In a span of about three days in the spring of 2023, the author's Instagram feed became inundated with mentions of artificial intelligence (AI), including Chat GPT, text-to-image models, and much more. She would turn on the radio and hear about the controversy surrounding AI, or look at her cousin's social media posts about the injustices of her…

Learning to read is one of the most important components of education and literacy skills in early childhood have a significant impact on later reading success. There is an abundance of quantitative research focused on reading, known as the science of reading. However, gaps and flaws have been identified in the research, indicating that an…

Given the current tumultuous education climate, we as EdD faculty seek to engage in critical reflection and reimagine the affordances--opportunities for action (Gee, 2008; Gibson, 2014)--provided by our program structures and our teaching practices. In this article, three faculty members (including one department chair and one interim program…

When Daisy Han first encountered a Montessori classroom, she actually felt free. Free to move, free to create, free to explore, free to try, free to fail, free to be. This freedom is essential to becoming an innovator. Innovators possess an irreverence almost as big as their self-efficacy, both of which have been nurtured in an environment where…

Montessori is a highly individualized pedagogy that prioritizes following each child's individual interests over standardized test scores. This quasi-experimental study compares groups of Montessori students (treatment groups, N = 535-710) with control groups of non-Montessori students, matched through the simple matching method, which controls…

Africa is rich in natural resources and magnificent flora and fauna; it is also a place full of kind and hospitable people and as diverse in cultures and traditions as any other continent. The author was born in Uganda, in East Africa, and lived there until 2008, when she relocated to the United States to join her husband, a university professor.…

As an assistant editor in the Photography department at the New York Times, the author manages a team of seven visual editors who assign photographers to stories all over the globe. Recently, one of her team members approached her to let her know that the amount of violence he was subjected to was having an effect on his mental state. It made the…

Numerous students across the United States are observed as being disengaged and bored in several of their learning experiences. Similarly, innumerable students also self-report being bored and disengaged. Over 40% of South Carolina (SC) students in Grades 3-8 report being compliant, disengaged, or mixed in all three domains (behaviorally,…

Montessori education is characterized by autonomous learning, whereas traditional education is often depicted by high structure and fewer choice opportunities. This study examined differences in beliefs of Montessori and traditional teachers in regard to effectiveness, normality, and ease of autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching, as well as…

As an expression of personal and group identity, recognizing holidays conveys to others what teachers and their school value. Each child constructs a complex identity through experiences with their environment, "including" the holidays observed and valued by their family and broader culture. When a school community represents a child's…

Maria Montessori strongly advocated for music learning to be fully integrated into the classroom; however, many Montessori classrooms are dominated by materials aimed at developing children's visual sense. The purpose of this critical participatory action research (CPAR) study was to address this perceived learning disparity by developing and…

This paper attempts to open out investigations in ECEC by working beyond anthropocentric accounts of gender. Drawing upon feminist new materialist philosophies we ask whether it might be possible to reconfigure ideas about gender that recognise it as produced through everyday processes and material-affective entanglements. In order to do this, we…

Teacher knowledge needed for teaching is widely studied to characterize its key categories. We report findings from a study on teachers' knowledge for mathematics in the Montessori schools. In Montessori accredited schools, teachers learn to teach mathematics in ways different from the teachers themselves experienced in non-Montessori schools. We…

This is the second article in a series about diversity and inclusivity in Montessori environments. The series addresses the necessity of intentional, anti-bias-oriented teachings and practices and highlight some of the movers and shakers the authors have identified as working for social justice in Montessori. Before analyzing the realities of…

In this talk, Linda Davis discusses observation at the adolescent level. She explains that we must "adjust our approach for the third plane of development, for when they are becoming adults." Using examples, she discusses the characteristics of this plane, which are helpful to recall when thinking about what to expect when observing…