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Risky play promotes learning for children but can be challenging for adults who may then avoid providing these opportunities for children. Research about educators' intentional teaching for risky play is limited. The focus of this paper is a project where educators sought to change practice by embedding intentional teaching within children's risky play. A centre team in Newcastle Australia comprising practitioner researchers with a University Research Mentor used action research to plan, implement and report the research. Positive changes in intentional teaching for risky play were documented. We argue that using action research for risky-play change led to professional gains for educators and strengthened children's risk-competence using an intentional teaching strategy constructed for risky play. This paper aims to increase awareness of authentic professional learning for educators about intentional teaching and risky play via action research.

Many scholars and researchers now have a broadened vision of literacy that encompasses the social practices that surround literacy learning. What accompanies this vision is a shift towards thinking that children, and their families, can contribute actively to literacy learning by drawing on their strengths and life experiences to create and draw meaning from a broad range of everyday sources. For many, reading and writing from print-based texts is no longer considered the only, or most desirable, avenue to literacy learning. It is now recognised that children's social and cultural lives should be used as a resource for literacy learning. Using four literacy learning lenses, we examine the Nigerian National Policy for Integrated Early Childhood Development. These lenses are: collaboration with families, the role of educators, literacy-rich environments, and diversity and multimodality. Recent research around early literacy learning underpins our analysis to identify where the policy could more strongly refer to the role of families and educators and to argue that there is scope for greater attention to early literacy learning in the policy.

There is well-established evidence that the quality of early childhood education workforce impacts upon children's learning. Attracting qualified teacher graduates to work in early childhood centres is an essential component towards the provision of quality care. Significant investment by the Australian Government has been made to prepare early childhood teachers, yet teaching at this level is characterised by poorer working conditions compared with primary school teachers. Various programme models qualify applicants as early childhood teachers, yet there is no evidence of the most appropriate model. Our study's focus was to identify reasons for entering a teacher education programme, career intentions and satisfaction of pre-service teachers enrolled in early childhood/primary degree programmes at two Australian universities. Findings demonstrate that the degrees were not fulfilling the government investment goals for increasing early childhood teacher numbers, nor were the degrees meeting student expectation for an early childhood teaching career. We argue that renewed policy strategies are required to support new early childhood graduates and professionals, and attract teachers to work in early childhood education.

Practitioner research is increasingly used by and with teachers to counter discourses and policies of top-down standardisation. Growing numbers of researchers advocate benefits as the learning and empowerment of educators, and the sense of achievement for university researchers when they research with rather than about educators. We focus here on initiatives that engaged educators in planning and reflecting on their own professional learning (PL). A research project entitled Research Connections: Practitioner research engagement network for early childhood educators, combined professional learning and research through a research network of early childhood centres and university researchers working collaboratively for a year to plan and implement research projects intended to improve self-identified aspects of centre practice. We report the project model and present findings that suggest that the practitioner researchers valued learning about research processes that embedded intentional planning to construct and use their own knowledge and understanding of core curriculum concepts, increasing the likelihood of sustainable change. We argue that practitioner research proves a powerful and useful way for educators to drive improvements to their own practice. Educators have built the capacity to advocate for policy that recognises their strengths in planning their own professional learning.

Practitioner research is an approach increasingly used by and with teachers, including in early childhood (EC) education. Studies outlining the benefits of educator engagement in research show learning, empowerment and self-determination in professional direction. There is also a sense of achievement for university researchers when they research "with" rather than "about" educators. This paper reports findings from a collaborative Australian practitioner research project focused on building capacity in educators' research abilities, pedagogical knowledge and classroom practices. Four EC centres engaged in action research projects intended to investigate self-identified aspects of their practice under the mentorship of University Research Mentors (URMs). A sociocultural methodology underpinned the approach that supported educators to work with others, moving their knowledge forward within their cultural context. Practitioner researchers reported that the model was sustainable because their self-selected research was meaningful and relevant and they grew to feel more professional. We argue that practitioner research provides an alternative to traditional research where external researchers decide on the research focus, collect their data and leave. We draw attention to the need for policy-makers to recognise and value the contributions educators are capable of making by researching and changing their own practice in collaboration with experienced academics.

