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Inspired by the positive impact of serious games on science understanding and motivated by personal interests in scientific outreach, we developed "Bacttle," an easy-to-play microbiology board game with adaptive difficulty, targeting any player from 7 years old onward. Bacttle addresses both the lay public and teachers for use in classrooms as a way of introducing microbiology concepts. The layout of the game and its mechanism are the result of multiple rounds of trial, feedback, and re-design. The final version consists of a deck of cards, a 3D-printed board, and tokens (with a paper-based alternative), with all digital content open source. Players in Bacttle take on the character of a bacterial species. The aim for each species is to proliferate under the environmental conditions of the board and the interactions with the board and with other players, which vary as the play evolves. Players start with a given number of lives that will increase or decrease based on the traits they play for different environmental scenarios. Such bacterial traits come in the form of cards that can be deployed strategically. To assess the impact of the game on microbiological knowledge, we scored differences in the understanding of general concepts before and after playing the game. We assessed a total of 169 visitors at two different university open-day science fairs. Players were asked to fill out a brief survey before and after the game with questions targeting conceptual advances. Results show that Bacttle increases general microbiology knowledge on players as young as 5 years old and with the highest impact on those who have no "a priori" microbiology comprehension.

Public PreK programs are an increasingly popular policy tool to equalize early learning opportunities. Programs can be universally available or targeted to support children's readiness. At the intersection of early childhood and K-12 education, their hybrid status can be difficult for families to negotiate. Based on interviews completed in 2018, we describe how parents in a universal PreK program decided whether and where their child would attend PreK, comparing parents who chose school sites with those who did not. The part-time nature of the program was a barrier to many families, prompting us to ask whether a program is authentically universal if it is not accessible to all.

This study aims to explore the impact of dual learning on preschool teachers' thriving at work and creative performance, and whether preschool teachers' thriving at work acts as a mediating factor in the relationship between dual learning and teachers' creative work. The participants were preschool teachers from Taiwan. Convenience sampling was used, resulting in a sample size of 388 people. The study results found that preschool teachers' dual learning, which includes both exploitative and exploratory learning, can improve the novelty and usefulness of their work and creativity. Furthermore, the study found that preschool teachers' thriving at work mediates the relationship between dual learning and creativity. This study also discovered that dual learning should combine and complement both exploitative and exploratory learning to achieve balance and the most significant effect. Therefore, it is essential to first help preschool teachers engage in both exploitative and exploratory learning. Schools and kindergartens can also provide relevant courses to help teachers combine these two learning methods. By integrating and complementing their advantages and disadvantages, a balance in learning can be achieved, thereby promoting teachers' creativity in their work.

This article is dedicated to examining a bilateral project established between South Korea and Türkiye with the overarching objective of elevating awareness and endowing preschool teachers with the capacity to embed education for sustainability within their classroom practices seamlessly. For this purpose, a professional development (PD) program was developed regarding the three pillars of sustainability and the 7R themes. Fourteen preschool teachers attended the PD program. Three teachers participated in this case study to reveal teachers' transformations regarding sustainability and early childhood education for sustainability. The data were collected through pre- and post-follow-up interviews and classroom observations. Thematic content analyses were conducted. According to the results, the PD program enhanced and deepened teachers' sustainability knowledge. In addition, teachers could transfer the knowledge from the PD program on education for sustainability into their practice not entirely but acceptably, and they have a chance to reconsider their lifestyle habits regarding sustainability in many areas.

Environments or learning spaces in school classrooms contribute to the improvement of educational processes. Specifically, in the Early Childhood Education, teachers can design learning spaces, which fosters an environment of safety and autonomy for the students of the Early Childhood Education. This study explores the teachers' narratives concerning the meanings they assign to the school space, the criteria by which they design and transform it, and its connection to model of educational. We have collected 34 stories of pre-primary education teachers through a semi-structured interview in which they had to reflect on this pedagogical design. As most relevant result we identify a model sustained under constructivist or cognitive criteria, rather than a dialogical one. We conclude that this epistemological perspective of the construction of the school environment should be oriented towards a more participatory and co-constructed model of the educational space.

