Overview
Our research takes place at a Center for Early Childhood Development located in a diverse neighborhood in a medium-sized town in the Southwest United States. The center serves three populations: special needs students, students who are designated as educationally at-risk, and students whose parents pay for their children to attend the school. The district philosophy is to mainstream all students and have all groups interacting with one another. Students are moved between classrooms and teachers, depending on the activity. In this center the children, their respective families, the in-service teachers, university faculty, and pre-service teachers interact with the purpose to promote literacy development. We make use of a design-based research approach to account for, to understand, and to address a complex interplay of factors that contribute to the literacy development of all children and of children who are speakers of other languages, in particular.
There are five features that are central to Design-based research methodology we have put into use.
1) It targets the process of learning and how that learning is supported.
2) It seeks innovations and studies new forms of instruction and learning, their impact, and their potential.
3) It is both prospective and reflective. It is prospective in that premises for specific forms of learning are developed, supported, and tried. It is reflective in that data is collected, evaluated, and the form of learning is modified or discarded.
4) It incorporates repeated, ongoing cycles of creation and analysis.
5) It is rooted in the ways abstract ideas are applied in specific contexts. Theories drive both thinking and practice.
A Conceptual Framework for a Community Based Preservice Early Childhood Education Program
Scope and Reach of the Project