A GROWING INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT to improve the quality of education and care for infants and toddlers is prevalent in the current research agenda. However, recent research on infant-toddler education is yet to provide a holistic view of the specialised practices for this age group. Drawing upon Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, a holistic view is used to investigate collective reflection in order to transform educators' professional practices. Data consisted of video observations of educators' practices and three collaborative forums. Participants included six educators who worked in three long day care centres. The collaborative forums aimed for collective reflections, and educators were positioned as agents of change. Findings revealed challenges in practice and educators' motivational systemstheir aspirations for their work were important for improving practice. Collaborative forums offered an affective space for educators' collective reflections. Implications show that when thinking occurs collectively, educators are able to reflect on their emotions and aspirations for the education of infants and toddlers.
This paper examines an experimental technique that uses visual narrative methodology and dialogue commentary to create an effective research methodology for a pilot project studying babies and toddlers in long day care centres and family contexts. Researchers from different cultural backgrounds using video technology, formed the team of chief investigators. One video clip was chosen to make independent descriptions, comments and interpretations of what was noticed. Later, initial visual narrative descriptions were shared and extended after reading one another's responses. This process created a dialogue commentary that enabled data overview, interpretative analyses and synthesis supported by snapshot moments taken from video clip. One aim of the project was to visually capture the cultural worlds and transitory relationships of babies and toddlers. Researchers showed the selected video clip separately to babies' room educator, centre director, and parents recording their responses. Using visual narrative methodology, dialogue commentary, and a shared cultural historical theoretical framework, revealed useful contradictions that raised social and cultural questions such as: How do educators recognize cultural worlds and transitory relationships of babies and toddlers? How are transitory moments related to pedagogically by educators? Integrating researchers' personal, cultural and affective responses, affords new critical cultural perspectives. This paper draws on screen capture snapshot moments from one video clip, taken from babies' pilot project data. These offer small windows into methodological approaches used to research the cultural world and transitory moments of three infants and their educator, located in the babies' room of an Australian long day care (LDC) site.
THIS PAPER FOCUSES ON the methodological effectiveness of intergenerational collaborative drawing (ICD). A group of eight researchers trialled this particular approach to drawing, most of them for the first time. Each researcher drew with young children, peers and tertiary students, with drawings created over a period of six months. The eight researchers came together in a 'community of scholars' approach to this project because of two shared interests: (i) issues of social justice, access and equity; and (ii) arts-based education research methods. The researchers were curious how ICD might methodically support their respective research processes.
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