POSTER SESSIONS

Due to COVID-19, technology use in education has remarkably been increased to maximize students’ learning outcomes. This includes the use of various technologies such as apps, social medias, Zoom, or Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality. This presentation will discuss 1) purposes and strategies of technology use for young children during a pandemic, 2) expected educational outcomes of technology use for young children, and 3) specific examples of technology use in early childhood educational settings. In the current pandemic situation, it is important for teachers to understand how to select and use developmentally appropriate technologies for children from preK to 3rd grade.

Many of the culturally responsive teaching practices fall under the three principles of UDL. This presentation will present findings of teacher candidates' learning in a multicultural education course related to the topic of UDL. Specifically, through qualitative evaluation of teacher candidates' work products, reflections, and focus group interviews, the researcher aimed to better understand teacher candidates' ability to acquire knowledge of UDL and how they will apply it in responsive teaching.

What is the knowledge, perceptions, and confidence of early childhood teachers' implementation of STEM practices? Survey results will be shared from pre- and in-service teachers working with children ages 3-5 and program directors across unique preschool settings that include a university campus laboratory school, Head Start, private community preschools, and center and family-based childcare settings.

As early childhood teachers build partnerships with families, they will encounter families who have different identities and lived experiences than their own. This presentation will discuss an anti-bias book study students participated in and share analysis of the responses of teacher candidates to a promising practice, the “dilemmas” writing assignment, which aimed to build skills and dispositions for promoting partnerships with diverse families.

This presentation discusses the outcomes of a service-learning project that aimed to prepare pre-service early childhood and elementary teachers to facilitate ELL family engagement in an ELL Methods course at a Southeastern university. The service-learning project specifically focused on the use of culturally responsive teaching and a participatory approach to promote immigrant parental engagement and ELL students’ literacy learning. Best inclusive practices for culturally responsive family engagement and implications for pre-service teacher education are addressed.

Content integration is a well-established way for early grade teachers to expose children to social studies concepts through English Language Arts (ELA). However, researchers have identified several challenges to meaningful integration and caution that social studies instruction should be more than an accessory to reading or writing. Findings from a recent study of practicing K-3 teachers’ descriptions of social studies-ELA integration will be shared, along with implications for early childhood teacher educators.

This presentation describes our experience teaching Early Childhood Education teacher candidates to use Beautiful Stuff with preschool children. We will share the teacher candidates’ experiences engaging the children in open-ended play experiences to explore sensory materials while building creative and critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving skills.