
authors first discuss how specific social-emotional competencies promote and
are promoted by cognitive abilities. The authors then explore how SEL and
cognition work in concert to promote academic achievement. In conclusion,
the authors describe two promising preschool SEL programs: and review
teaching strategies known to support SEL in preschool.
Chapter 2 - Assessment of cognitive skills and metacognitive self-
regulated learning strategies is important in order to discover students’ level of
cognitive processing, and be able to intervene through the teaching process to
mitigate any existing problems. The objective of this study was to assess the
use of metacognitive, cognitive and motor strategies on a given task. A total of
68 five-year-old pupils enrolled in Early Childhood Education participated in
the study. The assessment was carried out with an ad-hoc instrument based on
the think-aloud technique, and having adequate reliability and validity values.
Descriptive, associative and inferential analyses were performed. The results
showed greater use of cognitive and motor strategies than of metacognitive
strategies. A significant association was also found between the use of
strategies at each moment of the task and final performance. Implications are
viii Kristina Vann
discussed for the teaching of cognitive skills and meta-skills during this stage
of education.
Chapter 3 - In this chapter the author discusses his findings from an
eighteen-month research study of the experiences of young children and early
childhood teachers involved in out-of-centre nature adventure programmes.
This is an area of growing interest in early childhood education that has
developed out of the Forest Schools movement. Little comparative data is
available on how the affordances offered by different natural environments
impact on teachers practice and children’s learning. The study involved
spending six months as a participant –observer in each of three distinctive
environments; a forested area, a sub-tropical bush setting, and a tidal harbor
beach location. The author describes the particular intellectual and social
learning that these experiences and natural environments afforded the children
and also how teacher’s perceived the programme influenced their pedagogy.
The author examines how teacher’s confidence and risk-taking developed over
time and the manner in which their interactions with the children assumed a
different character than the interactions within the early childhood setting. In
conclusion the author suggests some strategies for centres and teachers
interested in developing an out-of-centre nature experience for the children.
Chapter 4 - An increasing number of early childhood curricula around the
world place greater emphasis on the development of conceptual understanding
than they did in the past. Teaching from a conceptual framework helps
students make connections by focusing on the powerful ideas that underpin the
content. An emphasis on conceptual learning also gives meaning to factual
knowledge, the kind of knowledge that school education traditionally favors.
The shift from teaching factual knowledge to a more conceptual way of
teaching is easier said than done. Enculturated in the traditional fact-based
approach to learning, teachers feel more comfortable with teaching and
assessing knowledge that is typically learned faster. Both anecdotal evidence
and the few studies that exist about Greek early childhood teachers’ practices
indicate that, like colleagues in other countries, Greek teachers are more
concerned with coverage of facts and skills than with students developing
conceptual understanding of topics and curriculum subjects. The study
presented here recorded the efforts of a group of early childhood teachers to
develop lesson plans using a concept-based model. Teachers’ attempts were
made in the context of a professional development course which aimed to
introduce practitioners to a new early childhood curriculum. According to the
model of ‘developing concept based teacher’, proposed by Erickson &
Lanning (2014), the course aimed to help teachers understand the difference