Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Elementary Education

Thesis (M.Ed.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-133). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR30876

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2009. / Title from title screen (site viewed June 26, 2009). PDF text: 233 p. : col. ill. ; 5 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3350449. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2004. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 202-231).

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Learning to self-regulate one's behavior is a core developmental task in early childhood. Regulation of behavior is a challenge for young children largely due to cognitive constraints, specifically in the areas of attention and memory. As such, it has been theorized that both caregivers and a child's environment can support the development of behavioral self-regulation by providing cues as to what constitutes acceptable behavior in any given context. Although much research has been conducted on the role caregivers play in this regard, little is known about how a child's environment may also serve to support emerging self-regulation of behavior. The present study sought to identify differences among children's daily activities in terms of their degree of structure and routine and how they related to changes in patterns of self-regulated behavior over time. Twenty-one children ages 6 to 60 months in three age-graded classrooms at a constructivist child-care center were video-taped at three measurement points over a six-month period as they engaged in a variety of daily activities (i.e., free play, meals and clean-up). Trained observers coded for nine self-regulatory behaviors and the daily activities during which they occurred. It was hypothesized that structured and routine daily activities would scaffold the development of self-regulation and internalization such that these behaviors would occur more frequently during activities high in structure and routine. Over time, practice during activities that are high and low in structure and routine should support self-regulated behavior in the absence of structure and routine as well. Overall, results demonstrated that in the presence of environmental cues for expected behavior (i.e., structure and routine) children tend to engage in more self-regulated behavior than in the absence of such cues.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The purpose of this project is to examine the power of play, guided discovery, and hands-on experiences in the early childhood classroom, specifically as it relates to early childhood science experience. This paper will also propose a science curriculum encompassing a hands-on, guided discovery, play-based approach.

Not available / text

Inspired by the Municipal preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, two art studio teachers and a researcher have explored experiences and meaning in the atelier. When studio teachers document children's thinking through digital photographs. transcribed audio tapes, quotations of a child's verbal thoughts, and copies of their work, an indescribable moment in teacher thinking interweaves with the child's learning, As teachers capture children's representations, investigate, interpret, and share their ideas with colleagues and community-an underlying question emerges. What are studio teachers' experiences o/teaching-learning in the atelier as they utilize documentation, collaboration, and reflection as a way to inform their practices? From this question, reader and researcher start a journey together into a six-month phenomenological study of studio teaching experiences. As a core member in the teaching team, the studio teacher resides in the atelier to bring teaching and learning together in a profound way, to bridge classroom experiences with representative arts, and to facilitate the community's learning about teaching-learning. The methods used to inform this study include observations, in-depth interviews, electronic journaling, description, photos, and interpretation of studio work. Overall, this study's methods inform the phenomenological research and construct an in-depth look at experiences in the artist's studio. The results of this research are retold through narratives focusing on experiences and meaning-making in the studios. Stories such as living with the cracked egg; isolation in the studio: gifts for others; rough stones polishing one another; and many others, utilize photographs to enhance meaning through picturesque artifacts. Essential themes, conclusions, and implications appear in the webbing of experiences and are explored in the final chapter. The themes include conceptual frameworks such as life eats entropy, serendipity and synergy and more. Conclusions are drawn and findings are made connecting studio experiences to participant voice, disequilibrium, listening, engaging, stepping back, and slowing time; demonstrating documentation as learning, revisiting, representation, and manageability; making meaning of collaboration as struggle, communication, and reconstruction; and reflecting back as purposeful and an act of teaching-learning. Overall, this research study exposes techniques, ideas, and wonderings from two studio teachers' and a researcher's experiences in the atelier.