Associate Professors Mary Knight-McKenna and Heidi Hollingsworth co-authored two articles, along with Nicole Ammerman ’16 for one article. Both articles presented findings of research on academic service-learning in early childhood.
Mary Knight-McKenna and Heidi Hollingsworth, both associate professors of education, have co-authored two articles, working with Nicole Ammerman ’16 for one article. Both articles presented findings of research on academic service-learning in early childhood.
From the abstract:
This research investigated the impact of academic service-learning (ASL) on ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ students’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions for partnering with culturally and linguistically diverse families to promote young children’s early academic learning.
Three themes emerged from the analysis: (1) ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ entered the ASL experience with excitement and a mostly positive approach; (2) Early to mid-semester, students articulated a high degree of nervousness and discomfort as well as challenges to partnership-building, yet also noted family interest and engagement; and (3) Mid- to late semester, most students expressed their growing confidence in their own skills for relating to diverse families, and identified family strengths.
Our findings support ASL as an effective teacher-preparation pedagogy to help students build family-teacher partnerships.
Hollingsworth, H. L., & Knight-McKenna, M. (2018). “I am now confident”: Academic service-learning as a context for addressing math anxiety in preservice teachers. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 39(4), 312-327. doi:10.1080/10901027.2018.1514337
From the abstract:
This study investigated the impact of academic service-learning (ASL) in an early childhood teacher preparation math course and answered the following research question: Was the ASL experience effective in improving students’ dispositions and self-efficacy for ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ early math? Results of this mixed-methods study indicated the university students expressed considerable math anxiety near the beginning of the course, yet they believed in the importance of math and aspired to support children’s math.
¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ articulated challenges and assumptions related to supporting early math. A key finding was that, across the ASL experience, students experienced a shift away from anxiety and toward self-efficacy for ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ math and a disposition to advocate for early math. Children’s math knowledge was also assessed and was significantly higher post-ASL than pre-ASL.
The article concludes with a discussion of the obligation of early childhood teacher preparation programs to address possible math anxiety among preservice teachers and provide experiences that help students build self-efficacy for ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ math.