When I think of Research...

 Well, I have to say that I always thought about research as a long, complex and tedious project.  I thought that I would never have the skills and knowledge to do one and that research was always only for people extremely smart.  From this course, I learned that even thought is a long process that requires a lot of careful planning and designing, it is also something that can be accomplished.  I see research now as a vital and essential tool for the early childhood field, and a way to keep improving and developing best practices.

My ideas about research have changed because now I see it as something achievable.  It has a process, but the process makes sense to me in all aspects.  Before, I knew it was a lot of work, but I did not understand what it was involved in all that work.

I think that planning, designing and conducting the research will be based off your research question.  Once you have developed your research question then you can start thinking on the other steps.  Each step has special considerations that researchers cannot avoid if they want to make their research valid and reliable.

The biggest challenge I encountered during my research simulation was the research question.  Who would think that writing a question could be that difficult?  It took me 5 weeks until I last developed a research question that met all the requirements studied in the course.  Every week I refined and narrowed my question until I finally got it.

Thanks to this course I now perceive early childhood professionals as Scientifics in the early education field.  I believe that, with this knowledge any early childhood professional can be capable to conduct research that can influence the job we do in the field.

Thanks to all of you for reading and replying to my blogs.  I wish you all success in your upcoming courses.

Research Around the World

 The early childhood field is rapidly growing and expanding throughout the world.  Regardless of the country people are more interested in the well-being and healthy development of very young children.  The research topics most common around the world are quality of programs, family engagement, challenging behaviors and infants/toddlers as active learners among others.

While reviewing this week resources, I realized that other countries are as serious as USA about their youngest children development.  The information and resources available in the website Early Childhood Australia are impressive.  I found the information in the website so useful and great that I could not avoid bookmarking the website to use it as a personal resource and reference.

The Early Childhood Australia has 2 notable position statements:

1.         They have a position statement for children seeking asylum

2.         They have a position statement that acknowledges aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people as the original inhabitants and recognizes their culture and heritage.

With these two statements, they are demonstrating that they are serious about diversity and including all children in their country regardless their origin.  Also, respecting and recognizing everyone’s cultural background.

Research that Benefits Children and Families

An area of great interest for me is zero to three.  If I conduct  research in that area, the following will be my research question “Infants healthy development: Staying home parents vs. Child Care.  I believe in quality child care, but I also believe that, for infants healthy development, there is nothing better than staying at home with mom and/or dad.  The positive results of my research will be that when infants staying at home with their parents they feel more secure and safe.  Also, that they will effortlessly create that secure attachment with his/her parents that will encourage them to strive and develop well.  Infants will grow as stable and secure children and then adults because their social-emotional needs were met at the crucial age of infancy.

There is currently an advocacy effort for policy changes about the way we take care of our babies.  The initiative started with J. Ronal Lally and Peter L. Mangione both of them are staff members of WestEd Center for Child and Family Studies and PITC(Program for Infants and Toddlers Care).  They have conducted fundamental research in the area of infants and toddlers.  Please, take a look at For Our Babies website and get involved with this effort to help the American Babies.

Personal Research Journey

When I first started this course all I knew about research was to Google information.  To my surprise I quickly learned that is not an easy task to find credible information online.  I always heard “do not believe everything you read off the internet” so I was a little skeptical.  Thanks to last week resources now I feel confident about my skills to identify credible and valuable information for my research and other reasons.

Research is a challenge, but it is a challenge I am ready to overcome.  I am excited of the new knowledge as I am a little overwhelmed.  The biggest challenge I anticipate during this process is time.  Even though, I consider myself as a person who does not procrastinate, and that manages time well I am a little concerned  the time I have assigned for studying may not be enough to complete research.  I know that all of you have busy lifestyles just as I do; and if you can give me some of the ideas of how you find extra time to research I will appreciate it.

I enrolled in this M.S program because I have a passion for the early childhood field, and I have the goal of becoming a trainer/mentor-coach for early childhood teachers.  I want to share my knowledge and skills with other teachers, and help them to growth and develop to become better teachers.  I shared my goal with you because this explains the reason of the research topic I am choosing.  I am interested in the professional development and training area of the early childhood field.  However, this is very broad area, and we can only choose a subtopic.  The subtopic I am choosing is how does professional development helps teachers.  I want to learn everything about this subtopic, and I hope I can get vital information that can help me refine my career goals.

Any resources and information regarding this topic will be greatly appreciated.

Building Research Competency

I am excited and eager to be in this class,  Also, I am expecting to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to complete an accurate and effective research study.

Final Blog Week 8

When I was assigned to learn about the international early childhood field, I did not know what I was going to find.  I was really excited to learn what was going on in the field in other parts of the world.  I chose to review Save the Children website.  This organization is doing a terrific work for the most vulnerable children of the world.  They literally, “Save the Children” of the world with all the programs and services that they offer.  Besides reviewing this organization’s website, I learned a lot from reviewing my colleague’s blogs each week.  They all posted interesting and vital information that helped to strengthened and deepened my understanding of the early childhood field outside United States.

