My Personal Research Journey

I chose the topic of Autism for my simulation. When I graduated from college, my first job was an internship at non-profit Autism organization. I interned for 3 months then begin to work part time as a Programs Coordinator. Before this job, I only knew of the term Autism and maybe about one symptom. However, I began to learn a little more and had the privilege of meeting wonderful children and families. After a year and a half I decided to get a job in the early childhood field. I still wanted to do work with Autism but wanted to get my foot in the door of early childhood as well. About a month ago, my former boss asked me to join the team again for a school the organization is building for children in Ghana with Autism. I gladly joined and was interested in getting back to working on the issue of Autism. I chose Autism as my simulation topic to learn more and start back where I left off.

This week I did a research chart on understanding research. The more assignments I complete each week, the better I understand what research truly entails. I have come to understand that research is more than just reviewing an article or a book. Research starts first from understanding and analyzing the journal, article, or book and checking for its quality and credibility. Although I an understanding how to first go about research, I am still a little worried that the information may be overwhelming. I guess the best thing for me is to review what I learn each week and begin to apply what I learn. I will also seek in my colleagues and professor if I am ever confused or frustrated. 

Building Research Competency

Starting my fifth class on my journey to receiving my Master's.
Excited to learn and share once again!!

Final Blog Assignment

Throughout these past weeks, I was able to connect with professionals in the Early Childhood Field while also learning about current issues and trends on an international level.

Three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field for my professional and personal development:

1. Establishing Connections

 I had a challenging time connecting with international contacts. Once I found 2 professionals, I was sure that everything would go great and we would communicate on a weekly basis. However, this was not the case. Either my contacts responded late or never responded.

2. Increased Awareness

Although I did have a hard time establishing my connections, I was not deterred from learning about early childhood issues and trends abroad. I was able to study about issues in other countries from the different websites provided by Dr. Meyers. Even though, I was not able to verbally communicate with professionals; I still became aware of issues by studying and exploring international early childhood websites.

3. Increased Interest

From these assignments, I gained a lot more interest in early childhood internationally. I learned that children internationally are in need of a lot more support especially those living in poverty.

Goal for the field related to international awareness of issues and trends and the spirit of collegial relations:

My goal for the field is to establish and maintain connections with international professionals. I would encourage us to not give up if our connections fail, but to continue to reach out and share and learn from international professionals. 

International Contacts—Part 3

I have been very unlucky with my contacts. One gets back to me usually late and not in time for this assignment no matter how much I emphasize when I need his response back. My other contact just has not responded to me in a while so I had no choice, but to explore UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage.

UNESCO has different initiatives to address education challenges in developing countries. One of their initiatives it titled, LIFE: The Literacy Initiative for Empowerment.  LIFE is a 10 year initiative targeting 35 countries that have 85 percent of the world’s illiterate population. It began in 2006 and will end in 2015. According to UNESCO, “Eighty-five percent of the world’s non-literate population resides in these countries, and two-thirds are women and girls”. LIFE targets African, Arab, and Asian and Pacific countries. I decided to look at the initiative in Africa (one of my professional goals is to build a quality child care center in Africa ) to see what their goals are there. I was hopi9ng they would specify which countries in Africa they are targeting, but they did not. The main focus on LIFE Africa LIFE focuses on the following strategic areas:

• Advocacy and communication to make literacy a priority on the agenda of different stakeholders and create a momentum for pooling resources and jointly accelerating literacy efforts;

• Capacity-building for the development of policies for sustainable and empowering literacy;

• Capacity-building for the delivery of empowering literacy programmes of good quality;

• Sharing of knowledge and inspiring innovations to continuously improve literacy policies and practices.

To make this initiative possible, they will need the support of the government, communities, civil society organizations, parliamentarians and international partners.

The more I explored the webpage, I discovered that they have a UNESCO Africa section and one of their main headquarters is in Nigeria; I was pretty excited once I discovered this. Nevertheless, I read an article on education in Africa and if progress was made. The article was about the Africa Education for All Conference from October 16-19, 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to the report, not all their goals have been made. They mentioned that 31 million children are out of school and the biggest gaps are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The countries have a deadline to reach their goals by the year 2015.

I also read an article on early childhood development in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2010 there was a conference on Early Childhood Development held in Singapore to discuss the importance of early learning for children under the age of three. In the Asia-Pacific region, most of the focus is on preschool and primary school, but ages 0-3 are often neglected. During the conference they launched the “Resources Package for 0-3”. The package aims to equip policy makers, practitioners and parents with a range of information on ECD for the under 3 period. Also, each country made a commitment to step up advocacy on Early Childhood Development especially for ages 0-3.

It was great to see what efforts UNESCO is taking to improve early childhood in developing countries. I do plan on following the LIFE Initiative to see if their goals have been met as well as the goals from the Africa Education for All Conference.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

Sharing Web Resources

The NAEYC website does not have much outside links. However, there are a few outside links under their Public Policy tab. They had a link titled Government Links which I decided to check out. They had different resources on federal, state and local government. The governmental information is about children and families, early childhood education programs, and publicly funded programs. I decided to check out the website for the Administration of Children and Families. The Administration of Children and Families promotes the economic and social well-being of families, children, individuals and communities. They provide numerous resources for children and their families raging from adoption assistance to finding health insurance and information for runaways. It was great coming across this website. I will definitely be coming back to this site to see that else they have to offer.

