Research Around the World

Welcome back! We did not have a blog assignment last week and with the craziness of my schedule (report card and assessment time in our school) I did not have a chance to post at all and was not required to post either. This has been a busy course and it is hard to believe how fast it is going - we are already ending week 5! This week's blog assignment called for us to explore International Early Childhood Research to better understand what kinds of research are taking place around the world within the field in our current society and present times. I chose to explore the Early Childhood Australia website, which is the equivalent to our NAEYC organization. After spending some time perusing the website, I discovered the answers to the following questions:

1. What are some of the current international research topics?

There is a specific section of this website titled RIPS (Research in Practice Series) in which you can access research articles, guidelines, an index of articles, guidelines, and become a subscriber. By viewing this section of the website I was able to discover some current research topics in Australia. Some of the topics that stood out to me the most included: how positive relationships can impact children in ECE; how children can learn positive behavior traits from teacher-child relationships; and several on the importance and impacts of play in ECE. I was happy to see these topics listed as they are all topics I am interested in as I understand they can greatly impact children in early childhood. One of the topics mentioned actually is strikingly similar to my chosen research subtopic so I plan to utilize this as a resource throughout the remainder of this process. 

2. What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?

Upon opening this webpage, I was immediately captivated by the first slide that came across the screen. When I clicked on the link it took me to the "About" section of the website, in which it stated, "Early Childhood Australia is the peak early childhood advocacy organization, acting in the interests of young children, their families, and those in the early childhood field. Our vision: Every young child is thriving and learning," (ECA Inc., 2013, para. 1). After perusing the website and becoming more familiar with this organization, it became truly evident just how similar this organization is to our very own, NAEYC. The Code of Ethics is very similar to our own and that made me very pleased to see, as I have learned that the NAEYC sticks strongly to our own code. In addition, there are sections on the website for ECE news and more. This is definitely a website I will keep as a tool of reference in the future. Additionally, I will try to check in for updates as often as possible to compare research topics and findings to those in our own country. 

3. What other noteworthy information did you find on the website?

There were a few additional components I was very interested in that I discovered on this website. The first was the Everyday Learning Series, which "offers simple, creative ideas on how to enhance children's interactions with the world around them," and is "aimed at parents, grandparents, and carers of young children," to help them to foster and support a child's growth and development appropriately (ECA Inc., 2013, para. 1). This is an outstanding tool for families! I would love if our district could offer resources such as this to the families in town. There are also links to their own ECE Journal, Newsletter, and Magazine, as well as resources for educators to support best practice and much, much more. This was an extremely informative and impressive resource to be utilized in the future.

That's all for now, folks. Until next time…

References:

ECA, Inc. (2013). Early Childhood Australia: A voice for young children. Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au.