One of the most important things that I learned is about all the international efforts to alleviate the consequences of poverty in the early years.  Children in all parts of the world suffer from poverty in different ways.  I now understand how organizations as such as Save the Children work to provide children better opportunities and chances to fight poverty.

 I learned that quality, equity and access are issues affecting the early childhood field tremendously.  Many people in USA and outside USA have difficulty to access high quality programs.

The last thing I would like to mention is that I realized that early childhood professionals all around the world are not recognized as professionals.  Even though, credentials are required and that many programs are requesting degrees; we are still suffering of low compensation and lack of acknowledgments in what we do.  People still think that what we do is just playing with children.  We have a lot of education and awareness work within our communities to achieve recognition throughout the world.

One of my goals is to continue learning about what is going on in the early childhood field outside the USA.  Use that information to strengthened my practices and advocate for the field in general.

Professional contacts week 7

This week I reviewed the UNESCO website.  UNESCO is an agency that specializes in building peace, eradicating poverty, and sustaining development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.  The UNESCO also advocates for early childhood care and education.

According to UNESCO access and equity is a global issue.  Some countries committed themselves to improve and support the early childhood care for the most vulnerable children.  Government many times lack financial resources to support early childhood care and education for many low income families.

The quality of the programs and teachers is also important in any part of the world.  Quality factors are pedagogy materials, training and parent involvement.   Learning materials should be quantitatively, culturally and developmentally adequate and focus on child-centered interaction.

Another issue is financial resources to support early childhood quality programs.  All countries struggle to find funds,  developed countries priority and  support and develop primary education.

The early childhood issues are similar in all countries including USA.  It is an international problem to have all families access high quality programs.  Also, funds are a challenge in times of economic crisis throughout the world.  I am very glad that an organization such as UNESCO contributes their advocacy  effort every day to help overcome these current issues in the field.

Week 6 Sharing Web Resources

While following some of the links in Save the Children website.  I found this very interesting link that leads you out to you tube where you can watch videos about the results and work that the organization does.  The link is Results for children, and there you can see links to watch the videos.

The area that I search thoroughly is what we do.  In this area you find all information about the programs they have, how they do the work.  When you visit this area, you get a clear understanding of their philosophy and what they are trying to accomplish with their programs.

In July 26, 2012, there was a new publication about teens in poverty seeking to save their money.  Save the children interviewed more than 2,000 children in ages from 12 to 18 in low income areas of Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal.   The studied revealed that children get the money from allowances, gifts or part time jobs and save it in amounts as small as .50 cents monthly.   They keep their money in piggy banks, under furniture or under piles of clothes.  They try to save for their future, but more than often they have to use for their school supplies, basic needs, and clothing.  Poverty is a topic that we have being studying during this course and how poverty affects the life of a child.  Using this example, I can tell that poverty force children to mature earlier and think about what they are going to do in a future to be out of poverty.

The website contains plenty information about the importance of meeting the basics of all children to secure a better future for all of them.  There are many inequities that affect children from all over the world.  Inequities to access medical services, high quality education, financial resources and to meet their basic needs.  While some children are thinking how to spend their money in the latest video game, other children are thinking to save money for a better future.

Something that I learned from reading the publication is that children in poverty are forced to mature. They think about their future in a very early age when children should be playing and enjoying their childhood without worries.

Sharing Web Resources Week 4

The website that I have been reviewing is Save the Children.  I am impressed of all the information that is gathered in this website.  They work with the most vulnerable children throughout the world, and there is information in the website of what they do in each country that they work.   While reviewing the website under the tab Take Action I found information about becoming an advocate for children.  Since I started my degree I have been more interested in advocacy than ever before.  It is an area of my profession that I want to continue developing and learning.   They have links to join their efforts through important social networks, they provide information in the most important trends and issues and encourage you to participate and speak to congress and information in legislation and what is advocacy.  Also they have information about the elected officials and what techniques are most effective to advocate for children and families.

One of the biggest consequences of poverty is malnutrition and lack of health services.  When people are poor they lack of means to provide for themselves and their family an appropriate nutrition and health services.  This organization works to ensure to provide these services in the areas where they work.  Besides worrying about the nutrition and health of the children we also have to worry about the state of health of the parents.  When parents are not healthy they lack of the energy to thrive for their children.  This situation makes it difficult for them to break the chain of poverty. 

In the website I found this statement “What does "go without" mean in America?   This means little access to books, early education, proper nutrition and play.  Children that face these issues have a hard time to thrive during their first years of development.

Facts in USA:

·         Four-year-olds from families affected by poverty are 18 months behind other 4-year-olds developmentally.

·         In 60 percent of low-income households, there are no books at all in the home.

·         In rural communities, 52 percent of children living in poverty are overweight or obese.

Obesity is another issue in early childhood.  Nowadays in the USA obesity has become a great health issues within the children.  This is due to the limited access of healthy foods and parents low education.

If politicians, neuroscientists and economists work together to create policies and programs that decreased poverty many of this issues could be drastically reduced.  Then we can have more healthy people and children that can develop and become productive citizens for our nation.