1st Edition
Community-based Transformational Learning in Early Childhood Settings Integrating Experiences of Teachers, Students, and the Community
This comprehensive, research-based resource illuminates the challenges and benefits of integrating community-based transformational learning (CBTL) experiences of teachers, students, and the community in early childhood settings. Balancing historical context with theoretical underpinnings, ongoing research, and current practice, this multi-authored volume demystifies the praxeology of CBTL. It uses annotated case studies to explore the importance of considering contextual factors (i.e., cultural practices, community health and demographics, and student level) that may influence what early-years students gain from CBTL experiences, and it encourages a community dialogue that is both challenging and affirming to support students' confidence in their own capacity to make a better world for all people. As the first CBTL book specific to early childhood settings, it is key reading for future teachers. It is also of great interest to current educators, administrators, and community organizers who want to help center CBTL as a vital part of early childhood curriculum.
Introduction
Section 1: Defining Community Based Transformational Learning
1. Theories of Community Based Transformational Learning: Is CBTL the Next Step in Service-Learning or is it Returning Service-Learning to its Roots?
2. CRE Evaluator Education as an Ethical Form of Critical Service-Learning
3. Everyone Is a Hero/Shero
4. Community Based Learning: Integrating STEM into a Reggio Emilia-Inspired Classroom
Section 2: Contextual factors to consider for implementation and success in Community Based Transformational Learning
5. Supporting the Community through Early Childhood Teachers Playing Together in The Summer Teacher Play Lab
6. Integrating STEM and Service-Learning into a Classroom
7. Teacher Inquiry CoPs as a Catalyst for Change in the Classroom and Beyond
8. Embedding Character Education into an Early Childhood Classroom through Service-Learning
Section 3: Participant Voices
9. Oral History as a Community-Based Transformational Learning Experience in an Early Childhood Teacher Education Program
10. Educator Voices: Reflections of an Early Childhood Professor, by Adrien Malek-Lasater
11. Student Voice: Reflections from a Student Perspective of a Course-Embedded Service-Learning Project
12. Transformative Learning through Global Community Engagement: A Reflection on Self-Discovery, Collaborative Professional Learning, and the Meaning of Whole Child Education
Index
Biography
Christian Winterbottom is Associate Professor at the University of North Florida where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in early childhood education and in community-based learning.
Vickie E. Lake is Professor in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum in Early Childhood Education and Associate Dean for the Jeanine Rainbolt College of Education-Tulsa at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Lake has 20 years of experience in teaching, research, and service in higher education.
Adrien Malek-Lasater is Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Education at the University of North Florida. Dr. Malek-Lasater has spent approximately ten years working with young children and families as an early childhood education teacher and child development specialist.