Young children in many parts of the world are spending more time in formal education and care settings. As children have the right to be heard on matters that affect them, their views about the early childhood environments they inhabit, need to be included in the process of placemaking. Early childhood environments have the potential to shape a child's identity, sense of belonging and inclusion. This research sought children's ideas about their early childhood setting, with the view to informing the design of a new inclusive centre. Researching with children aged three-to-five, from a low socio-economic ethnically diverse suburb, multi-modal data were generated in three phases: child-led photo-taking tours; photo elicited interviews; and interview elicited drawing. Findings showed a preference for the outdoors, along with places for hiding, safety, cleanliness and authentic rather than 'fake' resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) can have positive effects on the learning and development of children. Adults and peers have a critical role in harnessing the potential. The authors' attention in this article is on teacher practices. Through case studies of four early childhood teachers' pedagogical roles and practices while children were using ICTs in Shanghai preschools, the authors reveal four main roles: facilitator, observer, guide and knowledge transmitter. Teachers were predominantly instructing and transmitting knowledge and were rarely observed to take responsive mediating approaches, despite proactive Chinese ICT policies which however lack specific curriculum guidance on pedagogy. Teachers were falling back on their traditional training and practices, leading to misalignment between policy which advocates guidance and democratic practice, and teachers' actual practices. Drawing on Vygotsky's concept of mediation, the authors advocate further learning about sociocultural approaches that have been shown to be beneficial in supporting teachers to take active and dynamic pedagogical roles and to employ a range of interactive and democratic strategies to empower children's learning. Further investigation is needed to ascertain whether such teachers are rejecting interactive pedagogical approaches, or have not yet learnt about effective interactive strategies.

The place of ethics in the professions is often unquestioned. What is not so clear is the awareness of students of early childhood education about ethical issues and their contribution to ethical practice. This study investigated student experiences and perceptions of ethical dilemmas in their practicums. A survey of 171 early childhood students at two Australian universities was used to establish: (1) the level of student awareness of the existence of the Australian Early Childhood Association's "Code of Ethics"; (2) what they believe constitutes ethics; and (3) their perceptions of ethical dilemmas encountered in their practicums and their ability to respond. Results indicated that there seemed to be the general expectation that codes of ethics are imposed from beyond the day-to-day lives of practitioners and that there is little sense of ownership of what is contained within such codes and limited consideration of the students' own moral and ethical stances. All but two students were aware of the Code of Ethics, while more than two-thirds of the students reported that they had witnessed three or more situations of ethical dilemma while completing practicums. The dilemmas that were described, however, indicated some confusion in understanding the difference between ethical dilemmas and the observation of poor practice. Dilemmas could be placed into three categories: interactions and practices, abuse, and supervision of practicum students. Data also showed that students' perceptions of their ability to handle ethical dilemmas were correlated with their year in the program. (Contains 11 references.) (EV)

THE SEARCH TO IMPROVE achievement in literacy is worldwide. Success is seen as an important social and cultural marker. Contemporary scholars discuss the importance of children's social interactions as they co-construct literacy learning. As early childhood educators play a role in children's communities, their knowledge and literacy teaching and learning approaches are important, and the focus of this paper. Practitioner research, using a literacy environment rating scale and photostories, was used to focus on change in early literacy environments. I share the methods, processes, strategies and approaches for strengthening practice to offer support for others planning and implementing practitioner research or early literacy-focused projects. Action research, accompanied by the use of the mediating artefacts of the scale and photostories, was found to be a useful methodology for change in literacy learning environments, but was not without challenges., Introduction and background Language and literacy are key human achievements for fulfillment, meaning-making and transmission, critical consciousness and empowerment in social, cultural and political life, freeing people to achieve a [...]

Western research over the last decade has shown that early childhood (EC) teachers' perspectives on the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the early years strongly shape young children's experiences in educational settings and affect the integration of ICT into the classroom. The research in China is scant however. This article reports a study of Chinese EC teachers' views on the use of ICT in preschools. Data consist of illustrative original quotations generated from interviews with four teachers, as part of a larger study. This study shows that Chinese preschool teachers had an emerging understanding about social and technological impacts on the use of ICT in early childhood education (ECE), but they recognised the value of ICT for young children and themselves in a limited way. This restrained young children's active and meaningful use of ICT for early learning and development. We argue that there is a need to develop explicit ICT polices and curriculum guidelines for the ECE system that emphasise young children's active and creative use of ICT for early learning and development, and better support teacher learning.