The period of a child's growth and development that is most notable is from 0 to 8 years old. These are the years when all that is learned is laid down. Putting strong foundations in place today will yield big dividends later. Greater learning in the classroom and better educational results have a positive social and economic impact on society. Children who get early childhood education (ECE) have a strong foundation, which increases the effectiveness and productivity of every subsequent educational stage. The goal of the current study was to determine the pre-primary teachers' level of awareness regarding early childhood education, given their critical position in the field. To determine the level of knowledge of early childhood education (ECE) among teachers employed in pre-primary institutions in Bengaluru city, the study used a survey approach and a custom application. A sample of 106 teachers were drawn through cluster sampling. The study found out that the demographic variables like locality, marital status and teaching experience have no influence on the awareness of ECE among pre-primary teachers. The study found that 10% of teachers have average awareness, 31% have good awareness, 37% have very good awareness and 22% have excellent awareness of ECE. Thus, close to 90% of them are found to have better awareness of ECE. This means that preprimary teachers are well aware of the nature, learning needs etc. of children and also methodology of teaching and evaluation. In spite of better awareness of ECE found in teachers, the study comes out with few of educational implications in order to regulate and sustain the awareness of ECE among them and also in proper handling of children.

The study examined the strategies used by teacher educators in their teaching practices and gender integration in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The nature of the engagement of educational leaders and administrators in supporting teaching, learning and mainstreaming gender issues in teaching was also examined. A total of 165 sampled respondents were reached. This included 81 government officials and educational leaders (18 government officials and 63 educational leaders) and 84 tutors. The study used a concurrent mixed-method approach where the combined qualitative and quantitative data collection methodologies were applied to answer the study questions. The study data were collected directly from the project participants through semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires. 60% of preprimary and primary tutors from Kenya demonstrated knowledge and skills in pedagogical practices compared to 13% from Tanzania and 20% from Uganda. The findings also revealed that most tutors do not think training and application of lifelong professional development strategies on key pedagogical aspects and content are essential for achieving a gender-responsive and inclusive training and support program. These key areas include support for gender-based violence victims, support for pregnant girls and mothers to continue education; gender-sensitive expectations towards girls' and boys' achievements; gender-sensitive expectations around girls' and boys' behavior, lesson demonstration, and lesson observation. The study recommends that there should be integration of gender issues in delivering training for the tutors of the colleges in East Africa. The training should focus on enhancing pedagogical practices and related educational leadership and management.

During the preschool period, children's interest in reading increases, and their attitudes toward books develop with the means and opportunities provided by their teachers. Teachers' attitudes develop during their undergraduate education as pre-service teachers. This study aims to reveal preschool pre-service teachers' attitudes toward children's literature and reading habits and the relationship between these attitudes. The relational screening model was used, and the study was conducted with 343 preschool pre-service teachers. The data were collected through the "Preservice Teacher's Attitude toward Children's Literature Scale (ACLS)" and "Pre-service Teacher's Attitudes toward Reading Habit Scale (ARHS)." The descriptive, difference and correlation analyses were used to analyze the collected data. As a result of the study, the attitudes of preschool pre-service teachers toward children's literature were found to be high, and their attitudes toward reading habits were moderate. Regarding the differences in the attitudes according to the variables, the following results were obtained: female pre-service teachers' attitudes toward children's literature and reading habits were significantly higher than males; attitudes of 4th-grade pre-service teachers' toward children's literature were significantly higher than others; regarding the attitudes toward reading habits, the only significant difference is in the "attitude toward the development of reading habit" sub-dimension, in favor 1st-grade pre-service teachers; attitudes toward children's literature showed a statistically significant difference in favor of pre-service teachers who took children's literature course, but taking this course did not affect their attitudes toward reading habits. A positive and weak relationship was found between preschool pre-service teachers' attitudes toward children's literature and reading habits.

In the global context, male participation in early childhood education is notably low, with only 3% of the workforce in mainland China comprising male professionals. This study delves into the intrinsic motivation of male kindergarten teachers, employing the framework of self-determination theory. Qualitative research, comprising face-to-face interviews with seven Chinese kindergarten teachers, aims to uncover the factors influencing their intrinsic motivation at work. By understanding their perspectives on intrinsic motivation, this research offers valuable insights to professionals in the field of early childhood education.

