Early Childhood Australia

As I looked through this website, I saw many different current studies that grabbed my attention.

The first one was called, "It's a mystery!" A case study of implementing forensic science in preschool as scientific inquiry.

The reason this grabbed my attention of course was the title including the words, "forensic science," I mean really, forensic science for young children?? It sounded a little scary if you ask me.  However, it explained how young children are born with curiosity and desire to explore. It takes us through a preserve teacher that "goes on a bear hunt" to discover the mysterious bear paw print. This papers focus is on arguing that such a complex topic can still be implemented with young children.
Another topic I found interesting was on the physical environment. This study was titled, " How design of the physical environment impacts on early learning: Educator's and Parent's Perspectives. Its focus was on how feeling homely and welcome enhances the learning environment. This is something I truly strive to provide in my classroom and am drawn to any study regarding its benefit.

One observation I made about many of the topics I saw, was how parents perspectives was incorporated within many of the studies.


As I looked into the Early childhood Australia website, I found it was similar to some of the organizations within our country like NAEYC. Both of the organizations work together with government, early childhood professionals, and families  I also loved seeing the WEALTH of  free resources it provided for families regarding numerous topics like baby and toddler sleeping, school readiness, and childhood health.


Finally, as I searched through the links I found one regarding past speeches. This includes many past conferences in which Early Childhood Australia members commented on certain topics. My favorite is regarding what needs to happen in child care. I encourage you to check it out. http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/early_childhood_news/speeches/what_needs_to_happen_in_child_care.html

Research that Benefits Children and Families-Uplifting Stories

This week we have been able to look at research and its benefits to those around us. We have also discussed the very challenging topic of societal benefits in which it is okay to subject children to research. I think any time we bring children into the equation it hits a very soft, compassionate part of us, part the reason this was a tough topic for me. 
However, in the end research has provided numerous benefits over the years, one personal example is my dear brother. Those of you from previous courses have possibly read previous posts about him. At three years old Justin was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumor. When he was diagnosed with this tumor the survival rates were not very high at all. Not much was known about this type of cancer. We were blessed that he was one of the few survivors of this cancer at the time. After nearly 20 years of research, the survival rate is now at 85% .  St. Jude Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee is a hospital built with the mission to advance treatments and cures of catastrophic diseases such as cancer. Many forms of cancer that we once knew very little about, are now well known and have an extremely high survival rate, due to the tremendous amount of research that has occurred.When I think of St. Jude I think of the millions of families who are positively affected by the research that occurs within those walls each day. Please check out the article on Medulloblastoma http://www.stjude.org/stjude/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=557ad3ce38e70110VgnVCM1000001e0215acRCRD&vgnextchannel=406a0016380f0110VgnVCM1000001e0215acRCRD

Research Topic

 This week I had the opportunity to dive deep into one of the topics that has gained my interest during this school year. For the research simulation in this class I selected to focus on the topic, "Parenting styles impact on social-emotional development." In selecting a topic I was nervous because I was unsure if I would be able to find a variety of information on this topic. However, during this week I have found numerous articles that focus on this topic in there own way. I am excited to start my journey through this subject and hope that I can gain a more in depth knowledge of this topic, and possibly some strategies that may help me reach some of the students that initially pulled my interest to this subject.  I am interested to hear what my classmates may know regarding the correlations between parenting style and social- emotional development. What ways can I help these children as their teacher?