Search

Although visual arts pedagogies are considered central within early childhood education programs, teacher self-efficacy has a direct impact on the quality and delivery of visual arts curricula. Until recently, the visual arts self-efficacy, pedagogical knowledge, and practice of in-service early childhood teachers have remained largely unexplored. The authors of this paper present a qualitative, iterative re-analysis of their three PhD studies which broadly focussed on early childhood visual arts praxis and specifically examined the visual arts beliefs and pedagogy of early childhood teachers in Australia and New Zealand. A thematic analysis of the intersecting self-efficacy findings raised in the three studies identifies the powerful influence of self-efficacy on teaching practice in the visual arts domain and offers new understandings about visual arts self-efficacy amongst early childhood teachers. The combined findings reveal several factors that restrain or enhance teachers' visual arts self-efficacy across time, including the impact of childhood experiences, pre-service training and epistemological beliefs. The paper also identifies several enabling conditions that appear to support teachers to develop and maintain positive visual arts self-efficacy beliefs, including practical engagement with materials, sustained professional learning, relational trust and intentional leadership. These enabling conditions offer practical strategies and research recommendations in service of positive visual arts self-efficacy to enhance quality visual arts teaching in early childhood contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leadership within the New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) sector is both positionally assigned and a practice required of all teachers. Within this context, distributed leadership, where all team members have the potential to lead through intentional practice, is increasingly seen as an effective leadership model. This article focuses on the perceptions and practices of teachers and leaders regarding distributed leadership. ECE teachers and positional leaders' perceptions of distributed leadership and leadership practice were gathered through surveys, and explored through individual and group interviews in three previously identified high-quality ECE services. Data analysis revealed some differences in the perceptions of teachers and leaders surveyed, whereas in the interviews, the teachers and leaders had similar perceptions. Differences in perceptions about leadership create the potential for positional leaders to be unaware of areas requiring improvement either in their leadership practice or in the service as a whole. Effective leaders supported distributed leadership through building relational trust, mentoring and coaching teachers, and providing opportunities for teachers to enact leadership. The findings of this study may provide guidance for positional leaders wishing to support distributed leadership practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leadership within the early childhood education (ECE) sector in New Zealand is both positionally assigned and a required practice of all teachers. Within this context, distributed leadership – where all team members have the opportunity to lead – is increasingly seen as an effective leadership model. This article reports on a study whose aim was to discover practices of effective positional leaders in facilitating distributed leadership. A nationwide survey was carried out in Aotearoa New Zealand to capture a picture of current perceptions of ECE teachers and positional leaders about distributed leadership for professional learning. Subsequently, leadership practices for distributed leadership in three previously-identified high quality ECE services were investigated through individual and group interviews. The analysis of literature, survey and interview findings from this study led to a framework of effective leadership practice, consisting of: mentoring and coaching; fostering relational trust; and creating vision and designing supportive structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine how teachers in two kindergartens, one in New Zealand and one in China, used the stimulus of a fictional story combining mythical creatures from Māori and Chinese culture to enhance young children's sense of place and cultural identity. Sociocultural understandings about the role of collaboration and cultural tools in meaning-making informed the research design. Teachers' documentation about the children's learning throughout the project was analysed and focus group interviews were conducted with teachers and parents. Findings demonstrated that story-telling provided an effective stimulus for children's learning using a range of multi-literacies. It was also helpful for exploring and connecting children, teachers and families with significant aspects of the cultural backgrounds of the children. The research also revealed that teachers engaged in intentional teaching practices to achieve these outcomes but experienced challenges (pedagogical knots) as they used the story. Nonetheless, we argue that the use of storytelling can be a powerful tool for fostering greater understanding for children, teachers and families of their own and others' cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]