The mentoring and evaluating process enhances quality of teachers' serving in early childhood programs. The Early Educator Support (EES) Program is a new model of mentoring and coaching that aims to lend support to PreK teachers' working in nonpublic school settings. In this qualitative study, we examined the lived experiences of 12 mentors and…

Professional collaboration is widely seen as an important component in educator professional development, but we know little about the interactional processes that undergird teacher learning in collaborative workgroups. This paper focuses on four collaborative workgroups in a yearlong, mathematics-focused professional development series for…

Reflective practice is one of the key recommended practices in early childhood (EC) education and has been positively associated with the quality of EC teaching; however, research on reflective practice in preschool teaching is limited. In this study, we examined four preschool teachers' reflections on their science teaching exhibited through a…

Self-regulation is arguably one of the most crucial predictors of school readiness, academic achievement, and lifelong well-being. While educators in the prior-to-school years have a pivotal role to play in stimulating growth in early self-regulation, less is known about their knowledge and practices in this area. This interview study was…

This article contributes to knowledge about mentoring in preschool, which is important as research on mentoring of preschool teachers is limited. The study examines how in-service preschool teachers perceive their assignment as a mentor. The aim is to develop the understanding of "mentoring as support" among pre-school teacher mentors in…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion concerning adaptations and improvements of preschool teacher education. Such changes are crucial, because many newly qualified preschool teachers struggle to live up to the requirements the profession places upon them. This study is conducted in Sweden, where early childhood education…

Given the recent attention on early childhood mathematics education, it is important to understand how early childhood educators conceptualize the work of mathematics teaching and learning. This article describes a study of preschool educators' conceptions of mathematics teaching and learning in the context of a multi-year professional development…

Attention to students' socio-emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes raises important considerations for the psychological well- being of teachers, especially Head Start teachers who often work with underserved families. This scoping review summarizes current literature on Head Start teacher psychological well-being and identifies (1) how…

Policymakers have underscored the importance of professional development (PD) opportunities for supporting the early childhood education workforce. Yet little is known about how the scope and delivery of PD opportunities impact the extent to which the content provided informs classroom practice. In the present study, we explored how teacher…

Although efforts have been made to improve teacher professional development and ongoing supports, limited research has examined how early childhood education (ECE) teachers support each other informally. The present study describes how one type of informal support, collegial support (e.g. instrumental and expressive), enabled ECE teachers to cope…

In this study, the environmental education (EE) component of the pre- school teacher training programs at six (6) universities in Vietnam were examined to identify the challenges of implementing EE in these programs. The framework for the pre-school teacher training program at these universities were analyzed and 18 students in their final year of…

Teacher Preparation Programs (TPPs) support the development of a high-quality, effective workforce. Although increasing attention from education researchers has centered on the quality of ECE programming for children, fewer studies have been conducted on TPPs that support the development of the workforce who staff many of these programs. The…

Despite the burgeoning literature that describes the most effective ways of engaging early childhood educators in professional learning, very little empirical work in North America has examined the processes, dialogs, and engagements in which educators participate to address quality as a social construct. This article (1) describes a model of…

Childhood psychological trauma is currently gleaning attention in many fields of study. Subsequently, Trauma-Informed Practice (TIP) is becoming integral to many organizations that service children and families. A gap, however, is noted in literature between this approach to practice and pre-service early years professionals who study to work in…

Even with increasing calls for both researchers and educators to attend to the "E" in STEM from within the larger field of STEM education, little is known about the practices that serve to support early educators' pedagogy and related content knowledge of engineering design. Using multiple methods in a revelatory, embedded, single-case…