This paper describes a process in which early childhood professionals, who were novice researchers, engaged in their own research projects in collaboration with academics through a practitioner inquiry group. The aim of the project was to introduce the concepts and practices of practitioner enquiry, and learn about, plan and implement a self-initiated change project in consultation with academics. The paper details how a group of teachers succeeded in sustaining a community of practice that promoted teacher professionalism and change. Research has previously called for a shift in professional habitus and raised concerns about the value of teacher learning groups, the dispositions of teachers to call on academic research, and by implication, the desire to work actively with academics. Here we draw upon empirical data to raise the hope that the enablement and dissemination of collaborative change-focused research projects, while challenging, may provide viable avenues for successful teacher change. (Contains 1 table and 2 notes.)

The authors report on a project in which a new experiential form of professional learning combined ethical thinking processes with a collaborative meeting technology known as the Zing team learning system (ZTLS). A new software program called "Working Wisely" was built by the completion of the project. The ZTLS in combination with "Working Wisely" facilitates communities of practice (Fleer, Edwards, Hammer, Kennedy, Ridgway, Robbins, & Surman, 2006; Wenger, 1998) focused on ethical issues. The participants in the pilot project included 10 staff members of an early childhood education facility (long day care centre) who met for a series of professional development sessions in a learning community that combined industry, university, and commercial stakeholders. By the end of the project, participants were able to move their knowledge from individual tacit knowledge to shared articulated knowledge with an ethical focus. This paper focuses on the facilities that were embedded in the software to develop thinking and discourse processes. The authors faced challenges in translating paper-based thinking processes with numerous steps into simple methods that could be undertaken on an information communication technology (ICT) platform using the ZTLS. These were resolved by the development of miniature and iterative dialectical thinking processes within thinking steps that facilitated discourse. The use of dialectical and ethical discourse in this community of practice led to positive outcomes and has considerable potential in many other areas of academic endeavour. We have called our new type of interaction Ethical Dialectical Discourse. (Contains 3 figures.)

Globalisation has changed the way most people live, work and study in the 21st century. Teachers and teacher educators, like other professionals, must embrace these changes to be effective in their jobs and one ongoing change is the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for lifelong learning. In this paper we describe how one group of academics in a university programme preparing new teachers has embraced change to introduce innovative programmes using ICTs and heutagogy rather than pedagogy. Heutagogy prepares students for the self-determined lifelong learning which is essential for survival in a 21st century world.

All early childhood educators, whether they work directly or indirectly with children and families, are confronted with problematic situations that involve ethical issues needing to be resolved. Ethical issues arise in early childhood educators' relationships with children, with families, with colleagues, with supervisors, with students and with the community and society. In this article, it is argued that early childhood students in their professional preparation courses should be exposed to ethical inquiry and become actively engaged in making ethical judgements. It is our proposition that they will then enter the profession of early childhood education as ethical thinkers well-equipped to make sound ethical judgements. The Ethical Response Cycle is presented as a process-based tool for helping professionals apply and justify sensitive and systematic reflective reasoning to problematic situations. The cycle can be used by tertiary educators and students in professional preparation programs and by professionals already in the workplace., Introduction Establishing and maintaining professionalism of the highest standard is critical for all early childhood educators, whether they work directly or indirectly with children and families. It is argued in [...]

The study examined adult-child interactions during conversation with respect to the effects of adult paralinguistic speech variations on the speech production of four four-year-old children. Analysis indicated that each child's response time latency (RTL) was significantly longer when the experimenter's RTL was longer. (Author/DB)

People in leadership positions in early childhood services have multifaceted jobs. Underpinning all aspects of their leadership is the need to act ethically and to lead their team to do likewise. In this paper it is argued that acting ethically is not enough, particularly in a climate of change and challenge. Leaders are called on to reconceptualise their ideas about the importance of the ethical agenda to all aspects of their work. They are prompted to show conceptual leadership by not only leading ethically but also finding ways in which they can move the ethical agenda in Australia forward. Some ideas are proposed and leaders are asked to reconsider the importance of ethics in their work within early childhood settings and beyond., In a Sydney newspaper recently I saw a small article that outlined how child care centres were closing in less affluent suburbs of gydney. The author (unnamed) went on to [...]

The issue of professional ethics is often the subject of media attention. Currently in many parts of Australia, the behaviour of politicians, police, teachers, and journalists is under scrutiny, leading [...]