Social-emotional skills are crucial for preschool children's mental health and later school success. Most school-based SEL programs originate in the United States, reflecting a robust interest in SEL curricula from preschool through secondary school. While EU Member States are increasingly integrating social and emotional skills programs into school curricula, there is a lack of uniform terminologies, frameworks, and assessment criteria, necessitating the introduction of standardized practices. This study aims to offer an overview of US and European preschool SEL programs, utilizing content analysis to showcase the diversity of these programs. The analysis focuses on programs from the "EU-Self Programs for Social and Emotional Skills Development for Early and Preschool Children Applied in European Countries" by Koltcheva et al. (2022), including impact evaluations of nine programs in total. The study analysed the programs in relation to goals and outcomes, and findings reveal that there are no remarkable differences between US and European preschool SEL programs, although certain trends highlight distinctions among programs of different origins. The study will be useful for practitioners who are interested in introducing a preschool SEL program in their institution.

Yulin Normal University preschool education major existing children's game course instructional model more in passing test knowledge and practice test skills, students used to passively accept knowledge, rarely use critical thinking to treat knowledge, with a critical eye to question, thinking, and discovery, long-term students will not be able to adapt to the needs of the new era of social development of survival ability and professional competitiveness. Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to study the factors affecting the development of critical thinking ability, (2) to develop an instructional model based on experiential learning theory and six thinking hats, and (3) to compare the critical thinking ability of Third Year college students before and after the instructional model of experiential learning theory and six thinking hats. The sample group was 30 students from preschool education majors at Yulin Normal University. The research was conducted in three steps: studying the factors that affect the development of critical thinking ability, developing the instructional model, and the experimental and improvement process. The research instruments were a questionnaire about factors that affect the development of critical thinking ability, an interview form about factors that affect the development of college students' critical thinking ability, an observation form about student behavior, an interview form about opinions on teaching, lesson plans, and a critical thinking ability test. The study's results were 1) the main factors affecting the development of critical thinking ability include the instructional environment, the teachers, and the students, respectively, 2) the instructional model based on experiential learning theory and six thinking hats was developed consisting of four core components: a) principles, b) objectives, c) learning process, and d) results, and 3) after the implementation of the instructional model based on experiential learning theory and six thinking hats, the critical thinking ability scores of the students were higher than the critical thinking ability of the students before the experiment, with a statistical significance of 0.01 level. Finally, this paper strives to develop a based on Experiential Learning Theory and Six Thinking Hats instructional model to improve the critical thinking of preschool education students at Yulin Normal University.

This article takes a practice perspective on professional learning to contribute through an empirical example of how professional learning can be arranged to enable change in and for professional practice, as well as for nurturing praxis. The theory of practice architectures is used to analyse the process of an action research (AR) in which principals investigated and changed their ways of leading digitalisation in preschool education. The theorising of the co-production of practices was used to visualise how the changes were enabled in this process, as the practices for professional learning and leading became interdependent through shared practice architectures. The findings describe how such a coproduction of practices enabled a process in which the principals went from a technical to a practical approach to change, when leading digitalisation, which further resulted in a critical stance. This was a process that manifested professional learning as praxis-oriented change in which the principals' professional judgement increased.

This study, aiming to reveal preschool children's mental models of their environment, was carried out with the participation of 225 children aged 36-72 months attending 8 different preschool education institutions. It is based on qualitative research designed around a case study. The Word Association Test and Drawing were used as the data collection tools. In the study, it was observed that 36-48-month-old children mostly focused on the visuals they saw in the park (garden) and traffic in their environmental drawings, and in addition to these visuals, 49-60-month-old children included the forest in their environmental drawings, and 61-72-month-old children included home and school in their environmental drawings. The most prominent environments/elements observed with both data collection tools were the house, traffic, park, and sky for the 3648-month-old children; house, traffic, park, sky, and rural-village for the 49-60-month-old children; and house, traffic, park, sky, rural-village, forest and nearby settlement (market, store, etc.) for the 61-72-month-old children. The common elements that children associate with the environment in their mental models are the concepts of house, traffic, park, and sky.

