My FaMily cULtuRe

Caught in a fix of needing to take three items that depict my family culture along with me to a place I had never been and have no clue how they live, I think I will take first a book which is my bible and will have each family member take theirs. Our pictures or video that features our family events and lastly, a familiar food. These choices are in assumption that concepts like attitudes, communications style and such abstract valuables are already with us since they are in our makeup.

                     The reason we would take our bibles is because while growing up, we have faced adverse    situations and bounced back with resilience and survival instincts that were inspired by our understanding of the words of encouragement and promises that we found in the bible. While in the University, four, out of the entire seven of us (six biological children with my niece who had become family) were in the university schooling and my dad lost his job. In this adversity, he found hope in the word of God that made him say confidently that “all things work together for good to them that love the Lord…”.  With courage inspired by the words from the bible, a chief accountant of a household company, took up a task of book sales and began to realize the bible verse that said “… whatsoever he does, prospers”. As an individual member of the family, I have had my own personal encounters with drawing strength from the same book. From my academics to my social living, that same book has guided my living and I had learn to practice spirituality with it. 

Our family bond and memory will be our identity to as many as would encounter us and as many as we would encounter. It will also serve as good flash back memory for us as a reminder of how we were if we had to look back. I think it will serve as a symbol of bond for us.

 

The third item is a familiar food. Perhaps in a processed form so that it can last the time intended. This will be considered so that we create an intermediary period of adjusting to the food options we will encounter in the new environment. There will be need to explore food types and we are not sure of how and when we may adapt both to our taste and even to our biological system. This food item will be needed while we explore these opportunities, especially when children are part of the family.

My feelings if I am told to give up any 2 of these items upon arrival at my new environment: I will seek to understand why and if satisfied with explanations given, I will let go whatever 2 of the items I can easily replace in the new environment, even if not immediately, soonest

This exercise has given me an opportunity to think about what really matter to me. It has given me the opportunity to evaluate among the items I treasure, which ones I think are the most valuable. 

I am able now to see exactly what Nadiyah (Laureate Education, 2011) meant when she said referred to culture as "very personal". Never would I have realized that these are the things I would pick.

                                                               Reference

Laureate Education Inc, 2011 (DVD) Perspective on diversity and equity.          
                                                       Family cultures: Dynamic interactions

http://media.beta.photobucket.com/user/yaryyoly/media/bible1111tk3.jpg.html?filters[term]=bible%20verses&filters[primary]=images&sort=1&o=121

http://international.stockfood.com/results.asp?txtkeys=Carbohydrate
 

 

 

When I think of ReSeaRch...

The course, doing early childhood research has broadened  and deepened my understanding and view to be an intelligent consumer of electronic online resource materials.  I no longer just take whatever I see on the web, I now know how to ascertain that a material may or may not be trusted. Particularly, I remember sharing with my classmates that it is not enough to see a reliable website name on a material as the website may not be the publisher of the material based on one NAEYC topic I saw on a list of online resources. It was an individual's work that had an NAEYC's publication as a major reference.

I have also learned what it means to conduct research and how to read research materials as there are many research materials that contain quality information that will definitely be of benefit to EC professionals but which we have avoided, not knowing the technique of how to gain understanding. Those tables are no longer going to put me off because now I understand that I can get same information in the discussion aspect of the publication. It is a delight to know this.

    It feels wonderful that I have conducted my first research. Applying the theory aspect of  research as we learned on an area of interest was growth stimulating. Much more fascinating for me was taking an opportunity to actually delve into my area of interest in which I have been wanting to know more. I would say I am thankful for the opportunity and it was worth every bit of the journey.

Lastly and freshly too, it was satisfying to see how research is all about relationships. Beautiful to see the essence of research in the core of mankind. It will be something of great joy to see that every research project embraces equity wholly.  


I want to use this medium to appreciate every member of my class. It was wonderful reading through your post. Sometimes, you guys drive home the point better. It was a pleasure being in class with you. Thank you Dr Darrt for being a wonderful, responsive, available and most of all, purposeful instructor. You made the journey lighter with your definite comments on graded papers.Am grateful I passed through you.  

RESEARCH AROUND THE WORLD

My exploration of the provided website in this assignment opened me up to seeing what professionals, or should I say, people with children's interest at heart, are doing around the world.

I see that most areas of interest that we all may be looking at to study have either already undergone or is undergoing studies and investigations by people.

The sub saharan Early Childhood Development University Virtual (ECDUV) website opened me up to knowing that some people are thinking about how to improve the development of the African child with support of a collaborative efforts of people like me who went in search of a master's degree program with the Victorian University and that such project always include the effort of a chosen indigenous professor. I think this is great to know that such work have been done.

Some of the current research that caught my attention are as listed:

First, a few from ECDUV

Agorsah, F,K. (1982). The development of an integrated Early Childhood Development Urban Model Training Program for Informall minders and community volunteers in Ghana

Abeba, H.(1974). Improving the Quality of Childcare Through Parenting Enrichment and Training of Trainers: The Eritrean Model.

My discovery is that most works that interest me in this ECDUV website are quite old and may be termed outdated such as these listed above.


My genuine interests are in the Early Childhood Australia website. I found a lot of topics that are in line with my research simulations and even will love to have them. Here are some:

Goodfellow, J. (2009). The Early Years Learning Framework:  Getting Started
 
Fleet, A., & Patterson,C. (2011). Seeing Assessment as a Stepping Stone

Authur, L, McArdle, F & Papic, M. (2010). Stars are made of glass, Children as capable and creative communicators.

