My Experience with Research

Almost a year ago this month. I had the opportunity to participate in a research study conducted by Johns Hopkins University.  During this study I was to introduce my students varying from ages 3-5 yrs old to vocabulary words they may have never heard or explore before.  Prior to starting the research project,  I sat down with the lead researcher and she explained to me why this project was being conducted in local Head Start programs. Research has shown how children from low income families had hard time reading when they entered into kindergarten.  As a precaution to the ever growing achievement gap between preschool and kindergarten JHU decided to team up with Temple university and develop a curriculum that will improve the language development of young children through story telling.

 The  JHU provided each participating classroom with the lesson plan and the story books to go with.  They also provided visuals to go with the vocabulary words as well follow up question being iterated the focus words. This was a year long study (school year)  and three times out of the year the children we're assessed by the researcher or teacher on the words they have been learning. Once a week the researcher would come in and video the teacher in the act of implementing the lesson.

The same research project began to introduce the same concept athome as well.  They had the same curriculum except they did not video.  This was a really neat but intense project to guide educators and their families on the importance of language building in young children

My Research Journey

For this course, I have chosen to conduct my research simulation on the topic of effective leadership in early child care. This topic has inspired me to pursue my education with hopes of becoming an administrator of  a child care program. In my years of experience, I have worked under some supervisors who lacked the ability to inspire their staff. They were able to manage the program but lack those people skills needed to inspire and motivate their staff to excel in all they do for the program, children and families.

Through my research thus far, I have found articles that I redeemed useful for the topic. These articles were located on the NAEYC website. Here I was able to locate three articles that can define the purpose of effective leadership and the benefits. I am also open to learning of any other resources that will assist me in gaining more knowledge on my topic.