Childhood Education Innovations
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Childhood Education: Innovations is an education magazine that provides unique, stimulating information about educational programs around the world. Articles explore solutions to specific challenges affecting schools, teachers, and learners and showcase the most recent innovations being developed and implemented to address those challenges. Readers will find inspiration for transforming education to better serve children and society. Published 6 times a year, CE Innovations provides a window into the work being done to bring quality, equitable education to all children. It stands alongside the Journal of Research in Childhood Education as one of our signature publications.
CONTENTS
March/April 2023
“Inspiring Lasting Change Through the Star Power of a Prize”
The World’s Best School Prizes celebrate schools everywhere for the pivotal role they play in developing the next generation of learners and for their enormous contribution to society’s progress, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The winners of the five World’s Best School Prizes—for Environmental Action, Community Collaboration, Overcoming Adversity, Innovation, and Supporting Healthy Lives—share a $250,000 award. But as important as these funds are to improving education for children, especially in poorer contexts where resources are stretched thinnest, the prizes are about far more than just providing financial support to schools. Instead, they serve as a powerful platform to surface the expertise of trailblazing schools that are transforming the lives of their students and making a real difference to their communities.
“From Readers to Changemakers”
We Love Reading concentrates not only on the ability to read, but also on the intrinsic value of reading for pleasure. Moreover, the method is simple, cost-efficient, and driven by the impacted communities themselves. The approach centers on building capacity, not on the provision of materials. The fundamental goal is to foster a deep love of reading through the practice of reading aloud to children. By making reading an enjoyable experience rather than a chore associated with schoolwork, they are supporting children’s development into lifelong readers. They believe that in order to initiate real change, we must begin at the grassroots level through one-on-one interactions and focus on experience and building human potential.
“Supporting Scotland’s Schools Through Library Innovation”
The Scottish Government established the School Library Improvement Fund (SLIF), administered by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), to support creative and innovative projects at all state-run nurseries, primary schools, and secondary schools. The strategy highlights for decision-makers the intrinsic value of a good school library service and the impact it can have on children and young people’s wider school experience. It also informs headteachers, school librarians, and education practitioners on how to use their school library services and advises decision-makers of the central role school library services play in the education sector, as well as advocating for appropriately resourced services for each child in Scotland.
“Building Resilience Capacity in Young Children”
This article discusses what resilience is and how to think about resilience from intersectional and neuroscience viewpoints. It provides practical resilience-building strategies that educators can apply in the classroom. Understanding resilience from different perspectives will help early childhood educators build resilience capacity in young children so they can be best prepared to handle the traumas and hardships that occur in their lives. Children who have built resilience capacity can thrive despite adversities, alleviating the negative impacts on their well-being. Strong resilience allows children to not only “bounce back” from adversity but actually “bounce forward.” Such an approach enables children to learn and thrive and take advantage of a better environment that can sustain their health and well-being.
“When Programs Work Together, Families Learn Together”
The Robbinsdale Area School district, a suburban Minneapolis school district, has demonstrated its dedication to early childhood and parent education by providing a family literacy program, which combines ECFE and adult academic programming led by teachers licensed in their specific teaching area. Families attending the program are from a multitude of countries, including the United States. Each family participates in four component areas: adult academics, parent education, parent-child interaction, and children’s education. The parents have a specific educational need or desire, such as English language learning, GED, high school diploma, or basic skills. A strengths-based model is used as the foundation for this intergenerational program. Parents build on their skills and take an active role as teachers to their children.
“Healthy Kick Start: Back to School Health Fair”
Prior to going back to school, all school-age students and their parents in the southeast Ohio community served by the Gallia County Health Department have an opportunity to visit the county health fair. This program, which draws 350 to 400 people each year, is a collaborative effort of the county health department, job and family services, school nurses in two local school districts, and the Gallia-Vinton Educational Service Center (ESC). Job and family services provides the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds as approved by the County Commissioners and the educational service center coordinates the event. Immunization records are checked by the school nurses and the county health department nurses provide the required vaccinations for childhood diseases prior to entering school. They also provide on-site immunizations for both the flu and COVID-19.
“Reinvent the Classroom: Educators Unleash Student Innovation and Creative Talent”
Teachers continue intentionally finding new and exciting ways to create powerful learning opportunities for all students. Reinvent the Classroom, an initiative by Digital Promise, HP, Microsoft, and Intel, supports, celebrates, and amplifies educators and schools demonstrating such powerful teaching and learning by leveraging technology. In this article, the Digital Promise’s Reinvent the Classroom team magnifies the voices of eight HP Teaching Fellows who are consistently striving to provide all learners with learning experiences that are personal and accessible, authenticating and challenging, connected and collaborative, and inquisitive and reflective.
“Partnering With Children Through Visual Documentation”
Visual documentation (videography + photography) can facilitate children’s full participation in the stories and plans of their work and thereby invite a deeper literacy of agency and belonging. The shared medium of still and moving images invites shared power in the design and ongoing decisions about learning (and living!). The author works with teachers to optimize the benefits of visual documentation, showing them how to use smartphones and digital cameras to amplify children’s interests and ways of knowing and being and co-create mindsets and practices that nurture greater connections, openness to distinct possibilities, and healthy development.
“Sustainable Digital Teacher Professional Development Ecosystems in Education in Displacement Settings”
The Quality Holistic Learning Project team of the Center for Professional Learning looked into what support, open educational resources (OERs) platforms, and tools are already targeted and openly accessible to teachers, with a particular interest in bringing professional learning resources and opportunities to colleagues in the most remote or least digitally connected education in displacement (EiD) settings. This excerpt from the recently released report, Digital Teacher Professional Development in Education in Displacement (EiD) Settings: Access, equity, and quality, outlines the orientations and actions that should be taken into consideration when designing and implementing accessible, sustainable, and impactful digital teacher professional development programs.
“Creating Teacher Education Programs to Solve the Teacher Shortage”
What are the key factors to recruiting and retaining a diverse teacher workforce? The author believes it is the development of robust teacher education programs with an “earn-and-learn” approach. American University (AU) has developed the Teacher Pipeline Program (TPP), where District of Columbia’s (DC) high school students can earn college credit in education (i.e., dual enrollment) and a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential. If they become Teaching Fellows, they can apply the college credit to their undergraduate program of study. And they can use their CDA credential to work in early childhood settings. Teaching Fellows also receive full scholarships and teaching positions (with coaching) upon completion of their undergraduate degree program.