Saturday, June 8, 2013

Research Around the World - Australia




Blog – Week 5

I chose to explore Early Childhood Australia site http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/
  • What are some of the current international research topics?
In current year of 2013 the following topics have been in the Early Childhood News in Australia    
o   May –
  Early years missing piece of Federal Budget
o   March -Wages investment supports quality learning
 Under investment in early years holding back children
o   February
  Children given strong advocate in new Nation Children’s Commissioner

  Fair, inclusive, quality education every child’s right, Early Childhood peak bodies welcome increased support for children with disability.

  Majority of providers back quality reform in early childhood sector
o   January - Ratings show children already seeing childcare improvements.

  • What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?
One new insight that I have gained from this site is the information provided about the “National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program.” The program is designed to help ECP’s (Early Childhood Professionals) meet the criteria of setting up an appropriate designed early education environment.

They first help you understand the links between EYLF (Early Years Learning Framework) with NQS (National Quality Standards).

They offer resources to help professionals learn about appropriate environment settings as well as incorporating good practices in the classroom with learning videos, forums, social media outlets, and funding and sponsorship resources.

  • What other noteworthy information did you find on this website?
The supporting best practices tab offers very insight information for learning, play, feelings, behaviors, teaching, children’s rights, and developmental stages. Each topic has many subtopics that can be useful to some of my colleagues for their research simulation. For example, my research stimulation is about behavior. 

Under the feelings and behavior tab you will find…

Feelings and behaviors
1.     Everyday behaviors
2.     Everyday Feelings
3.     Managing grief-loss change
4.     Promoting Positive behaviors
5.     War and disaster

These subtopics can help me with my research simulation because it will help me better understand reasons behind why some children behave the way they do. There are a lot of good topics on this site that I do encourage all of my colleagues to browse through.

Reference
Early Childhood Australia: A voice for young children. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

5 comments:

  1. Robin,

    Thank you for the information about the Early Childhood Australia website. Yours is the third blog entry about this website that I have read and I was pleasantly surprised to learn even more about what the website offers! How exciting that you can use some of the information for your research.

    Nicolette

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  2. Robin, I too chose this website. It is wonderful isn't it. There is a lot of information concerning the well-being of children. As I mention on my post , this website will also help me in my simulation of my research, which is Culture. I would like to see how culture is integrated into learning and teaching in the classroom. I too encourage my colleagues to browse through this website. Thanks for sharing your post.

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  3. Hi Robin. I read my response from you and I like the additional information and concerns you provided from Early Childhood Australia. I did go back and found the part about feelings and behavior category. This area relates to the social-emotional domain that a child must learn in their growing years. What also got my attention on this website is Australia's premier early childhood magazine, Every Child. This publication contains useful and informative articles on issues such as health, education and social trends. The magazine is designed for: students, childcare workers, parents, grandparents, and anyone who wants to keep up to date on events and developments around Australia that impact on children from birth to eight years or on the early childhood field… 

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  4. Robin,

    Thank you for an informative post. I believe inclusion to be the most effective option for children with special needs. To prepare children to function in a rapidly changing world we need to create environments that include all children with diversity including different backgrounds, cultures, language, and abilities. Having a framework for setting up the learning environment is essential to meet the varying needs of all the children.

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  5. Robin,
    You did a good job summarizing important points from the website. I always find it interesting to see what other countries are doing to better the education for their young children. From what you have discovered, it sounds like the topics Australia are reviewing are the same ones the United States is facing. Thanks for you review.

    Laurie

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