The complexity of gear concepts, often misunderstood by young children, highlights the need for educational frameworks beyond simple play. To examine the effects of using the prediction, observation, and explanation (POE) model in building block activities, a true experimental design was implemented. A total of 49 preschoolers were randomly assigned to either an experimental group, which engaged with building blocks embedded with the POE model, or a control group, which followed a building instruction guide. Data were gathered through pretests, posttests, and two-week delayed tests administered to all participants. The theoretical framework for this study was based on the POE model, emphasizing the importance of prediction, observation, and explanation in the learning process. The results revealed that the POE model had positive impacts on fostering young children's acquisition of gear concepts. Specifically, gear speed and gear direction were identified as the most challenging concepts for preschoolers to grasp. The results highlight the critical role of children's reflection in learning these concepts. The participants' common naive conceptions about gear function, gear speed, and gear direction were identified. The implications of these results highlight the importance of incorporating reflective practices in early childhood education to enhance concept acquisition and address misconceptions.

Nowadays, artificial intelligence, which is used in different fields with the increase in the number of works and transactions carried out in digital environment, is also used in the field of education. The main purpose of this study is to examine the views about artificial intelligence of preschool children, their mothers and teachers. The research was planned with phenomenology research design, one of the qualitative research methods. The study group of the research was formed by selecting a total of 30 people in the convenience sampling method, including 5 preschool teachers teaching in public and private independent kindergartens, 1 student from each teacher's 5year-old class and his/her mother. The data were collected through interviews and the interview questions were prepared by the researchers as open-ended questions. According to the results of the research, it was concluded that although the teachers defined artificial intelligence on the correct scientific basis, they did not have sufficient knowledge, did not use it in educational environments to increase the productivity of children and were worried. Considering the answers given by mothers and children to the questions about artificial intelligence, it can be interpreted that artificial intelligence is not defined correctly and there is a lack of knowledge, mothers have concerns that artificial intelligence may be harmful for their children, and children see artificial intelligence as a living being that they can talk to. [Paper presented at the International Preschool Education Congress (8th).]

Background: The most effective indigenous games well known to pre-schoolers must be used in schools, given the significance of literacy and numeracy abilities in children's future educational prospects and successes. Aim: The goal of this article was to determine the efficacy of indigenous games in promoting literacy and numeracy skills among preschool children. Setting: Ten teachers were selected from the four rural selected schools in Zambia with Early Child Education (ECE) centres. Methods: The article used a participatory action research design with a purposive sampling technique. The researchers used interviews and participatory observations to collect data. Results: The study found that indigenous games, when used effectively, can have the potential to promote the child's literacy and numeracy skills, even though some teachers found them challenging to execute. The study adopted a thematic analysis approach to analyse a set of data and search for patterns in its interpretation to identify themes. Conclusion: The study has shown that indigenous games have many benefits for preschoolers' learning. The study recommends that teachers should attend intensive continuing professional development (CPD) workshops and seminars to gain the knowledge and abilities necessary to effectively and suitably teach ECE learners pertinent skills through traditional games. Parents should be involved in teaching traditional games. Besides, the curricula of universities and colleges of education should include instructions in indigenous games for teacher preparation. Contribution: Research on the use of indigenous games in promoting the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills in Zambia is limited, hence this enquiry.

Background: Language discussions have historically focused on the power dynamics between dominant and indigenous languages. This has generated discontent and contention on which language should rule the educational sector. The national language policy of South Africa mandates the use of all languages in the educational system. Even though there are 12 recognised languages, English is preferred in education circles. This ignores the research that demonstrates the advantages of speaking one's native language, especially in the early years of schooling. Aim: This study was conducted to determine how preschool practitioners assist the language development of learners in multilingual classrooms. Setting: Six early childhood education (ECE) practitioners from three preschools in Mamelodi township, South Africa were selected, based on choosing English as the language of communication, in multilingual classrooms in peri-urban areas. Methods: A qualitative approach and a case study research design were employed. It focused on purposive sampling of practitioners from three preschools in Mamelodi where the medium of communication was English. Interviews, observations, casual conversations and document and visual data analysis were data collection tools. A questionnaire was used to gather the geographical information of the participants. A fusion of the Bakhtinian philosophy of dialogism and social justice theory underpinned the study. Results: The results showed that despite English in their schools as a medium of instruction, practitioners used predominating home languages to assure understanding. This translanguaging approach was commonly used in every school. Learning in a single language was challenging because of diverse languages, hence the use of English First Additional Language. Conclusion: To promote language acquisition in multilingual preschools, translanguaging ought to be promoted. Contribution: This study proposes that early childhood teacher preparation programs ought to promote multilingualism by employing translanguaging strategies as a study unit.

