The organization I choose to research is The National Institute
for Early Education Research (NIEER). www.nieer.org.
NIEER conducts and
communicates research to support high-quality, effective early childhood
education for all young children. NIEER looks at early childhood education to enhance
children’s physical, cognitive, and social development, and subsequent success
in school and later life. The Institute offers independent, research-based
advice and technical assistance to policymakers, journalists, researchers, and
educators. The Institute's research programs offer a vision of early
education excellence in terms that are usable by policy makers and
understandable to everyone. NIEER is interested in progress toward excellence
in early childhood education. It looks to improve quality and increase access
for all children to good preschool programs.
A current issue that caught
my attention was a section on the website called STEM which stands for Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math. It was under the heading of Nieer Current Projects.
It caught my attention because it focuses on how to incorporate these subjects
into the early childhood curriculum. It talks about how early
science and math skills and knowledge enhance children’s school readiness and
later success in school. This personally
resonates with me because I really enjoy teaching science and math to my
preschoolers. I teach 3-4 year olds. I
am interested in doing more research in this area.
It mentioned DLL in the
STEM curriculum. Teachers can apply language development concepts and teaching
strategies for DLLs to lessons. This fits right in with our topic of this week.
There are many articles and a lot of information on enhancing language learning
through STEM. I encourage you to go to the NIEER website.
Interesting article. I am going to have to read more of this. It mentions that this research is trying to push more progress towards excellence in early education, I wonder if this research has been practiced and if it has been used and what the results are.
ReplyDeleteLisa, I also chose to follow NIEER. The website seems full of interesting and useful information. The STEM article you discussed sounds very interesting, I will have to find and read it. I agree that those subjects are very important in the younger grades. From my experience, I've seen science kind of be put on the back burner to focus more on reading and math in many programs, which I think is a shame. Science is a subject that really interests many children and lets them learn and experience new skills. When I was teaching 1st grade, I made sure science was incorporated into our curriculum, not only through our science kits, but through integrating the topics through reading and math. Thank you for sharing that article!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Lisa: My daughter is currently in a pre-k classroom within a STEM school. She surprises me sometimes with all that she learns about rockets and the solar system. I am so grateful that this curiosity is being cultivated at such a young age. You're definitely on to something. ;)
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