How Are CKA Research Articles Important to You?
Over two decades CKA has published research articles about early childhood education topics. CKA has reviewed these articles and discovered them to still be highly applicable to educators. But why should you pay attention to them?
1. These articles are written about the students you teach. They focus specifically on children of preschool and/or early primary years.
2. These articles are about topics that affect you. Whether it’s full-day kindergarten, stages of art development, literacy activities or mathematics instruction, the topics are relevant to your teaching and learning.
3. These articles have Study Guide Questions for deeper understanding. Schools have Professional Learning Communities that study research as it relates to educators’ teaching and students’ learning. CKA, with the help of the research authors, developed Study Guide Questions to help educators “dig deeper,” to build connections for their own classrooms.
A Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) trainer informed CKA that teachers going through induction must complete 24 hours of Professional Development. This can be done in a number of ways, including the reading and analyzing of research articles that relate to their inquiry (self-selected focus area). BTSA candidates can read research and then write a synopsis and how it relates to student success. They share this with their Support Provider who, in turn, sends the work to the County Office of Education and indicates that two hours of their Professional Development has been completed.
4. These articles have ongoing opportunities to enrich your teaching. Several authors have agreed to update their research, serve as discussion leaders for online professional development sessions, and respond to questions from the field.
