Policymakers have underscored the importance of professional development (PD) opportunities for supporting the early childhood education workforce. Yet little is known about how the scope and delivery of PD opportunities impact the extent to which the content provided informs classroom practice. In the present study, we explored how teacher…

Childhood psychological trauma is currently gleaning attention in many fields of study. Subsequently, Trauma-Informed Practice (TIP) is becoming integral to many organizations that service children and families. A gap, however, is noted in literature between this approach to practice and pre-service early years professionals who study to work in…

Professional collaboration is widely seen as an important component in educator professional development, but we know little about the interactional processes that undergird teacher learning in collaborative workgroups. This paper focuses on four collaborative workgroups in a yearlong, mathematics-focused professional development series for…

Despite the burgeoning literature that describes the most effective ways of engaging early childhood educators in professional learning, very little empirical work in North America has examined the processes, dialogs, and engagements in which educators participate to address quality as a social construct. This article (1) describes a model of…

The mentoring and evaluating process enhances quality of teachers' serving in early childhood programs. The Early Educator Support (EES) Program is a new model of mentoring and coaching that aims to lend support to PreK teachers' working in nonpublic school settings. In this qualitative study, we examined the lived experiences of 12 mentors and…

Spurred by the 1986 IDEA reauthorization, the movement toward collaborative, or blended, preservice early childhood personnel preparation now spans an impressive 30-year history. In this paper, we trace the evolution of blended preparation by applying a conceptual framework that situates the development of blended program identity within a…

Despite the efficacy of assistive technology (AT), many children with disabilities do not have access to AT and are not fully benefiting from inclusive preschool education. The current mixed-methods study examined a multi-faceted professional development (PD) intervention aligned with the CEC's Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education…

This article proposes a reconceptualization of the relationship between two early childhood professional standards, the "Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators" (NAEYC, 2019) and the "Practice-Based Professional Preparation Standards for Early Interventionists/Early Childhood Special Educators"…

Even with increasing calls for both researchers and educators to attend to the "E" in STEM from within the larger field of STEM education, little is known about the practices that serve to support early educators' pedagogy and related content knowledge of engineering design. Using multiple methods in a revelatory, embedded, single-case…

The study aims to reveal preschool teacher candidates' online practicum experiences during the pandemic -- the teacher candidates connected to preschool classes online while the children were face-to-face with their class teachers. The participants of this phenomenological study were 18 preschool teacher candidates studying at a public university…

This qualitative study examines the professional development of early education preservice teachers and the initiatives behind the formation of a professional identity in the early stages of their studies. Professional identity is examined through the motivational factors that guide students to a minor in early education. The theoretical framework…

In this study, the environmental education (EE) component of the pre- school teacher training programs at six (6) universities in Vietnam were examined to identify the challenges of implementing EE in these programs. The framework for the pre-school teacher training program at these universities were analyzed and 18 students in their final year of…

Reflective practice is one of the key recommended practices in early childhood (EC) education and has been positively associated with the quality of EC teaching; however, research on reflective practice in preschool teaching is limited. In this study, we examined four preschool teachers' reflections on their science teaching exhibited through a…

Attention to students' socio-emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes raises important considerations for the psychological well- being of teachers, especially Head Start teachers who often work with underserved families. This scoping review summarizes current literature on Head Start teacher psychological well-being and identifies (1) how…

This article contributes to knowledge about mentoring in preschool, which is important as research on mentoring of preschool teachers is limited. The study examines how in-service preschool teachers perceive their assignment as a mentor. The aim is to develop the understanding of "mentoring as support" among pre-school teacher mentors in…