Professional development is vital to PK-12 teachers' growth and student learning, contributing to school improvement (Barghani, 2021; Bredeson, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Snow-Renner & Lauer, 2005). Yet, with all the systems that have been put into place by NCLB (2001), and ESSA (2015) to provide PK-12 teachers with effective professional…

For over 50 years, the forest school approach to nature learning has gathered momentum in the UK and across parts of Europe including Scandinavia (Knight, 2016). In other contexts such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia, nature-based early childhood education and care settings, influenced by European forest school approaches, have begun to gain…

Though today's students are considered digital natives, they lack the digital literacy skills needed to be competent and productive members of a digital society. Students may have experience with using technology, but they need to develop specific skills that align with consuming and producing with technology. While there may be agreement that…

Mainstream images of "toddler" tend to serve a humorous purpose in mass media, most often presenting children of this age (18 months-3 years) as out-of-control. This assumed "barbaric" toddler promotes early childhood as a time for intervention, expecting adults to be the shapers of behavior and knowledge within discourses of…

Even though a substantial body of research suggests that adults' math talk fosters children's mathematics development and willingness to learn mathematics, little is known about how teachers make pedagogical decisions to communicate mathematics to young students. Supported by socio-constructivist and semiotic lenses, the study focuses on the close…

Social Emotional Development is an essential topic of continued interest and concern in a preschool setting. Teachers' application of the New Jersey State Department of Education Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards in Social Emotional Development has a necessary place in practice in a preschool setting. As a result, social competence…

Theoretically framed by public pedagogy, the study explores teachers' use of public sites for undocumented migrant children. The findings demonstrate that teachers utilized various non-school, informal, and public spaces including libraries/museums, open marketplaces, and public parks/squares as powerful platforms to foster children's learning,…

This paper presents a teaching scenario designed to introduce preschool children to electricity, structured around the 5E instructional model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate). The study involves 18 children from an urban kindergarten with diverse backgrounds and learning needs. Over four weeks, children engage in interactive…

Nowadays there is a growing research interest in the developments in the domain of Educational Robotics. The present paper is a systematic review of recently published Greek research pertaining to teaching interventions using robotic devices in order to present: a) a synthesis of the available results and the benefits from the utilization of…

The ontological turn in the humanities and social sciences has prompted some scholars of education to shift their focus of inquiry away from questions of epistemology (i.e., knowledge) to metaphysical matters related to being and the nature of existence. In this paper, I turn to ontology and make an argument for integrating and explicitly teaching…

The authors discuss the challenges and opportunities for teachers in facilitating social and emotional development in preschool children, creating partnerships with their families, and addressing their impeded progress induced by COVID-19. The authors further illuminate lessons learned and provide implications for partnering with families during…

This mixed-methods study investigated how two White preschool teachers, who were familiar with anti-bias pedagogy but had low training on anti-racist teaching strategies, discussed race and racism, using books, in two predominantly White classrooms. Teachers were observed in two classrooms, during book discussions with children, and teachers'…

In recent years, there has been a growing concern in science education on the enhancement of preschoolers' knowledge and motivation for concepts by implementing efficient teaching methods. This study explored the development and effectiveness of the E-sky Module in increasing the development of preschoolers in Project-based Learning (PBL)…

We investigated the extent to which practices considered developmentally appropriate and inappropriate varied by preschool program auspice (private, public school, and Head Start). Survey data from a 2010 national sample of 2,664 teachers of 4-year-olds provided teacher reports on the frequency of seven practices (e.g., offering children choices…

Early childhood teachers routinely facilitate play-based learning experiences in their physical classrooms; however, the pivot to virtual teaching platforms created a barrier for providing age appropriate, play-based learning opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are few studies exploring how to promote play in the virtual classroom or…