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The decentralized and fragmented nature of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) system in the U.S., coupled with an ongoing teacher shortage, high teacher turnover rates, and the increasing demand for early childhood (EC) teachers, has led to low entry requirements and lenient regulations for most EC sectors. Yet, the recent call for school readiness of preschoolers is pushing the field to be equipped with highly qualified EC teachers with professional knowledge and competence. Efforts to provide quality ECEC services by improving the quality of the teaching force at various levels have been initiated in the U.S. In this paper, we describe: demographic profile of America’s ECEC teaching force; regulatory standards regarding entry-level teacher requirements; condition of pre-service teacher training in higher education; and provision of professional development and retention efforts. Current trends and challenges of EC teacher policy in the U.S. are presented, and implications for EC policymakers are discussed.

The advent of computer technology in the classroom raised the issue of its appropriate use by teachers and their students alike. It has been recommended that teacher education programs provide more opportunities for teacher candidates' use of technology including teaching their own technology-enhanced lessons. With a goal of integrating scholarship into student teaching, a teacher candidate enrolled in a graduate program in childhood education carried out a technology-enhanced research project within a professional development school. Examining the impact of the project on the teacher candidate, this article describes how one's pedagogical content knowledge and technological competence can be developed through a research-oriented teaching experience. The article also demonstrates the emergence of a community of practice that shares the goal of providing learning spaces for the teacher candidate and young children in the context of mathematics enrichment with computers.

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