EC 400 Ashworth College Early Childhood Math and Science Discussion

Lecture Notes

In the previous seven lessons you learned a great deal about the developmental stages of young children and math and science curriculum objectives. You also learned how to plan activities that effectively match curriculum objectives with the developmental abilities of the students. This final lesson discusses choosing materials to enhance your math and science curriculum, and what it looks like when math and science are in action both in your classroom and in your students’ homes.

As you read, see if you can arrange learning centers for math and science, identify appropriate materials for teaching math and science, develop math and science games and activities with young children, plan and use blocks for math and science experiences, and explain to families the importance of involvement and implementing activities for teaching children at home.

This lesson presents you with some excellent guidelines for choosing manipulatives and resources for a classroom dedicated to quality math and science instruction. Materials that are selected to teach math and science and the format in which they are presented are vital for successful exploration. Materials must be appropriate and flexible to the developmental age of the children and the type of math and science learning required.

Learning centers are made to reach specific teaching objectives and must be evaluated for effectiveness. It is very important that your students put their hands on manipulatives daily to develop solid understandings of the math and science concepts you want them to grasp. The younger the students, the more time they need to spend interacting with the manipulatives. It is recommended that you keep your math manipulatives in easily accessible places for the students so they can use them during their free time. This allows the children to use manipulatives in a natural way, which encourages them to come up with other ways to use them as well.

Math manipulatives should be materials that can be used for multiple tasks. My students love to use attribute blocks during their free time to create pictures and even to build maps and cities. Perhaps the most versatile math manipulative is large blocks. When children block-build, they think like mathematicians and scientists because they are focusing on the problem and they use their thinking skills to find a solution. These can be used for play, building, patterning, measuring, and many other tasks as well. Parents can help provide math materials by sending in their “junk,” such as old buttons, beads, string, and other items that can be used for sorting and patterning.

Science materials should be items that will spark children’s interest and draw them into naturalist and informal interactions. Ideally, you should set up math and science centers in your classroom where students can work and play as they wish, or where you can assign specific tasks. Remember, children’s books are excellent math and science resources, too.

Technology is also a resource that can enhance math and science instruction; however, it should never replace instruction. A quality math and science classroom should promote exploration and thinking, and encourage kids to use their ideas to produce new problems to solve. It should also continuously challenge the students to move towards upper-level thinking strategies.

Later this lesson looks at math and science in action. In an early childhood classroom, this refers to exploration. Almost every activity in a child’s day and play can be related to math and science. This is done by providing them with plenty of manipulatives and resources to play with and by constantly using rich vocabulary when interacting with students. Math and science are all about problem solving which is a major part of every decision a young child makes. Math and science are also about observation, which is also a natural activity for young children that can be built upon as teachers show students how to record what they see using pictures, words, and graphs.

Furthermore, teachers need to encourage parents to teach math and science concepts at home by having students interact with them in their daily activities and asking questions that require problem solving. Activities such as cooking, gardening, caring for a pet, playing games, doing simple projects, and even looking for materials to bring to school are all ways parents can teach and reinforce math and science skills at home.

At my school, we hold a family math and science night twice a year. At this event, families get to participate and interact with math and science activities together. Each grade level sets up a developmentally appropriate activity that relates to science or math standards. The activities range from science experiments to simple addition and subtraction games. The school’s science and math night is by far one of the most well-attended events held during the school year. At the end of the night, families are given several take-aways in order to continue the love of learning at home.

There is currently a push for homework to be sent home. However, it is not ideal to assign written or time-consuming homework to young children. If homework must be assigned, you should assign activities that require parents to interact with the child in the ways that were just mentioned (cooking, gardening, caring for a pet, and so on). Additionally, homework should never address a brand new concept. It should be used only to review what the child is doing in class. If not, then the child is gaining little to no knowledge. Many times if the children cannot complete their homework on their own, then parents will complete it for them or the child will turn in the homework incomplete.

As this course wraps up, I hope you enjoyed learning about math and science in the early childhood curriculum. I hope you have been inspired to find creative ways to engage young students in learning math and science concepts and teach them across the curriculum. It is never too soon to start collecting children’s books you can use in your classroom. I also suggest starting file folders to keep ideas for centers, games, and activities.

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A Transdisciplinary Approach to Research on Early Childhood EducationThe past decades have seen a growing interest in early childhood education throughout the world. Although it is well established that education is a central pillar of any modern society and an essential ingredient of social well-being and economic prosperity, the insight that education should begin in the earliest years of life is still relatively young. As research has shown, early childhood is foundational for a broad range of human abilities and is a phase of increased sensitivity to environmental influences. In parallel, early childhood education has become a subject of debate in politics and civil society at large, and recent developments in policy making have transformed the landscapes and scopes of early education sectors in many countries(e.g.,Burger 2016). Furthermore, governments seek to tackle a range of additional societal challenges through the provision of early childhood education. For instance, they aim to reduce child poverty and educational disadvantage, promote children’s health, and counteract social exclusion of immigrant children.Full TextTranslateHeadnoteThere is much debate on early childhood education in research, politics, and society at large. Furthermore, early childhood education research and policy have become increasingly complex and multidimensional. Nonetheless, transdisciplinary research frameworks are still scarce. This report gives insights into a project that used a transdisciplinary approach, outlining its conceptualization and its potential for the definition and analysis of issues that transcend traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, academic and nonacademic knowledge production, and different domains of society.A Transdisciplinary Approach to Research on Early Childhood Education | GAIA 25/3(2016): 197-200 Keywords: early childhood, education for all, policy, transdisciplinarityThe Transdisciplinary Context of Education in Early ChildhoodThe past decades have seen a growing interest in early childhood education throughout the world. Although it is well established that education is a central pillar of any modern society and an essential ingredient of social well-being and economic prosperity, the insight that education should begin in the earliest years of life is still relatively young. As research has shown, early childhood is foundational for a broad range of human abilities and is a phase of increased sensitivity to environmental influences. During sensitive periods genetic dispositions and individual experiences inter actively shape the development of neural circuits which constitute the functional architecture of the brain (Knudsen et al. 2006). These neural circuits mediate cognitive and socio-emotional skills, and they are particularly plastic early in life. Thus researchers have argued that children should acquire a range of skills early in life, long before formal schooling begins, because early mastery of skills facilitates learning at later ages and also makes learning more likely to continue (Heckman 2006). The awareness of the critical importance of early educational experience for the later development of a child has emerged mainly from research in developmental psychology and neuroscience. However, further academic disciplines such as educational and political sciences, economics, sociology, and history have also been concerned with a wide variety of aspects of early childhood education and have contributed to an expanding field of study.In parallel, early childhood education has become a subject of debate in politics and civil society at large, and recent developments in policy making have transformed the landscapes and scopes of early education sectors in many countries(e.g.,Burger 2016).Governments have increasingly invested in early childhood education services to expand access for children and to develop more coherent and coordinated policies for early childhood development. Furthermore, governments seek to tackle a range of additional societal challenges through the provision of early childhood education. For instance, they aim to reduce child poverty and educational disadvantage, promote children’s health, and counteract social exclusion of immigrant children. They also aim to address demograph ic challenges such as decreasing fertility rates and population ageing. In addition, they intend to facilitate mothers’ labor force participation and promote gender equality, which includes the reconciliation of work and private life on an equitable basis for women and men (OECD 2006). In short, early childhood education policies have become increasingly complex and multidimensional. Besides, early childhood education sectors involve many different stakeholders, including national and local education authorities, departments of social affairs, the health sector, and public and private service providers. In such a context, research should adopt a combined inter- and transdisciplinary approach if it seeks to advance theory and to contribute to practical progress and/or policy change at once. Such an approach can provide a systematic and comprehensive theoretical framework for the definition and analysis of problems and challenges in a given field (Rosenfield 1992), in that it can integrate concepts and methods from different academic disciplines (interdisciplinary cooperation; see Smith 2007) as well as questions, perspectives and priorities of different stakeholders, including policy-makers and practitioners (transdisciplinary cooperation).My research project used such an approach to address a two-fold objective: 1. to enhance our theoretical understanding of the role that early childhood education plays for child development and for society at large; 2. to contribute to the practical advancement of effective early childhood education policies. To address this double objective, the project combined methods and paradigms from multiple disciplines and took into account societal developments as well as legal and cultural norms in the analysis (interdisciplinarity). In addition, the project integrated scientific and nonscientific knowledge and aimed to contribute to both scholarly and political debates on early childhood education(transdisciplinarity). In sum, the project was designed in response to an open question in the scientific debate and to a challenge facing policymakers – notably, how early childhood