My Family Culture

            Culture gives people a sense of comfort and helps them to build self-confidence and self-esteem (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). Without the comforts of my culture if I were to ever be left in a catastrophic situation, I would be thankful to be able to bring three items which represent my family’s culture and values.

            The first item I would bring is my wedding collage album. This album is a 50 page album which has numerous pictures on each page. Every important friendships, pet (yes, I took pictures with my fur babies) and family member are depicted in this album, including lost loved ones. This album represents my family’s culture because it shows our connectedness and support for each other, especially throughout special events in our lives. I would explain to other individuals how this alum is meaningful to me because it shows the individuals who helped raised me and guide me throughout my life, as well as pictures which show my childhood home. Without the people in this album, I would not be the person I am today.

            Another item I would bring with me is a ceramic angel which was painted by my great-grandmother prior to her passing. My great-grandma was an administrator and educator for over 30 years and lived life with enthusiasm for over 100 years.  I would explain this piece to others as a piece which holds sentimental meaning because my great-grandma was the person who inspired me to go into education and would always call me her ‘little angel.’ She painted this angel for me and every time I see it, it reminds me of the special person she was and the guardian angel I have in my life.

            The final item I would bring would be a replica of my baby blanket which my mom had made for me when I was in my teens. This blanket is identical to the one my great-grandmother had bought for me that I could not live without as a baby and I had it hanging on my wall in my childhood home up until the time I moved out. I would explain to others how this blanket represents the comfort and security I felt growing up because I knew my great-grandma and mom put a lot of thought into this gift. It is a gift I hope to use as my first child’s baby blanket so it holds a lot of sentimental value to me.

            If I were told I could only keep one personal item, I would keep my wedding album. This album represents a lifetime of memories as I reflect upon each special person, pet and item within it, along with memories of the most significant day in my life. While I would be saddened to let the angel and blanket go, in my heart I would know these are only ‘items’ and that the memories of my great-grandma are forever locked in my heart and she would help me through this new journey.

            An insight I gained about myself as a result of this exercise was how important the memories I have are over the materialistic items I have. It was hard at first for me to choose specific items beyond the wedding album because it is the people and relationships I have in my life which hold the most meaning over anything else for me. I found this interesting because I tend to keep many items representing people, yet it is simple pictures and memories which hold more significance for me in my life.

  Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). EDUC 6162 Course Media. Family

cultures: Dynamic interactions Baltimore, MD. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_4732505_1%26url%3D.

Welcome EDUC 6164-6 Classmates!

Greetings EDUC 6164-6 Classmates,

I am very excited to begin yet another course on my journey to receiving my M.A. in Early Childhood-Teaching Adults in the Early Childhood Field. I look forward to working with each and every one of you as we learn more about perspectives and diversity within the early childhood field. One of my favorite parts of each course is visiting everyone's blogs and applying our learning in a more personalized manor. :) I am very excited to work with you and send warm wishes your way as we begin a new course together!

*Becca Rauch

When I Think of Research....

              I would like to begin by thanking each and everyone one of my fellow classmates for your time and dedication to this course. It is because of your hard work and feedback that I was able to feel more confident and expand my knowledge about conducting research within the early childhood field.

            As a result of our collaboration, I have gained insight into how the preplanning stages of research should be the area researchers focus on the most in order to avoid complications and increase validity our research studies. Due to the use of children within research, I have also learned the importance of allowing them to assent to the study, in order for them to feel as if they have a voice in whether or not they would like to take part in early childhood research (Mac Naughton, Rolfe & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010).

            My ideas about the nature of doing research has changed as I have learned how I too can conduct research if I take my time and ensure I consider each ethical and validity criterion which were presented within our resources in order to develop a credible research study. Also, I learned the important lesson of no matter how well you plan, design and conduct research, there is no perfect way to accommodate for extraneous variables (Mac Naughton, Rolfe & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010). Through taking time to design the study and consider as many extraneous variables as possible and adapt your design around these variables in the beginning will help, but there will always to a chance an extraneous variable will happen within your study. As long as you explain it within your results section, then you have increased the replicability of your study for fellow researchers (Mac Naughton, Rolfe & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010).

