This paper explores how school readiness is defined in state transition-to-kindergarten toolkits across 42 states and considers the implications for teacher preparation. Although readiness is widely referenced in transition-to-kindergarten documents, it is often not explicitly defined. When defined, it increasingly reflects shared responsibility across children, families, and schools, but these ideas are not consistently reflected in practice. We examine how these inconsistencies may shape preservice teachers’ understandings of readiness and share practical approaches for helping teacher candidates critically engage with readiness discourses to promote equity, belonging, and culturally responsive teaching. 

This qualitative study examines how elementary school leaders implement Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) within Transitional Kindergarten (TK) under California’s Universal Prekindergarten expansion. Findings reveal that leaders often rely on “context clues” and a “parental lens” due to limited early childhood training, contributing to tensions between play-based pedagogy and academic expectations. The study identifies a “Paradox of Expertise,” where early childhood experts are excluded from K–12 leadership roles, creating inequities in program quality. Implications highlight the need for specialized leadership preparation, systemic supports, and policy reforms to ensure equitable, developmentally appropriate early learning environments. 

This session presents findings from a mixed-methods study exploring how novice and veteran K-2 teachers implement collaborative learning, grounded in socio-constructivism and Bandura’s self-efficacy theories. The research identifies key supports and barriers to effective collaboration and offers actionable recommendations for teacher educators to prepare preservice teachers to foster joy-filled, student-centered experiences in early childhood classrooms. 

Explore how Relationship-Based Practices (RBP) Training enhances the quality of diverse mentor-apprentice and mentor-intern relationships in early childhood education. By focusing on trust, reflection, and collaboration, RBP provides mentors with strategies to support apprentices in building confidence, persistence, and professional identity. Ultimately, the session aims to highlight how applying RBP principles contributes to retention in the workforce and long-term career growth for early educators. 

Early childhood educators often express hesitation in using technology with young children, and pre-service teachers (PSTs) similarly enter field placements with uncertainty about its appropriate use. Guided by Positive Technological Development (PTD) theory, this phenomenological study explored PSTs’ lived experiences with technology integration. Data from interviews with 12 PSTs were analyzed thematically. Findings indicate that PSTs use various digital tools and develop confidence over time. However, this study highlights the need for more intentional use of technology to support creativity, collaboration, and meaningful engagement. While confidence increases, intentional integration remains limited, emphasizing the need for stronger pedagogical support. 

This session shares evidence of the joy of teaching using highlights from Head Start teachers’ use of Bilingualtek’s engaging props and multimedia science eBooks during interactive shared readings with children learning multiple languages. Bilingualtek (BT) is a culturally linguistically responsive science-language instructional approach supporting teachers serving multilingual preschoolers. In addition to video and pictures, teacher testimonials of their positive experiences of learning and engaging in shared reading strategies will be highlighted. How these joy-filled and engaging strategies can be used to prepare preservice teachers to deliver shared readings supporting both language and science learning for multilingual children will be discussed. 

Early childhood educators face high levels of stress and burnout, which can negatively impact their wellbeing and the care they provide children. Yet, teachers find joy in their practice and continue to pursue higher education. Joy can be a powerful force for teachers’ wellbeing, and should be supported in the workplace and teacher preparation programs. This presentation shares a pedagogical approach to invite and celebrate joy among students in an online, asynchronous program. Drawing from positive psychology and polyvagal theory, sharing “glimmers” is a small, but meaningful way to promote resilience and connection for individuals and the learning community. 

This presentation highlights strategies instructors can use to create online courses that foster joyful, engaging, and meaningful learning. With growing online enrollment driven by flexibility, accessibility, and affordability, students need courses that promote connection, competence, and active participation. Applying constructivist principles, instructors can use clear course structures, interactive discussion forums, project-based assignments, and timely, supportive communication to enhance learning. Incorporating ADA-compliant design ensures accessibility for all students. By intentionally promoting reflection, collaboration, and engagement, instructors transform online courses into inclusive, supportive environments where every student can thrive and enjoy the learning process. 

Early childhood educators often report limited preparation in teaching mathematics and science to infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. This session introduces a teacher-education framework that uses food as a developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant material for early STEM learning. Drawing on constructivist theory and inquiry-based pedagogy, the framework demonstrates how everyday routines can support early scientific reasoning, mathematical thinking, and problem solving. Participants will examine examples of food-based STEM learning experiences and a universal observation rubric designed to help teacher candidates recognize early STEM behaviors in young children. Implications for early childhood teacher education programs and professional development will be discussed. 

This case study examines how educators in a nature-based preschool communicate with families about inquiry-based science learning, focusing on how these practices foster joyful and equitable engagement across school and home contexts. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s Mesosystem, interviews with three educators revealed four themes: communication types, science-specific communication, challenges, and efforts to build school-home science connections. Educators used multiple strategies to share children’s experiences and invite family participation, often highlighting joy and curiosity in nature. However, time constraints and one-way exchanges limited engagement. Findings highlight the need for teacher education programs to prepare educators to build inclusive, reciprocal family partnerships. 

