Research documents that young children in high-quality teacher-child relationships experience better school adjustment and are more engaged in learning. Yet, many American kindergarten (age 5) teachers report spending less time on relationship building and children's social and emotional development given pressure to have students reading and…

Blocks are not just for play! In this article, Nicole Andrews describes observing the interactions of three young boys enthusiastically engaged in the kindergarten block center of their classroom, using blocks in a building project that displayed their ability to use critical thinking skills, physics exploration, and the development of language…

What kind of environmental and administrative factors support the balance between child-centred and teacher-directed practices in the early childhood classroom? What specific aspects of children's development are nurtured by this pedagogy? These and other pedagogical issues are addressed in this article as it describes how a particular curriculum…

Best practices have been used in the establishment of distance learning programs for higher education. However, little is known about faculty members' utilization of best practices in distance learning course design and delivery. Instructional designers play a critical role helping faculty members in the implementation of these best practices in…

Earlier observations suggested that young children's engagement with information and communication technologies (ICT) could be unproductive. Interplay: Play, Learning and ICT in Pre-school Settings set out to explore how practitioners can enhance three-year-olds' to four-year-olds' encounters with new technologies in the playroom. The study took…