            A challenge I encountered within our course was learning each of the new terms and being able to apply them to the field of each childhood education. Through my fellow classmate’s discussion postings and conducting further research independently, I was able to feel more confident in the challenge of learning and applying the new vocabulary throughout this course.

            My perceptions of an early childhood professional have been modified as I now understand the importance of early childhood professionals to stay current on early childhood research, as well as being able to identify whether or not the studies are valid and the research was conducted with ethical considerations for young children accounted for. Early childhood professionals must be strong advocates for young children and families by sharing research in order to help children meet their full developmental potentials through the application of published research studies. The increased accountability for professionals to stay current on research is an area I have come to appreciate due to the time and flexibility within the curriculum early childhood professionals must tackle.

            Again, thank you to each and every one of you for your support through the course. You have provided me with so much new knowledge about the early childhood field, that I now feel much more confident with early childhood research. I wish you all the best of luck in your future careers and hopefully we will continue to learn from each other in future courses!

Reference

Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research:

International perspectives on theory and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Research Around the World-Australia

            “Every young child is thriving and learning” (Early Childhood Australia, 2014, p.1). This week I had the opportunity to explore a similar organization to the NAEYC called Early Childhood Australia and their vision to help all young children. The Early Childhood Australia website provided me with many new connections between research topics in the United States as compared with Australia.

            Currently in Australia, research topics include looking at identifying effective, preventative to childhood obesity, identifying the effects of long term care vs. family care on childhood development, and the effects and use of technology in early childhood (Early Childhood Australia, 2014). I found it very interesting how the current research in Australia focusing on early childhood developments were so similar to the current topics in the United States. Understanding how to effectively use technology in early childhood is topic I am asked about many times by families I work with, so I am excited to learn more about international perspectives on how to effectively use technology with early childhood students.

An insight I had through the exploration of Early Childhood America’s website, was how comprehensive Early Childhood Australia’s research was as they focus on the incorporation of families, practitioners, and young children when collecting their data, similar to how research in early childhood is conducted in the United States (Early Childhood Australia, 2014). For example, in a study on digital technology and the effects/benefits for early childhood children, parental and practitioner surveys were administered in order to receive opinions from a large participant pool (Early Childhood Australia, 2014). My only concern is how effective the survey format will be for their research project as the link for the survey was on their website, but I hope they also administer the website to diverse families and early childhood educators throughout their country to help receive multiple perspectives and insights on the use of technology.

Noteworthy information I found on the website pertained to previously published research articles which identified how early intervention and preventions programs focusing on maternal and children and family health improve children’s developments, even from children who came for the most disadvantageous backgrounds (Early Childhood Australia, 2014). Identifying research which will help us as educators with the children whom have grown up in least developmentally enriching environments will hopefully help us to eliminate achievement gaps and help all children succeed.

Reference

Early Childhood Australia. (2014). A voice for young children. Retrieved from

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/.

A Personal Uplifting Research Story

          “Even young children can contribute to research if appropriate methods are used” (Whiting, 2009). With so many unknowns facing the field of early childhood and children, research is needed to help children foster across each of their developmental domains. When involving children in research, it is imperative the Institutional Review Board’s requirements for special protection of children in research are followed (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d). I have been able to personally experience a positive example of the effects of research on children and families which followed the Institutional Review Board’s ethical requirements, yet still yielded positive results for a child’s development.

            Five years ago, my uncle became a legal guardian for a three-year old child. The little girl’s mother had been battling chemical addiction for years and had found herself, as well as the child in a compromising situation, causing her to do what she felt was best and give up custody of her c to a person she knew could provide a better life for the child. My uncle took over guardianship of this child with very little prior knowledge about her background. We continue to tell him, he was at the ‘right place at the right time,’ so he could save this little girl.

