The purpose of this study was to determine the screening measures used to assess students entering kindergarten in the state of Indiana. In addition, this study sought to determine how the data from these measures are used to inform classroom reading instruction. Eighty-nine schools participated in the study and sixty-two of those schools completed the entire survey, as they were amongst the schools that assess students upon entrance into kindergarten. The survey was sent a total of four times. General findings indicated that Indiana schools assess students inconsistently upon entrance into kindergarten, with variations existing in the administration procedures of screening measures and the type of screening measure. Schools who responded to this survey generally expressed dissatisfaction with current screening measures administered and the results gathered from these measures. In addition, schools who participated in this study reported the use of data to inform classroom instruction, but not all schools specified that reading instruction was informed by the data. / Department of Elementary Education

Contemporary education does not leave students with all of the necessary skills to navigate the increased complexity of the shrinking globe. The loss of practical skills for sensitive engagement with the built and natural environment is a root cause of sustainability issues. Sustainable environmental systems education informed by the principles of forest kindergarten and Katie Davis’ Six Strategies for Environmental Learning are focused on embodied experience, teaching intellectual as well as ethical and emotional lessons leaving learners with the practical skills that they need to engage with holistic environmental systems. Natural systems sustain themselves in the way that designed systems also should. "The natural consumption cycle is a closed loop system where the waste of one is consumable of another." (9 Orr, 2004) Interior space fights the inevitable decay that is part of a natural life cycle, overlooking long-term life cycle implications. The sustainable systems and process of the built environment can be informed by the closed loop system of natural consumption. Design can remind humans of their role in the ecosystem. This closed loop system can also inform the evaluation of materials and furniture and the reuse of materials that might otherwise have been overlooked, resulting in the use, and production, of less new materials. This project explores the typology of Forest Kindergarten within the interior environment using a framework informed by concepts of nature inspired design, systems inspired design and material inspired design in order to challenge expectations of contemporary education and the built environment in order to leave users with new expectations of their role in the natural ecosystem.

This collective case study examined the factors affecting the collaborative relationship between teachers and early childhood educators (ECEs) teaching together in elementary schools as Early Learning Teams in the first year of implementation of full-time kindergarten in Ontario. There are six major adjustments required concurrently by the Ontario government’s new policy in all kindergarten classrooms: team-teaching (sharing instruction, not just classroom management); supporting ECEs as new staff; changing from theme-based to inquiry-based; balancing the School District’s literacy goals with provincial play-based curriculum; double the instructional time, and the increased number of children in the classroom (up from 19 to 24-30). Two of the four classrooms studied in a rural Ontario school district were full-day, every day kindergartens (FDK) for 4 and 5 year olds and the other two were alternate full-days. Data were collected through classroom observations and interviews with principals, kindergarten teachers and ECEs. Case study theory guided the collection and analysis of data with open coding of transcripts, active code notes and memos to help answer the question of how to best implement FDK programs in Ontario. Results indicated that the FDK Team relationship itself enabled and constrained classroom instructional strategies, which would in turn have an impact on student outcomes. Collaborative practice involved a process that was affected by both internal factors (such as teacher foreknowledge of ECE skills), and thirteen external factors which arose from government and school district mandates, as well as practices of the school principal. Examples are: planning time, pay differential, hiring practices and adjusting to the new curriculum at the same time as the team adjusts to team teaching. The collaboration of more than 9,500 teacher and ECE teams is key to the success of Ontario’s new full-time early learning program. The education sector needs to adopt the long-established business practice of supporting team development through recognizing progressive teaming stages, such as those identified by Tuckman (1965). Recommendations are made for principals, school districts offices, government policy, FDK teachers, ECEs, and colleges that provide ECE training. A mnemonic for the four attributes evident in high-functioning collaborative integrated teaching teams (RISE) is proposed.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-246). / Microfiche. / xvii, 246 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

This study explored how kindergarten teachers think and behave in the promotion of creativity in young children, particularly in relation to music. It centred on three case studies of Hong Kong kindergarten teachers (nursery, lower and upper class) who were recognized in their school communities as demonstrating exemplary music pedagogy. Using the paradigm of social constructivism, relationships were investigated among creative person, process, product and environment in the promotion of musical creativity in early childhood. Multi-faceted descriptions of the kindergarten contexts included video-taped transcriptions of children's musical creative processes during free play, the teachers' scaffolding of their learning, stimulated recall with teachers, researcher-collected field notes, anecdotal records and photographs of the classroom context. Each of these data sources were documented in narrative form in a series of vignettes, and analysis of musical outcomes centred on instrumental play, background music, movement, singing and imaginative play. Recommendations drawn from the study include several principles for the promotion of musical creativity in young children, such as making room for play within the curriculum, providing environments rich in resources, scaffolding young children's musical creativity, advocating for creative music in the kindergarten curriculum, and providing excellent role models for young children.

This study is of moral development in young children, with a focus on justice as fairness, a term appropriate to the life experience of three- and four-year-old children. The subjects were twenty-eight children attending two groups in a preschool centre (sessional kindergarten), eighteen female and ten male. The ages ranged from three years four months to four years eight months at the commencement of the study. The children were studied for one year at their kindergarten. Five problem areas were explored: (1) moral reasoning; (2) behaviour in peer conflict interactions; (3) relationship between moral reasoning in response to hypothetical dilemmas and behaviour in real-life conflicts;(4) construction of an instrument to describe and measure early moral reasoning and behaviour; (5) moral education within a preschool setting. Semi-structured interviews using Kohlberg-type dilemmas, and naturalistic observations of spontaneous social interactions in free play situations, were the methods used. Pretest and post-test interviews and observations were six months apart. Teachers of one group of children participated in a moral education project which included a process for using naturally-occurring peer conflict in the kindergarten to facilitate moral development.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--Kutztown University, 1988. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2763. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-79).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Janette Pelletier.

Zugl.: Erfurt, Univ., Diss., 2007

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.