education can be devised and used to support child development, alleviate poverty, and reduce educational disadvantage.Developments in Politics and Research ObjectivesThe inter- and transdisciplinary project described here originated within the political context of the Education for All movement, an international commitment to provide basic education for all children, launched in 1990 by several UN Organizations and the World Bank, and coordinated and monitored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Building on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Conven tion on the Rights of the Child, the international community reaffirmed the notion of education as a fundamental human right, recognized that universal education is the key to sustainable development and social justice, and committed itself to the attainment of six education goals to meet the basic learning needs of every child. The first of these goals was to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children(UNESCO 2007). My research examined three major questions related to the realization of this goal. First, how has early childhood education evolved inWestern societies? Second, to what extent is early childhood education accessible for all children regardless of family background characteristics? Third, to what extent does early childhood education respond to children’s learning needs and, thus, promote their development?Complementarity and Interdisciplinary Integration of Scientific Disciplines and MethodsSituated conceptually at the juncture between educational science, sociology, psychology, and history, the project applied a range of methods, both qualitative and quantitative. Drawing on multiple disciplines and methods means acknowledging that different disciplines and techniques have specific advantages and limitations (depth versus breadth, singularity versus generalizability, etc.) and that the selection and combination of disciplines and methods should be determined by the questions and problems being addressed (Lamont and Swidler 2014). Accordingly, given the questions of the project, I employed comparative-historical methods mainly to shed light on the sociopolitical conditions that have shaped the historical development of early childhood education policies and practices. Analysis of historical primary sources as well as secondary sources from social science research showed, for instance, that transnational connections and transfer of knowledge between countries such as France and the United States were important determinants of developments in policy-making, serving to facilitate the expansion of early childhood care and educa tion facilities in the United States. This analysis also highlighted that discrepancies in the use and funding of early childhood care and education facilities between countries can be traced to disparities in the main purposes and administration of facilities. For instance, in liberal welfare states such as the United States public subsidies for early childhood facilities have consistently been restricted to low-income families, whereas in countries like France the activities of voluntary and philanthropic organizations involved in childcare and early education have been subsidized publicly and regulated by the central state’s government to a much greater extent. Moreover, in France family matters have typically been considered a public rather than a purely private concern (Burger 2012, 2014).Beyond comparative-historical methods, I used statistical methods and large-scale survey data on early childhood edu ca tion and child development. This allowed for highlighting considerable social gradients in access to early education services. In addition, the quantitative analysis revealed a positive association between attendance of early childhood education programs and levels of cognitive development in primary school in Switzerland.Finally, systematic review methods allowed for synthesizing previous findings so as to reach conclusions that can be considered less context-dependent than those of individual studies.For example, the review of research provided evidence of substantial positive short-term effects and less sizeable longer-term effects of early childhood education on children’s development in bothWestern and non-Western countries. Relative to children from well-offfamilies, those from more disadvantaged backgrounds made as much or slightly greater developmental progress. However, early childhood education typically does not compensate fully for developmental deficits which often result from adverse learning environments in socially deprived households (Burger 2010). On the whole, the interdisciplinary integration of disciplines and methods in this project presupposed a close dialogue with experts from the respective disciplines as well as ample consideration of the respective literatures.Transdisciplinary Integration of Scientific and Nonscientific KnowledgeBy integrating scientific and nonscientific knowledge about early education experiences, the project widened analytic perspectives, allowing for an understanding of early education that is at best deeper and broader than one likely to come exclusively from within academia. As a case study, I used a literary document to investigate educational processes in early childhood. Specifically, I examined the first part of Elias Canetti’s (1977) autobiography, The Tongue Set Free, from the perspective of pedagogical, psychological, and sociological theory. Canetti’s account describes the interplay between psychological and environmental determinants of educational processes in early childhood, outlining how microlevel characteristics and macro-level contexts combine to shape educational experiences. In this autobiographical work, specificities of educational experiences in early childhood are not described in a scientistic manner, and no claims are made regarding theoretical generalizability (Burger 2013). Focusing on the author’s idiosyncratic description of early educational experiences enabled me to trace insights that differed from those emerging from purely scientific analyses. For instance, my analysis underlined that psychological variables such as desire figure prominently in educational processes. This is a novel finding suggesting that salient intra-personal driving forces of educational processes should be considered more explicitly in future quantitative research.More generally, figure 1 (p. 200) illustrates the