Changing theories, changing practice: exploring early childhood teachers’ professional learning

Wood, Elizabeth; Bennett, Neville

doi:10.1016/s0742-051x(00)00011-1

Cited by 121 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Professional development programs for child care workers should encourage participants to explicitly reflect on their beliefs about their roles and to make connections between the affective and cognitive functions of their work. They should hold a current and theoretically informed knowledge base about how young children learn (Wood & Bennett, 2000).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Working with toddlers in child care: Practitioners’ beliefs about their role

Berthelsen¹,

Brownlee²

2007

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This exploratory research analyzes child care workers' beliefs about the nature of their practice in center-based child care programs. Twenty-one female child care workers who worked with toddlers (aged 1 to 3 years) participated in the research. The participants were videoed in their practice and later interviewed about how good practice in child care could be described. In the interview, the video of participants' practice was also reviewed to discuss salient videoed events to elicit further evidence about the nature and structure of beliefs that informed practice. The focus of the data analysis was to ascertain how affective, cognitive and executive functions of teaching in child care were represented in the practitioners' beliefs and how well those beliefs were integrated into a relational structure. As expected, child care workers held a strong affective (care) perspective in how they described good practice in working with toddlers. There was less evidence that they believed that good practice involved a cognitive (educational) function or an executive function (overarching principles that guided decision-making in practice). Greater emphasis in professional training for work in child care settings should be placed on exploring expectations and beliefs that child care workers hold about their role and how that role is instrumental in supporting early learning. Responsiveness (i.e., function of care) is a core of practice with very young children (McMullen, 1999: Manning-Morton, 2006). Yet, increasingly, it is recognized that the quality of early learning opportunities (i.e., function of education) that are available is also very important in order that cognitive development is enhanced (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2002). If beliefs are held by child care workers in toddler programs that their work is about early education, as well as care, then such beliefs are likely to ensure higher quality of practice.Policy and practice in early childhood services are framed by distinctions made between care and education (Braumer, Gordic, & Zigler, 2004). Care and education continue to be viewed as separate functions in early childhood services because of the historical divide in many western countries by which child care services are provided under welfare, family, and employment policies while other early childhood services, such as preschools, are more likely to be funded under education policies (Moss, 2006;Penn, 1999). Such a distinction is accepted in the community as a legitimate division which maintains perceptions that child care services do not provide early education (Lakoff & Grady, 1998). For example, child care employees are called workers rather than teachers and instead of providing education they provide care (Nall Bales, 1998). Thus, a dominant social frame about child care is that it is a service to meet parents' work-related needs rather than having potential benefits for children.Australian government policy with respect to child care is constructed on the basis that workrelated reasons are paren...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alternatives for action are weighed and judgments made. Many decisions may be informed by theoretical understandings about children's development and learning (Wood & Bennett, 2000).…”

Section: Child Care Practice As Teachingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working with toddlers in child care: Practitioners’ beliefs about their role

Berthelsen¹,

Brownlee²

2007

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Johnson (1994) found that pre-service teachers' acceptance or rejection of the content of their teacher preparation courses appeared to rest on their prior formal and informal language learning experiences. Wood and Bennet (2000) argue that beliefs assumptions and knowledge of teachers affect the way a teacher interprets teaching events and hence the teaching decisions that are made. This is supported by later studies by Tsui (2003) pointing out how teachers' personal assumptions, values and beliefs filter through to their classroom practices and the way they define problems and manage dilemmas in the classroom.…”

Section: Teachers' Beliefs and Ways Of Teachingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematics and English, Two Languages: Teachers’ Views

Leshem¹,

Markovits²

2013

JEL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

English is an international language used all over the world. Mathematics is the language of sciences but it is also a language used in everyday life. Although both are perceived as languages, mathematics and English are considered as two completely distinct disciplines. In this paper we first discuss English and mathematics as languages. Then we present interviews conducted with five mathematics and English teachers in order to explore their views regarding issues of language features, ways of teaching and issues of anxiety and collaboration between English and mathematics teachers. The interviews suggest some communalities in the way English and mathematics teachers relate to the two languages. The connection between the two disciplines seems to challenge teachers' thinking about their teaching.

show abstract

“…Research on teacher thinking has, as one of its goals, documenting the practical knowledge that teachers accumulate as a result of classroom experience and reflection on that experience. A fundamental premise underpinning this research is that what teachers do in classrooms is largely shaped by this practical knowledge, a premise that is well established and widely accepted (Sanders & McCutcheon, 1987;Ross, Cornett & McCutcheon, 1992;Wood & Bennett, 2000). Despite an extensive review of this corpus of literature, only one study of teachers' practical knowledge relevant to CLT approaches (Golombek, 1998) was located.…”

Section: Review Of Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching a foreign language: one teacher's practical theory

Mangubhai

Marland

Dashwood

et al. 2004

Teaching and Teacher Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent decades, teachers of second languages in many countries, including Australia, have been encouraged to use an approach known as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). This approach advocates the development of communicative competence as a primary goal through the extensive use of the second language as a means of communication during classroom lessons. Understandably, education authorities and teacher educators are keen to know what teachers understand by CLT and how well they have incorporated this approach into their second language teaching. This exploratory study seeks to answer these questions in respect of one teacher, who claims to use a CLT approach. This is done by documenting her personal practical theory of CLT, using a framework adapted from a well-known approach to describing models of teaching. Access to the teacher's practical theory was gained through indepth, semi-structured interviews and stimulated recall interviews involving use of videotapes of two of the teacher's lessons. The study establishes that the teacher's practical theory is an amalgam of many features of CLT approaches and of general teaching. The CLT components of the teacher's practical theory are largely consistent with features commonly listed in texts about CLT approaches, though there are some components of her theory that are not generally discussed in the CLT literature. The framework used in this study for representing the teacher's practical theories of CLT is also assessed and considered suitable for wider use.

show abstract

Changing theories, changing practice: exploring early childhood teachers’ professional learning

Cited by 121 publications

References 10 publications

Working with toddlers in child care: Practitioners’ beliefs about their role

Working with toddlers in child care: Practitioners’ beliefs about their role

Mathematics and English, Two Languages: Teachers’ Views

Teaching a foreign language: one teacher's practical theory

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About