Over the course of the next several years, this child experienced psychological distress, causing him to seek out support. Due to this little girl’s lack of trust in adults due to her upbringing, her therapist suggested they partake in an ongoing research study at her clinic involving a new type of play therapy. This new therapy would involve multiple family members being present to help the child gain trust in them and build new relationships, while she learned about how to deal with her past. Both my uncle and his new little girl had given their consent and assent to partake in this research. While both my uncle and the researchers understood there may be some ‘skeletons’ which would be revealed from the little girl’s past, they knew if she did not express them, further psychological damage would transpire.

In this situation, while ‘greater than minimal risk’ research was used, the amount of information gained about the child’s past, her new ability to express herself, and the trust she built with extended families members and adults helped her to develop a more psychologically stable state of mind. Due to her participation in the research, the therapist now uses the integration of extended family members within her therapy sessions with young children as a way to incorporate support and relationship building for children.

Research can have wonderful benefits for children and families if ethical, supportive measures are taken. I was excited to observe the effects of research using children within my own life, and I look forward to learning more about research and how I can incorporate it into my personal life circumstance in the future.

Reference

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Office for Human Research Protections

(OHRP). (n.d.) Special protections for children as research subjects. HHS.gov. Retrieved on from http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/policy/populations/children.html.

Whiting, L. (2009). Involving children in research. Paediatric Nursing, 21(5), 32–36. Retrieved

from

http://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/7736/Appendix%203.pdf?sequence=8.

My Personal Research Journey

              The topic I have chosen for my research simulation is alternatives to standardized testing in early childhood. I chose this topic because I have personally observed my first grade students having severe testing anxiety when it comes time to complete our state and district testing. No matter what I tell my students or how prepared they may be, it is heartbreaking to see students physically shake, cry and even wet themselves because they are so nervous. I am interested in learning more ways to make testing less of a formal process and more of a set of engaging activities where students are not even aware they are being tested. While I understand we will still have to complete state testing requirements, I hope to find enough research so I may advocate for equally effective, yet creative ways to yield assessment data.

            The simulation process so far has been a bit challenging. At first I could not find too much information about alternates to standardized testing, but found many papers written about the pros and cons of testing. After some deep research I found some great articles and I look forward to applying the new terms from our resources in order to seek a more thorough understanding of the evidence behind each article.

While I too struggle with many of the terms, I am excited to expand on the terms and make the definitions more meaningful within our individual research charts. I am excited to look back at my completed research chart at the end of this course in order to document all I have learned about the research process. Having a place to organize all the new information, as well as to serve as a quick reference throughout my simulation will be very beneficial for my confidence in this project.

With assessment and standardized testing being a well-talked about concept with many educators, if anyone has any resources or experiences with alternate testing, I welcome the help. I am interested in any ideas or articles that may talk about different strategies to testing which have proven to be effective. Through our collaboration throughout this course, I am confident we all will come up with wonderful simulation projects.  “Research means finding out new things” (Mac Naughton & Rolfe,  2010, p.13) The more I learn about your simulation projects, I will do my best to also help each and every one of you with resources which I feel may be helpful in your research journeys. Best of luck everyone!

Reference

Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research:

International perspectives on theory and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Welcome EDUC 6163 to My Blog!

Hello Everyone and welcome to my Walden Blog. I am very excited for all of us to become more confident as we continue to learn new information about research this quarter. Through our collaboration and continued support for one another I am sure we will all reach our goal of becoming more comfortable with conducting research in the early childhood field.

*On a side note, if anyone would like to change states for a couple days, Minnesota has been having -40 to -50 degree windchills the past two days. All Minnesota public school have been cancelled due to a mandate by the governor the last few days... yikes! Please send any warm weather this way. :)

*Becca Rauch