Marchel, M.A., and Keenan, K.M.S. (2005). Tradition and change: The voyage of revising an early childhood studies preparation program. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 26, 331-345.
A Midwestern university early childhood education (ECE) program was found to be lagging behind changes in the field. A team of faculty worked with a facilitator to redesign the program of courses in the early childhood department. The faculty realized that coursework needed to updated for better preparation of future ECE teachers. The authors note that the faculty committee was concerned with the challenge of balancing traditional coursework with new approaches.
Changes in the early childhood world in recent years include the enrollment of many more children in preschools and centers who come from widely varying cultural backgrounds. Many of these children are not English speakers when they start in preschool and need help assimilating to American culture and learning English. Another recent change in early childhood environments is the inclusion of children with special needs in general education classrooms. New research findings in neuroscience and brain development in children need to be addressed in college course work. Other external forces creating change include new federal mandates for schools about teacher licensure and updated best practices standards issued by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Council for Exceptional Children.
The faculty design team in the article chose to implement a universal educational approach that would include most early childhood development courses and special education classes under one department. This kind of unified program is currently being used at George Mason University in the early childhood courses.
Some of you will appreciate this mathematical formula from the article: Change often occurs when dissatisfaction (D) plus a vision (V) of the desired state plus identification of the first steps (1st steps) and recognition of capacity (C) is greater than (>) the resistance (R), or stated as a mathematical formula: Change = D + V+ 1st Steps + C > R (Gleicher in Jacobs, 1994, p. 122). (p 332)
In this case, student and faculty dissatisfaction with the current course structure led to faculty vision of a new early childhood program. The vision was “to create a professional development program that would prepare early educators to appropriately nurture and support young children and families with diverse abilities and backgrounds.” (p 334) The vision was translated into a development plan, and new and updated classes were added to the curriculum in the early childhood department. I find the willingness of the faculty to keep current and make adjustments to their courses very encouraging. They reflected on their own system, researched other programs, and made adjustments to best serve their students.