There was a section titled Take Action Now that I decided to look into. I felt that this section would have information relating to the issue of the week. They call it the Children’s Champions Action Center. Under this section, you can write to your congress and find out different issues and legislation's.  I decided to search for bills that dealt with this week’s issue on excellence and equity. One bill from the Senate Bill #S.322 was to set the United States on track to ensure children are ready to learn when they begin kindergarten. I wanted to find out more about the Bill, but they only posted which members of the Senate sponsored the bill and on what day it was sponsored. I clicked on a tab titled detailed text; however, it stated that the text of S.322 had not yet been received from the GPO yet. I hope to come back within a few weeks to find out more about the Bill.

One thing I learned this week is that they actually have a section titled 10 Things About NAEYC. They offer 10 ways to explore the NAEYC. I was wondering why I did not see this from the beginning of when I started to explore their site. I thought this is a great for those who are new to the organization and the website. 

International Contacts—Part 2

I have still been unfortunate to hear a reply from my contacts. I called Mr. Don from Canada. He promised to call back, but never did. When I called again he was not in office. Mr. Grassi emailed me that he will get back to me, but still has not so I had to go on with the alternative. So I chose to look at Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website. I looked at one country, Zambia, that has partnered with the Global Children’s Initiative.

In 2009, the Zambian Ministry of Education, the Examination Council of Zambia, UNICEF, the University of Zambia, and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University launched the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project (ZECDP) to close knowledge gaps. The ZECDP was launched in an effort to measure the effects of an ongoing anti-malaria initiative on children’s development. From the final report on the ZECDP I learned that Zambia is one of the poorest counties in the world. I also learned that about 76% of children suffer from Malaria during their first year of life. The ZECDP developed a tool to assess children’s physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers, the Zambian Child Assessment Test (ZamCAT). This assessment tool is the first of its kind in Zambia.  It was interesting to find out that no assessment has really been done on the many developmental skills on children. I was glad to know that there are advances being made to improve the health and success of children in Zambia.

Zambia has a population of about 13 million and is divided into many provinces. Many children in the rural parts of the country do not attend school at all. Many children in Zambia do enroll in school, however about 25% of students drop out before completing the seventh year of their primary education. Early childhood care and education is underdeveloped therefore about 83% of children lack skills needed for first grade. From their assessment, there was a great difference between children from urban and rural provinces and between the wealthier and poorer children.

Hopefully through this assessment, child development in Zambia will begin to develop and all children will have access to quality early care and education.

Reference:
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/

Sharing Web Resources

I am studying the website for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The more I explore their site the more intrigued I am about all they have to offer. The NAEYC website has so much valuable information and each day I explore I learn something new. I am definitely gaining ways to help me grow professionally.
This website contains a lot of information of how economists, neuroscientists and politicians support the early childhood field. I found a lot of articles, press releases and books on the views of economists and why they support the field. I read an article from an NAEYC online author William Gilliam titled, “What are the economic benefits of investing in the early years”? The article explained the economic benefits of investing in young children. Gilliam’s (2011) three economic reasons for making investments are that it is valuable from a social justice perspective, a citizen-building perspective, and it is valuable from an altruistic perspective. He also stated three non economic values for investing in young children and early childhood programs. There are economic values for children, parents and individuals who work in large early care and education enterprise.
 
The NAEYC website is a great website with current information about issues and trends in the early childhood field. The only insight I gained is to consistently explore their website on a daily basis to stay current. 

The NAEYC has a section on their website titled Professional Development. When I noticed this tab, I browsed through it entirely. I was interested in this section because I do want to develop professionally. This section provides information for individuals who want to start a new career working with children or for early childhood professionals who want to improve their knowledge, skills and practices. From this section, I found out that the NAEYC offers training, online learning programs, training DVD’s for self study or group instruction and an Annual Conference and workshops. Before exploring their site, I only knew about their Annual Conference; I did not know they offered training or workshops. Most of their programs also offer Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for those who need documentation.  Most of their training's are offered online; however, they do offer face to face training at their Headquarters in Washington D.C.

From April 14-20, the NAEYC will be celebrating The Week of the Young Child. The purpose of this week is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs. I also discovered that our very own school Walden University (The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership) is the proud sponsor of this program!! The theme for the 2013 Week of the Young Child is Early Years are Learning Years. I was interested in finding out more about this topic. This allowed me to think about refocusing my attention to the true needs of children especially in my community. The NAEYC shared different ideas for how individuals and communities can celebrate the Week of the Young Child. Reading this topic has sparked a new interest in me and I have already been brainstorming ideas of how I can support the Week of the Young Child in my job, church and community.

References

Gilliam, W. (December, 2011). What are the economic benefits of investing in the early years? Retrieved 

         from http://www.naeyc.org/content/event/pre-k-debates/highlights