different domains that have been taken into account in the project – societal issues, science, politics, culture, law, and norms. It also indicates how these domains (may) interrelate. Considering these domains jointly and demonstrating their interrelations allows for developing a more comprehensive theory of early childhood education as well as for raising stakeholders’ awareness of the multiple factors that contribute to the functioning of early childhood education.Transdisciplinarity from an Epistemological and Practical PerspectiveThe question now arises whether the transdisciplinary approach revealed part of what is between, across, and beyond the disciplines; whether it helped to structure insights in view of a growing body of knowledge from different disciplines; and/or whether it contributed to the solution of a societal problem – which would constitute some of the specific benefits of transdisciplinarity (e.g., Nicolescu 2002).Undoubtedly, the transdisciplinary approach allowed for cross-fertilization of disciplines, that is, exchange of concepts and paradigms between disciplines. To give but one example, psychological aspects of early educational experiences had not been described thoroughly in psychology or educational science previously. Thus the transdisciplinary approach generated shared knowledge across disciplines and yielded results in domains that had not been observed before owing to commonly accepted limits of traditional disciplines. In addition, some of the main findings did not only go beyond disciplines, but were also taken up, for instance, by actors like the World Health Organization (WHO) and foundations committed to improving children’s lives – for example, the finding of the systematic review whereby early childhood education programs tend to compensate for adverse learning conditions that children face in disadvantaged milieus with only few informal learning opportunities. Besides, my project was the starting point of a collaboration with the Jacobs Foundation which subsequently resulted in the elaboration of a quality label for childcare facilities in Switzerland. Hence the transdisciplinary approach may have proven itself valuable in contributing to solve societal issues.From a more general theoretical perspective, the findings of transdisciplinary research can enter into a circular process by forming themselves the components of novel scientific hypotheses and theories, and they can inform policy-making. It should be acknowledged that transdisciplinary research is nourished by disciplinary research. Hence it is rooted in disciplinary paradigms and needs to assess the value of these paradigms with respect to the creation of new knowledge or to the solution of a practical problem. However, transdisciplinary research brings competing disciplines into a dialogue, articulates different dimensions of society (e.g., politics and science), and integrates scientific and nonscientific knowledge, as described above. In this respect transdisciplinary research can produce original findings which may advance theory, practice, and policy-making at once. Disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are complementary. Both are important in early childhood education research, and both should be developed further in the future.ReferencesReferencesBurger, K. 2010. How does early childhood care and education affect cognitive development? An international review of the effects of early interventions for children from different social backgrounds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 25/2: 140-165.Burger, K. 2012. A social history of ideas pertaining to childcare in France and in the United States. Journal of Social History 45/4: 1005 -1025.Burger, K. 2013. Early childhood care and education and equality of opportunity: Theoretical and empirical perspectives on social challenges. Wiesbaden: Springer.Burger, K. 2014. Entanglement and transnational transfer in the history of infant schools in Great Britain and salles d’asile in France, 1816-1881. History of Education 43/3: 304 -333.Burger, K. 2016. Intergenerational transmission of education in Europe: Do more comprehensive education systems reduce social gradients in student achievement? Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 44: 54 -67.Canetti, E. 1977. Die gerettete Zunge. Geschichte einer Jugend. Munich: Hanser.Heckman, J. J. 2006. Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children. Science 312/5782: 1900-1902.Knudsen, E. I., J. J. Heckman, J. L. Cameron, J. P. Shonkoff. 2006. Economic, neurobiological, and behavioral perspectives on building America’s future workforce. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 103/27: 10155-10162.Lamont, M., A. Swidler. 2014. Methodological pluralism and the possibilities and limits of interviewing. Qualitative Sociology 37/2: 153-171.Nicolescu, B. 2002. Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.OECD(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2006. Starting strong II: Early childhood education and care. Paris: OECD.Rosenfield, P. L. 1992. The potential of transdisciplinary research for sustaining and extending linkages between the health and social sciences. Social Science and Medicine 35/11: 1343-1357.Smith, P.M. 2007. A transdisciplinary approach to research on work and health: What is it, what could it contribute, and what are the challenges? Critical Public Health 17/2: 159-169.UNESCO(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). 2007. Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education. Paris: UNESCO.Submitted May 27, 2016; revised version accepted July 27, 2016.AuthorAffiliationContact: Dr. Kaspar Burger | University of Geneva (UNIGE) (Valais Campus) | Center for Children’s Rights Studies | P.O. Box 4176 | 1950 Sion 4 | Switzerland | Tel.: +41 27 2057314 | E-Mail: [removed] K.Burger; licensee oekom verlag. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Kaspar BurgerBorn 1980 in Aarau, Switzerland. 2012 PhD at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. 2012 to 2014 senior research and teaching assistant at the University Institute Kurt Bösch, Sion, Switzerland, and scientific consultant. Since 2015 senior research and teaching assistant at the Center for Children’s Rights Studies,University of Geneva,Switzerland. Research interests: sociology of education, educational psychology, children’s rights.Word count: 2549Copyright Oekom – Gesellschaft fuer Oekologische Kommunikation mbH 2016