My observation is that this website provides me with better enrichment of materials that can be applied to what I am currently doing. They are easy and fascinating to read, unlike the ones I found in ECDUV. They are also less voluminous.

BOOST CHILDREN'S LEARNING

I will like to share with the class something I found that interests me while I was reading this week.

My interest, like i shared last week is a search, to know what are best tools to engage when assessing children. I found something on research about the effect of qualitative assessment in young children.

The article is: Baroudi,Z.M (2007) Formative Assessment: Definition, Elements and Role in Instructional Practice. Post Script, (1444-383x), 8 (1), 37-48. Retrieved from Walden University Library

Baroudi,2007 wrote about a research carried out by Butler (1987) who compared the responses of
four groups of Year 6 and 7 students. Three out of the four groups had been given praise, and the fourth group was given no praise at all. Those who had received comments showed the greatest motivation to carry out further tasks in the second lesson even when the later task was tougher.

Based on this effect of Praise feedback on learners, it was discovered and established that feedback can stimulate better performance in lessons. Thus Dweck 2000 carried out a study to check for the quality of feedback in its language that conveyed the feedback. He wanted to see how far a child can go when you offers descriptive information about the work, or performance relative to the intended learning goals. It avoids marks or comments that judge the level of achievement or imply that the learning journey is over” (Chappuis & Chappuis, 2008). 

Further studies revealed that the descriptive language of feedback goes a long way to determine learners’ response behavior. Baroudi (2007) cited Dweck’s (2000) work in a study carried out to check this response in a group of kindergarten children. Two different groups of children after completing a task successfully were given some forms of complements. Some received praise on their personality traits, such as: you are a good boy, I am so proud of you, etc.  Others received praise on their efforts or the process followed that sounded like: you tried hard, could you think of better ways to do it or you found a good way to do it, could you think of other ways that could also work?   Subsequently, these children were faced with a more challenging task, which they found difficult to complete, and the study revealed that those children who were given personality trait praise feedback were more critical of their work, and lacked motivation to carry on in the task. They even rated their intelligence as lower than the other group that received descriptive praise on their work (Baroudi, 2007). 

  CONCLUSION:

In summary, I would like to say that I have learned a great deal about early assessment in these three weeks. My affinity to formative assessment is to employ age appropriate, individually responsive practice as we 

assess young children In a most suitable way. I believe that assessment should do more than judge learners, it should help both teacher and learner improve on learning. It a tasking model to work with and teachers will need to go through mind renewal for teachers who are willing to work. It does not replace summative assessment but can be used to improve the outcome of summative assessment.

My ReSEarcH JouRnEY

"What should children be taught in the years from birth through age 8? How would we know if they are developing well and learning what we want them to learn? And how could we decide whether programs for children from infancy through the primary grades are doing a good job?" NAEYC, 2009

HOW SHOULD WE ASSESS THEIR LEARNING?
My interest for study has been channeled to seeking to know what the best practices are when we assess young children. I have seen young children being taught then, tested periodically and then graded and I have since wanted something more but I've been unskilled and unlearned, so I saw this opportunity and I seized it with lots of zest to be schooled in the principles of sound and appropriate assessment practices.

I work with young children and the field of early childhood like I shared in the last course is yet to have the recognition of the Governments and policy makers as it deserves to enable it thrive and become a full fleshed body having affiliates and investors as it is in some advanced countries. This is the dream that I have for the field of Early Childhood in Nigeria, and lately, there is a faint sound of hope that I hope will grow. Thus, there are no guides, no uniformity, no structure and no regulation as it were. Thriving early childhood programs seek best practices and this is why I want to know about the principles of effective quality assessment in early childhood.

It has been really tedious learning about assessment because its like starting from ABC, as I had no prior  knowledge about anything. So to pick my sub topics got me reading wide to see what kind of assessments are there for me to make a choice of the one I think I would want  to learn more about. My reading led me to make a choice of formative assessment and I have learned a few vital things about how this is a very good practice to employ when working with young children.

The three articles I chose to do my research simulation on had a lot to say about what studies already exists concerning formative assessments. They all shared similar features of what one should look out for in a formative assessment. Their writing styles and focus were all different as I believe that their objectives too were different.
Formative assessment is a systematic process to continuously gather evidence about learning. The data are
used to identify a student’s current level of learning and to adapt lessons to help the student reach the desired
learning goal.  I think this practice is child centered and therefore a good choice when assessing young children as children are able to get involved in their own learning.

Building research competence via the structured chart is a good guide by my opinion because it helps to keep one guided in the midst of the so wide issue of research in which there s a lot to learn.

My reading this week brought me to something I think we should pay closer attention to. One of the authors did say that the field of early childhood needs to pay closer attention to the issue of assessment. She did share that assessment has traditionally not been a focus of preservice and inservice courses. Teachers learn how to teach without learning much about how to assess. Even  their administrators lack training in assessment and therefore do not have the skills to support the development of assessment competencies (Heritage, 2007).

Here are the links to some of the resources I worked with this week.

Chappius, J., & Chappius, S. (2008). The best value in formative assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 14–19.

Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do teachers need to know and do? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 140–145.

NAEYC/NAECS/SDE (2009) Where we stand on curriculum assessment and program evaluation .http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/StandCurrAss.pdf