This study examines how culturally integrated play (CIP) in community-based museum settings supports children’s agency and learning. Using qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews with caregivers and structured observations of caregiver-child interactions, the study explores how cultural practices, engagement styles, and environmental affordances shape children’s decision-making, identity expression, and participation. Findings are expected to reveal varied caregiver understandings of play, the importance of facilitative adult engagement, and the role of culturally relevant materials in fostering agency. Implications highlight the need for policy alignment, teacher preparation, and professional development that center on culturally responsive, family-engaged, play-based pedagogies across diverse early childhood settings. 

Awortwe, I. (2026, June). Fostering Children’s Agency Through Culturally Integrated Play: Perspectives from Caregivers in Community Learning Settings. Paper presented at the annual National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators Summer 2026 Conference, Virtual, United States. (Paper Session) 

This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods dissertation study examining the professional identity, self-efficacy, and well-being of public school kindergarten teachers who teach through a playful pedagogy. Findings reveal that playful learning functions simultaneously as the primary source of teachers' professional joy and the central site of institutional conflict. Self-efficacy and well-being were strongly correlated, driven by a confidence feedback loop rooted in observing children's engagement through play. Meaning was the highest dimension of well-being. Administrative support emerged as the gateway variable. Implications center on preparing teachers with the professional identity and resilience to sustain joy under systemic pressure. 

This study addressed early childhood teachers’ uncertainty about how to support play by developing a practice-based framework for play pedagogy. Conducted within a 2-year, job-embedded professional learning series, the study engaged teachers in iterative cycles of planning, enactment, and video-elicited reflection focused on guided dramatic play. Findings identify a set of facilitative roles (e.g., co-player, director, catalyst for reflection) and associated “bite-sized” strategies that support purposeful, cognitively complex play. The framework offers a shared language for practice and demonstrates how video-based representations of practice can support teachers’ noticing, interpretation, and decision-making in play. 

Joy is increasingly marginalized in early childhood classrooms as accountability pressures and legislative attacks on DEIB narrow what is deemed acceptable pedagogy. This paper examines schema play as a joy-centered, equity-affirming pedagogical stance in early childhood teacher education. Drawing on quantitative research examining early childhood teachers’ knowledge of schema play and their instructional responses, this session explores how preservice teachers can be prepared to recognize children’s schematic play as meaningful learning rather than misbehavior. Findings highlight the need for intentional preparation that frames joy, play, and restraint as acts of professional resistance and ethical responsibility. 

Early childhood classrooms are visually rich, yet the influence of visual environments on children’s joy, well-being, and engagement is often unexplored. This ongoing pilot study examines classroom visual stimuli, including displays, wall materials, and organizational features, in early learning settings serving children ages three to five. Using a mixed-methods design, researchers conduct structured classroom inventories and observations alongside teacher reflections. The study focuses on identifying patterns of visual density, intentionality, and alignment with developmental needs. By centering educator perspectives and environmental documentation, the research aims to inform teacher educators about reflective approaches to examining classroom visuals for early learning settings. 

While joyful and inclusive practice relies on the opportunities for children, teachers, and families to express their needs, self-advocacy remains largely absent from early childhood teacher education. This study explores how narrative inquiry and communities of practice foster self-advocacy. By leveraging relational agency, educators embrace complex emotional landscapes. Findings highlight threshold concepts such as reconceptualizing advocacy as a partnership, building pedagogical confidence through journaling, and fostering reciprocal vulnerability through Learning Stories. The co-inquirers in this participatory study conclude that narrative inquiry isn’t about solving the puzzles of daily classroom life, but living inside them with openness, curiosity, and joy. 

Anderson, S., Stremmel, A., Tebben, A., Ferrin, E., Rawley, T., Ota, C., Cook, G., & Karppinen, M. (2026, June 

8–10). Narrative Inquiry as a pathway to self-advocacy and joyful inclusive practice [Paper presentation]. 

National Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators Summer Annual Conference, Virtual.

This study investigated early childhood teachers’ instructional roles, questioning practices, and warmth during a small-group free-play-dough activity using a mixed-methods approach. Findings from the quantitative phase demonstrated that teachers most frequently used the play leader role, followed by the coplayer and classroom manager roles. The director role showed less warmth than other roles, and there were significant differences among children’s age groups in the mean number of closed-ended questions. In the qualitative phase, teachers’ turn-taking sequences will be used to understand their questioning process. This study highlights the interactive process of teacher-child interaction during play sessions in the classroom context. 

Zhao, L., & Hamel, E. (2026, Jun 8). Early childhood teachers’ role, warmth, and questioning during free play [Paper Presentation]. NAECTE, Online. United States.

This research was funded by the Sandra Dunagan Deal Center for Early Language and Literacy. We thank Daisya Harmon and Chantal Mihailovic for their assistance with coding.

Play reduces stress and supports inclusion for all ages. Pre-service teachers are increasingly entering our programs with perspectives that learning only happens when teacher-directed. How do we support pre-service teachers in thinking beyond misconceptions about play to view it as essential within early childhood settings? Reflecting on our own practices, we propose the parallel process for making this mindset shift toward valuing play as learning and a key practice for inclusion. In our classes, we provide adult-learner centered play experiences and have observed pre-service teachers connect these to increased engagement, inclusion, and empathy within their own learning and ECE classrooms.