This article reports findings from 2 studies situated within a larger scope of design research on a professional development program, "Early Years," for Part C early intervention practitioners, working with families in home and community settings. Early Years includes online modules and onsite mentor coaching, and its development has…

The present study examined the extent to which preschool classroom supports--relational support (RS) and instructional support (IS)--are associated with children's language development and whether these associations vary as a function of children's language ability. The language skills of 360 children within 95 classrooms were assessed using an…

Reviewers analyzed studies published from 1990 to 2012 to determine early childhood practitioner involvement in functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and function-based behavioral intervention plans (BIP) for children with challenging behavior, age 6 and younger. Coding of 30 studies included practitioner involvement in FBA and BIP processes,…

Providers of early childhood education (ECE) are well positioned to help ensure that technology is used effectively in ECE settings. Indeed, the successful integration of technology into ECE depends on providers who have the ability to curate the most appropriate devices and content, "facilitate" effective patterns of use, guide families…

Two primary purposes guided this quasi-experimental within-teacher study: (a) to examine changes from baseline through 2 years of professional development (Individualizing Student Instruction) in kindergarten teachers' differentiation of Tier 1 literacy instruction; and (b) to examine changes in reading and vocabulary of 3 cohorts of the teachers'…

This article highlights how an existing university-school partnership between a university and a kindergarten center was restructured in an attempt to bring academic and practitioner knowledge together in a more synergistic way in support of preservice teacher learning. In an effort to more closely connect a campus-based course that had a small…

The Finnish social pedagogical curriculum for early childhood education directs early childhood teachers to use documentation to assess and develop pedagogy and practise. This empirical study examines the challenges and benefits a group of Finnish preschool teachers experienced when they learned to document their work. Although the idea of…

Borderlands of practice are spaces where teachers are engaged in negotiating multiple conceptions of "best practices" within their daily teaching practice. Teachers at work in borderlands must actively negotiate varied conceptions, expectations, and assumptions about what is "best" for their students. These conceptions often…

This paper draws upon empirical research to provide insights into current teacher learning practices under broader neoliberal conditions, and how the latter might be resisted. The paper contrasts neoliberal approaches to teachers' learning with the Nordic tradition of educational action research and "Bildung" as alternative resources to…

In this essay, the authors share a professional dialogue about the ways in which issues of power emerge in preschool classrooms when teachers endeavor to build on children's home and school mathematical experiences and understanding. From different perspectives, as early childhood and mathematics education researchers, the authors discuss ways in…

Case studies provide numerous opportunities for professional development and can be particularly helpful in transdiciplinary training. This article offers suggestions for how to use the "Zero to Three" Journal's "Stories From the Field" series of articles across a variety of settings and roles such as clinical practice, program…

This study was designed to inform professional development in early childhood education (ECE) by examining the use of coaching to improve teacher performance in the classroom. Professional development programs that include coaching, a relationship-based method of enhancing application of newly acquired knowledge and skills, have received…

The purpose of this feminist case study was two-fold: (1) to describe the ways that Collaborative Inquiry (CI) can be proposed as a counter-discourse of professional development that acknowledges the multiple forms of personal and professional knowledge among five women preschool practitioners, and (2) to explore alternative constructs of the…

This paper contains a discussion of how the concept of critical aspects and the principle of compositionality can provide a powerful tool to analyse and understand the communications that occur in the classroom. It is grounded in data collected in a longitudinal study. The content chosen is algebra. It is argued that the critical aspects and the…

This article examines an in-service training for early childhood teachers in the context of a financial, administrative, and political crisis. Despite the crisis context of this case study, the professional development was considered successful by the participants and the facilitators. The key to overcoming the negativity and limitations of the…