Background: Early childhood development (ECD) is pivotal in addressing educational inequality and reducing income disparities in South Africa. Government initiatives to integrate ECD into the education system underscore a positive trajectory. Aim: This study assesses the impact of relocating ECD to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in South Africa on practitioner employment. Specifically, it investigates the challenges ECD practitioners face concerning compliance with DBE norms and standards, including qualifications, professional body registration and adherence to educator conditions outlined by the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC). Setting: The study is conducted in South Africa, focussing on Gauteng, to examine the ramifications of relocating ECD to the DBE. Methods: Conducted as a qualitative study, this research examines the potential implications for practitioner employment by conducting interviews with practitioners from both formal and informal settings. Results: The study indicates that the anticipated policy shift has created uncertainty regarding their employment status among ECD practitioners. This uncertainty may compound sectoral challenges, underscoring the urgent need for government intervention and support. Conclusion: Addressing the concerns highlighted by this study is imperative before the transition of the ECD sector to a new ministry in South Africa. Additionally, government initiatives to formalise informal ECD centres and broaden access to subsidies are crucial for enhancing sectoral performance. Contribution: This research sheds light on the challenges confronting ECD practitioners amid policy changes in South Africa, stressing the necessity of government backing in formalising the sector and bolstering subsidy accessibility for improved performance within the South African ECD landscape.

Multiculturalism is increasingly present in schools, especially in Melilla (Spain), where cultural diversity is one of its defining features due to its geographical location on the border between Africa and Europe. In the light of the importance of educational leaders in dealing with this diversity, this research proposes two main objectives. First, to analyze initial and ongoing training in terms of interculturality, skills, and knowledge that an educational leader must have in their position, and second, to determine the impact of COVID-19 on school management in education centers. We used a qualitative methodology with semi-structured face-to-face interviews to collect data, and content analysis as a data analysis method. The participants (school leaders) represent the six districts that comprise the city of Melilla, nine infant and primary education and six secondary education school leaders. The results reveal that the training received by educational leaders is rather limited and not very useful in practice. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the inequality gap between families from the schools, given that the situation exacerbated their economic status.

Emotion vocabulary development is a skill that can be targeted in preschools using shared book reading. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a shared book reading intervention on the development of preschool children's emotional vocabulary. Five typically developing 4-year-old children participated in the study. A single-case research design (SCRD) was employed; specifically, a multiple probe across behaviors. The primary dependent variable was the children's ability to receptively identify emotion vocabulary depicted in Google images as well as provide correct responses to inference questions targeting emotion vocabulary. Results indicate that while all five children increased their ability to receptively identify emotion vocabulary and provide correct responses to questions targeting emotional vocabulary during instructional sessions, probe results were variable for both measures. Implications for research and practice are provided.

This paper is based on the analysis of the relationship between early education, mathematical skills, and student achievement in Bosnia & Herzegovina, using data from the trends in international mathematics and science study (TIMSS) 2019. The study involves 5,628 fourth-grade students whose average age was 10.1 years. The research specifically focuses on factors such as the age of students at the beginning of schooling, attendance at preschool institutions, and their mathematical skills before starting school. Through the application of SPSS analysis, insights into the statistical relationships and trends between these factors are provided, emphasizing the importance of early educational experiences to improve the quality of education in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The analysis results show that the length of stay in preschool institutions, attendance in preschool programs, and the early acquisition of mathematical skills (counting skills, recognition of numeral representations, numeral writing, simple addition, and subtraction) impact later mathematical achievements of students.

