September 2014
It has been almost month now since I started my Early Childhood Innovation research project and a much has change in such a short time. My original plan for this blog was to create a monthly check-in and to give a quick recap of the month as a whole. Additionally, I planned to include follow up articles and more detailed articles on the resources I use, my attempts to bring about a better early childhood learning model, the resources I choose, and details of my attempts to integrate the next generation of learning practices and research findings to an existing childcare center. For a full list of sections and articles see:
Up and Coming Featured Articles
This blog and my project started out as a means to complete one of my class assignments and a means to fulfilling on of Innovation Grant requirement. However, my research has blossomed into something more. I see now how my initial goals of simply documenting how technology can be used in the early childhood learning setting were quite limited in scope. If I am truly to have an impact on early childhood learning then I must radically alter my focus to include all the DAP recommended learning domains.
My Host School:
I chose Prater Lane Play School as the host site for my research project because I knew the director and I was confident in her desire to provide the best early childhood experience for her students. Prior to my Innovation project she and I had numerous discussion about the future of education and the need for change. After visiting her center on several occasions, I felt Prater Lane PlaySchool would be a great place to nurture a fledgling technology research initiative.
The initial grant I received provides for the technology (4 iPads) and there are some funds for apps and incidentals but there was not a fund for a salary. After closely examining the grant, I believe this is not an oversight of the grant but rather an incentive for existing teachers to get technology into their classroom and then share their experience with others. Fortunately for me I was able to remedy this initial hurdle by landing a job as a teacher's aid at my chosen host site.
Original Goals and Challenges:
My original goal was to explore how a young child's exposure to technology might allow some children to learn and grow in a manner previously believed to be unlikely given certain developmental constraints. My original musings were posted on my
Padsters blog in early September. My plan was simple to acquire the necessary technology for use at the center; and then, using some of the same apps which have proven to help my "test case" learn at such an astonishing rate. I planned to work with the students at the center and track their results. This seemed to be an achievable plan but little did I know what the actual scope of this project needed to be if it was to have any sort of lasting impact on early childhood learning practices.
First, there was the issue of having to take a job at the host site. The director was great about getting me on staff and we chatted several times about my goals, but once on staff things got a bit trickier. First hurdle was the Colorado Early Childhood certificate. Even though I have literally hundreds of hours of child development classes and I have met the requirements for the Colorado alternative teaching license for grades K-8, Colorado requires that you attend certain classes before you can be classified as a "Group Leader". I was surprised to discover it is logistically harder to become a group leader in a daycare than it is to be a technology instructor or sixth grade science teacher in a public elementary school. At first I didn't understand how this issue was a big hurdle, after all, I didn't mind not being the "lead" in a classroom, but it has posed some difficult hurdles when trying to interact with the age appropriate students on a semi-regualar base. Without this certificate I am at the mercy of ratios numbers and there have been numerous times where I have been reassigned from class to class and any planning I had flutters out the window. After weeks of trying to plan and document my observations with little success, I decided to needed to try something different. Being moved about had proven to be a challenge to my original goals but there were some unexpected side effects. The first one being, I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to succeed at getting any level of technology exposure to occur on even a semi -regular basis, I need to get these classes completed as soon as possible. The second discovery is a bit more difficult to explain and I will need to devote a entire post to my decision to switch from my goals of child/technology interaction to goals for provider/technology interactions. So, after a couple weeks of being moved about from classroom to classroom I came to the realization that my original goal was simply not going to be feasible because of scheduling constraints.
A New Direction:
Needing to find a new direction for my project lead me back to my mind map and my original goals. One my goals had been to bring STEM/STEAM based learning and data driven decision making into a early learning environment. This seemed to be an achievable goal, the director who hired me seemed sincere in her desire ramp up the learning in the classrooms. She was supportive and definitely open the current instructor's proposal to to tryout the Mother Goose Time curriculum in the preschool classroom.
So, I had some new goals but I still needed to understand the role early learning experiences play in the grand scheme of achievement. I could use some technology to augment the children's learning but it was clear that I would need to find a hands on curriculum which could provide more structure and more opportunities for learning across multiple domains if I wanted to make a difference in these little learners lives and for this I would need more funding.
In addition to funding provided by my original grant for the iPads and my original selection of award winning blended learning apps such as
Aha Math,
Easy Tech,
Aha Science,
Study Dog, and the handful of other quality iPad applications I choose to start my project, I have found it necessary to seek out additional funding for other much needed resources and materials. In order to bring about true change, I needed to include a child centered holistic early learning curriculum into the children's classrooms. My goal re-evaluate the existing model for early childhood developmental milestones required me to examine the existing curriculum being used and increase the number of domains in which instruction was provided and skill development was tracked.
Choosing the Right Resources
For starters, I needed an application that I could use for both data collection and communication. Even with my shift in focus and goals, I still needed to find ways to include technology integration for the existing grant requirements. I had to find a means of integrating this technology piece without disrupting the daily flow of the classroom. Some type of application which could be used on a variety of platforms and support multiple needs for this piece of the puzzle I turned to the
Tadpoles LLC. This application takes communication to the next level and the company's commitment to improvements and new features is unsurpassed
For the curriculum piece, I would need a program based on the latest research, and one which was easy for the current teachers to implement. But the new curriculum needed to provide the necessary opportunity to master a variety on skills over multiple domains. It would need to complex enough to ensure every child's receive the exposure to a multitude of skills and learning goals over a period of 2 to 3 years. The program would need to be educationally sound, have the ability to provide a means of data driven decision making, while still being fun and enjoyable for the students.
For this challenge, I turned to the
Mother Goose Time Preschool Curriculum , with over 30 years of research and its child friendly "purposeful play" approach it was the perfect fit. As an added bonus, the current preschool teacher had requested that I look into a trial of the MGT program on her behalf and I was able to negotiate a trial of the material to be shipped out quickly and for a significantly reduced rate with the staff at MGT. Only constraint left for me to address was getting the approval for a sincere trial of the curriculum in the preschool class. I received approval from the director for the
October Unit Study and I agreed I would support the integration of the new curricula in the preschool classroom and encourage the use of the additional materials in the Pre-K classroom.
Concluding Thoughts:
My new project goal appears to be achievable. For the data-driven decision making component, I can use the Tadpole's Childcare Application for documentation, communication and it provides a means to increase the level of technology integration at the center. The Experience Childhood Learning framework and the materials provided in the MGT monthly thematic study provides a way of enhancing the existing curriculum and addresses the learning needs of young millennial learners aged 2.5 to 6 years across multiple domains. The curriculum frameworks has been endorsed by NAEYC and Headstart. The MGT program is a holistic art infused learning model it currently consists of
nine domains and approximately thirty three skills per level. The Experience Early Learning framework is closely aligned with Colorado new framework and acts as the foundation to the
MGT Early Childhood Preschool Curriculum .
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Update: December 27th 2014
MGT shipped the boxes of boxes of curriculum quickly and the new materials arrive during the first week of October and the Tadpoles application has become a welcome addition to our Infant classroom.
With these new resources now in place, I would like to thank Michelle at Mother Goose Time and Kelly at Tadpoles LLC. I am extremely grateful those generous individuals who have made it possible for me to broaden the scope of my research project and augment the learning in several of our classrooms at Prater Lane Play School. Because of their generosity and a dedication to providing quality products, this Early Learning Innovation Project might someday make not only an impact on how technology is used in Early Childhood settings but it might also make an an impact on the future of early childhood education.
Up Next: Month 1 of the MGT Program and Mother Goose Time: A Introduction to a Remarkable Program.
This article was updated on December 27th, 2014
