Looking Back at the Course

With my research background, I was under the impression that this course would be very much what I had already done. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were things I did not learn as an undergraduate. Primarily, I realized I was not as comfortable with the qualitative research as I WA with quantitative. I also had not been introduced to quasi-experimental research and was surprised to find it was possible to do research that way. I appreciate the discussions and blog postings from my classmates to encourage my learning and look forward to completing the research design I started.

f Early Childhood Australia has a great deal of research that discusses Early Years Learning Framework. It is a system being implemented that defines not only the skills children should learn during Early Childhood but also the environment that is best for learning. I thought this was particularly interesting because it is similar to the Quality Rating Systems we have here, which NY is in the process of implementing. I could not read a lot about the EYLF without purchasing the articles but would imagine it would be similar to the rating scales developed by Clifford and Harms. They are comprehensive and address the environment, but do not include the specific skills tha t children need. The Early Learning standards for NY would be an addition to the ECERS/FCERS/SACERS/ITERS to make a more complete guidebook. I commend Australia on developing and implementing a system nationwide, whereas the US is still divided by states.
I also saw a lot of research devoted to literacy, which is of interest to me because it is something that is a hot topic here in the US as well. Some other topics I saw published in the journal were regarding transition to school. There were articles written for professionals as well as articles written specifically for parents.
Reference:
Www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au