The aim of this research was to study the current level of preschool teachers' partnership competence in the aspect of interacting in the teaching staff. During the research, questionnaires and statistical methods of analysis were conducted. The results of the study show that 82% of the respondents describe the psychological climate in the team as moderately favourable, 6% note its high level, 9% feel low favourableness, and 3% see it as unfavourable. The conducted research revealed a positive moderate correlation between the partnership competence level and the psychological climate level in the team of preschool teachers. Therefore, a positive psychological climate, characterized by mutual understanding, support and openness, contributes to creating a favorable environment for partnership interaction. When teachers feel comfortable and supported in the team, they are more inclined to work together, share experiences and provide mutual support. The area of further research is to identify the relationship between the professional development of teachers and their partnership competence, as well as to study the impact of distance learning on partnership interaction between teachers and ways of its development in the digital environment.

Stuttering, the repetition of voice, syllable or sentence, is a speech and social communication disorder that negatively affects the fluency of speech. Students who stutter are often socially isolated in school, and also experience high anxiety and communication difficulty at different levels. With the study reported on here we investigated teachers' opinions about the difficulties they experience when supporting students who stutter, and how educational regulations are implemented. In this descriptive study the qualitative research method was employed. This method enables an in-depth investigation of participants' opinions and thoughts. Interview notes and observation data were analysed using descriptive and document analysis. Teachers' opinions are described along 4 main themes, namely recognition and intervention, providing cooperation, in-class communication environment, and academic support. The findings in the study show that teachers and peers have a great influence on stuttering children's access to quality education and their social acceptance.

The Merdeka Belajar curriculum is the current curriculum developed by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, which should be implemented thoroughly in 2024. Project-based learning is identically engaged with this curriculum, which offers many advantages to enrich the quality of education. This method has been promoted and implemented in several schools across the region in Indonesia, yet many teachers still need help applying it. This research explores the project-based learning steps for preschool teachers in Bandung through a community service program by Industrial Engineering lecturers in Indonesia. There were 42 participants from 35 kindergarten and playgroup schools who joined the PJBL workshop. With an active learning workshop delivery, a significant result has been achieved that could increase their understanding of the PJBL concept. The "A Healthy House" project was an example of the topic covered in the workshop. To check the participant's knowledge of the PjbL steps, the questionnaire was distributed two times, before and after the workshop ended. Using the Mc Nemart test, the PJBL workshop has significantly impacted the teachers. They could understand the principles of PjBL and the steps of the methods.

In this study, a scale was created to measure the gamification ability levels of teachers. The rating system is a 5-point Likert scale. The scale has 36 items and 4 variables. The research's study group is made up of 526 instructors who are employed during the academic year 2022-2023 in kindergarten, primary schools, secondary schools, and high schools connected to the Ministry of National Education. By looking at the levels of exploratory and confirmatory component analysis, item discrimination levels, and meeting the goal, the validity of the scale was examined. Stability analyses and internal consistency coefficients were used to examine the scale's reliability. The investigation concluded that the scale is a viable and trustworthy measurement tool that may be used to assess teachers' degrees of self-efficacy with regard to gamification.

Education is seen as a resource at a global level but is currently considered to be in crisis in many parts of the world. This constitutes a significant drawback in terms of humanity's prosperity and well-being since education is the key not only to an educated workforce but also to humane, collaborative, and caring societies. Even within this dim landscape, there are certain educational systems that defy the odds and perform significantly higher than their otherwise comparable systems. This paper proposes using an unusual lens for educational policy comparative studies, that of positive deviance, to aid us in progressing towards a more stable educational state of affairs. Using a positive deviance methodology, which focuses on learning what is working well in systems that defy and overcome substantial challenges, this study investigates the patterns, attitudes, and actions of three selected cases: Massachusetts as a positive deviant in the US, Estonia as a positive deviant in Europe, and Castile-Leon as a positive deviant in Spain. The purpose is, by analysing educational policies, laws, and other related documents, to find commonalities that explain why these systems outperform others. The results of the comparative analysis pinpoint areas and strategies informative to those leading struggling educational systems, such as a strong commitment to equity and justice, placing teachers at the centre of reforms, using assessment as a tool for process monitoring and summative inquiry, and making preschool education accessible to all.

Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic, school systems worldwide are still on the road to recovery. As students return to in-person learning, there is an increased awareness among educators to investigate the areas of student need where interventional strategies could be applied to bridge the learning loss and help further student academic achievement and emotional well-being. Focused adoption of differentiated instructional practices by teachers may be one of the many ways in which educators could make classroom learning more student-centered. This case study was an exploratory investigation into teachers' desired and actual use of differentiated instruction within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The study was conducted to gain a perspective on the areas of particular growth for differentiated instruction in the post-COVID educational environment. The findings from this study may help educational planners, school leaders, and teachers develop relevant professional development programs that could incrementally help to reverse some of the detrimental impacts of the pandemic on student learning.

This research aimed to examine the effect of the "Matific" platform on preschool students' academic performance in Mathematics in Al Dhafra Region, United Arab Emirates. It also examined the difference between boys' and girls' academic performance after using the "Matific" platform during mathematics learning. An experimental research design with pre- and posttest was conducted over a four-week period. A convenient sampling technique was used to select twenty preschool students in an intact group (11 girls and 9 boys). Data was collected through the Achievement Test instrument using pretests and posttests. Descriptive statistics and paired samples t-tests were used to evaluate differences in pretest and posttest scores among individuals and groups, with further analysis conducted to examine differences between boys' and girls' performance. Findings suggest that there is significant effect of using the "Matific" platform on students' academic performance in Mathematics. However, no statistically significant differences were observed between the performance of boys and girls in utilizing "Matific."

As textiles continue to feature heavily in discussions of sustainability, and young students continue to be positioned as saviors of the planet, this paper joins the call for assemblage thinking in early years research that decenters humans and foregrounds relationships. What follows is a subset of a larger study, where one preschool classroom engaged with textile themed provocations, and I had the honor of listening deeply to the children. This work borrows from sociomaterialism and artistic listening to consider what themes emerged when I considered child/textile as entangled in meaning making in one senior preschool classroom. I highlight ways in which the themes of "connect," "know," and "perceive" all surface in one richly detailed narrative of children making meaning with textiles. Finally, I offer a way in which research can support this kind of assemblage thinking in the classroom, by looking to relationships between themes and how we might represent those relationships in more nuanced, illustrative ways.

Exposing children to STEM education from an early age increases their curiosity and interest in STEM careers. Thanks to STEM education, children learn by working like little scientists and putting forward their own scientific products. Based on this approach, the aim of this research is to raise awareness among preschool children about the concept of light that they encounter in daily life. The study was carried out with 20 children aged 60-72 months in a public school in the spring term of 2022-2023 in Turkey under the name of "STEM Activity in Preschool Education: Let's Discover the Light!". The STEM activity plan was designed by the researchers in accordance with the 5E model under the guidance of the preschool education curriculum and Next Generation Science Standards. During the activity, the steps of the 5E model were followed, allowing children to design their projects to discover light, make observations, and achieve learning objectives related to STEM education in the preschool period. In this context, the present activity is effective for preschool children to receive STEM education and reach the determined international standards.

Expected positive outcomes of teacher supervision in Guyana are not always achieved. This qualitative study explores forces that may be hindering desirable outcomes of supervision provided by Nursery Field Officers (NFOs) and is intended to be an attempt to improve practice. Through thematic analysis of interviews with 30 teachers, five critical areas of undesirable encounters were discovered. These encounters were framed as fault-finding, controlling and mechanically oriented, unproductive, emotionally unsettling, and disruptive. Caution about the danger of identification of pedagogical weaknesses in the absence of accompanying solutions and recommendations is flagged, and remedial strategies are identified. The findings reframe, reinforce, and complement existing knowledge about educational supervision, serve to chronicle Guyanese teachers' experiences with the supervision of NFOs, and might be informative to professional development programs that rely on supervision to sustain pedagogical growth. Program providers and other stakeholders might find the teachers' experiences a reference point to consider critical issues regarding the quality of and approach to supervision.