ORCID Profile
0000-0001-5979-4288
Current Organisations
K. N. Toosi University of Technology
,
KN Toosi University of Technology Faculty of Science
,
Greendecision Srl.
,
Deakin University
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Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-07-2022
DOI: 10.1177/14687984221113170
Abstract: The ‘schoolification’ of early childhood education and care programs, seen as readying children for formalised schooling, has had an impact on the education of younger and younger age groups. While the focus of past research has mainly focused on 4-5-year-old children, this study shifts the focus to two-three-year-old children and the literacy focus of educators working with these very young children. Nine educators from Victoria, Australia were interviewed, asked to share their views on literacy learning and development for two-three-year-old children and the planning, assessment and practices they engage in to support children’s literacy development. Responses were analysed using a practice architectures lens. Findings showed that play-based pedagogies were often overlooked when seeking to support children’s literacy development, with a preference for more formalised foci on print-based learning activities, including a focus on alphabetic letter recognition. Implications for children’s literacy learning and practice are also discussed.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 28-02-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-08-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-12-2017
DOI: 10.1111/RISA.12954
Abstract: Societies worldwide are investing considerable resources into the safe development and use of nanomaterials. Although each of these protective efforts is crucial for governing the risks of nanomaterials, they are insufficient in isolation. What is missing is a more integrative governance approach that goes beyond legislation. Development of this approach must be evidence based and involve key stakeholders to ensure acceptance by end users. The challenge is to develop a framework that coordinates the variety of actors involved in nanotechnology and civil society to facilitate consideration of the complex issues that occur in this rapidly evolving research and development area. Here, we propose three sets of essential elements required to generate an effective risk governance framework for nanomaterials. (1) Advanced tools to facilitate risk-based decision making, including an assessment of the needs of users regarding risk assessment, mitigation, and transfer. (2) An integrated model of predicted human behavior and decision making concerning nanomaterial risks. (3) Legal and other (nano-specific and general) regulatory requirements to ensure compliance and to stimulate proactive approaches to safety. The implementation of such an approach should facilitate and motivate good practice for the various stakeholders to allow the safe and sustainable future development of nanotechnology.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 07-06-2021
Abstract: Research has shown that schoolteachers often prepare children for success in standardized reading assessments by ‘teaching to the test.’ Concurrently, research exploring children’s emergent literacies and ‘school readiness’ has shown that early childhood teachers often feel pressured to ‘prepare’ children for school and may do so by focusing on print-related literacies, to the detriment of earlier stages of the oral-to-print continuum. This raises the concern that teaching children as a group, preparing them for the next ‘stage of education,’ will disadvantage children who are working below or above expected levels of development. Our study explores the teaching approaches used with a group of foundation-year children who achieved more advanced reading outcomes than children from four adjacent classrooms in their first year of schooling. We collected the reading and letter-identification outcomes of 16 children in the teacher’s foundation-year class and interviewed her about her practices. Findings showed that the teacher used her knowledge of what the children should achieve in standardized assessments as a minimum expectation and moved beyond the content of such assessments when warranted, as determined by informal assessments. As a result, every child in the class met, and many exceeded, minimum reading standards by year’s end. We conclude that using an in idualized, child-centred pedagogy, informed by a combination of standardized and informal assessments, allowed the teacher to support her students to develop a range of reading abilities and to reach their full potential.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-04-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S13384-023-00622-Y
Abstract: This paper reports on a study that explored the user-driven inter-organisational professional learning that teachers from two education systems collectively engaged in via social media. A dedicated Facebook group was established to enable Australian early childhood teachers (sector one) and primary school teachers (sector two) to engage in collaborations that would support children’s transition to school. Using an Activity Theory framework, findings showed that the site was mainly used by early childhood teachers to seek peer support in meeting reporting requirements, and that school teachers rarely posted. As such, the capacity of the Facebook group to support inter-organisational cross-sector collaboration and learning was challenged as determined by the most active participants within the site, while reinforcing the group’s capacity to support ‘just in time’ intra-organisational professional learning. This highlights a need for further research to explore the ways and means by which social media may best facilitate cross-sector collaboration between education systems, such as a more focussed and integrated use of social media during face-to-face cross-sector professional learning.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 28-04-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-08-2020
DOI: 10.1111/LIT.12229
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 02-2017
Publisher: Common Ground Research Networks
Date: 2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-03-2023
Publisher: Canadian Center of Science and Education
Date: 12-12-2016
DOI: 10.5539/JEL.V6N1P267
Abstract: When integrated within a holistic literacy program, phonics applications can be used in classrooms to facilitate students’ self-directed learning of letter-sound knowledge but are they designed to allow for such a purpose? With most phonics software applications making heavy use of image cues, this project has more specifically investigated whether the design of the images used in such applications may impact on the effectiveness of their self-directed use in classrooms. Using a quasi-experimental study, we compared two types of pictorial mnemonics used in tablet applications, along with teacher-led activity in three first-year classrooms from the one school. The difference between teacher-led activity and integrated picture cues was significant, with teacher-led activity proving more effective. The difference between teacher-led activity and form-taking picture cues, however, was not statistically significant. Given that the outcomes of this small-scale study suggest that image design may be a significant design feature contributing to the educational value of using phonics applications in the classroom, we recommend that the design features of phonics software applications attract further research.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-04-2016
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 27-05-2022
Abstract: The guided reading teaching approach is a commonly utilised practice that teachers have employed for over 20 years, both in Australia and abroad. What the approach entails, however, can be open to interpretation—an outcome that highlights the challenge of describing and conceptualising the approach in clear and unambiguous terms. This study addressed this issue of ambiguity by exploring whether guided reading, rather than being a singular teaching strategy in-and-of-itself, can more accurately be reconceptualised as comprising a range of teaching strategies that educators move between from lesson beginning to lesson’s end. Following thematic analysis of the six most commonly prescribed texts used in Australian Initial Teacher Education literacy units, a new model was devised as presented in this paper a model that teachers and researchers in Australia and abroad can draw upon to better understand, apply and/or evaluate their own and other’s use of the guided reading teaching approach in everyday practice.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 14-11-2016
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-08-2018
Abstract: This paper investigates mothers’ views regarding the purpose of shared reading with their two-year-old children, confidence in using printed and electronic texts, and self-reported practice, framed around a focus on mothers’ motivation to engage in shared reading with their children. Research into adult–child shared reading experiences has traditionally focused on early reading behaviours and talk patterns captured in video data, reporting on the literacy or cognitive benefits of these experiences as viewed by researchers. Parent contributions have typically been sought to provide background information such as parent education, frequency of home reading and socio-economic factors. There is limited research that invites parents' voices. Findings from this study have been drawn from quantitative and qualitative data, collected from questionnaires and in idual interviews with 12 reading-proficient mothers of two-year-old children in Victoria, Australia. Findings show that mothers acknowledged the educational affordances of shared reading, and the love of reading that the practice invites. Self-reported practices and confidence levels showed a strong preference for using printed picture storybooks as part of a bedtime routine, and that access to electronic texts does not necessarily equate to the same guided engagement with electronic texts as with printed texts.
Location: Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Location: Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Location: Italy
Location: United States of America
Location: United States of America
Location: Germany
Location: No location found
Location: Australia
No related grants have been discovered for Maria Nicholas.