Your Personal Research Journey

To begin my journey on research simulation, I had to revisit what interested me in early childhood education.    My chosen topic for the simulation process is looking at inclusion in child care.  My question is “What resources are available to teachers in child care to support an inclusive classroom?”  I had a hard time narrowing down what I wanted to focus on involving special education in child care.  This was challenging because special education from my experience looks differently in child care versus public school as far as the resources that are made readily available to support and educate teachers. 

I chose this topic due to my current positon as a training and curriculum specialist.  I am responsible for training and providing support to children, teachers and families at our facility.  One of our recent challenges at the facility is the increase of children with special needs or behavior concerns.  Teachers that work at our facility are not required to have an education background in early childhood or special education.  Teachers gain onsite training to support what is developmentally appropriate for children in the program.  Our program also teaches staff about children and strategies to support learning using the curriculum to track developmental milestones.  One resource that is provided to support special education is Kids Included Together (K.I.T.).  This is a free resource that provides strategies for teachers to support children in the classroom that have special needs or behavior concerns. 

Families also have outside resource that come to the facility to work with their child.  As a trainer I remind teachers to work with the resource teacher to learn strategies that will support the child in the classroom.  I have noticed that many of our teachers are constantly seeking support in the classroom when working with children with special needs or behavior concerns.  The support needed is when to identify a special need or what to do with behavioral challenges.  My hope is to see if this is an issue in child care facilities in general.                                                   

Upon completion of the research chart I have learned some new terms about the research process.  Those words were quantitative approach, triangulation, and deductive research methodology. I also had the opportunity to reflect on a question from reading chapter two in the book Doing early childhood research.   I want to find out more information about “what research questions would you like to investigate?” (Mac Naughton, Rolfe, & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010, p. 33).  This week’s assignment has helped me learn more about researching and the terms used.

 

Reference

 

Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research: International perspectives on theory and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill