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Browsing by Subject "early childhood educator"

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  • Virtanen, Marjo (2015)
    Targets. The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to clarify how the tasks of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) educators are shared during the first half of the day when their work is focused on a group of children. In this study, it was examined how the activities of the ECEC educators at daycare are related to the activities of the children in, among other things, basic care situations, eating and different play situations. The theoretic basis of the study consists of documents guiding the ECEC education, the child's growth and development, the ECEC pedagogy and the communication skills of the educators. The adults, who are close to the child, must create a safe environment which supports the child's growth and development, and where the child can grow and develop, play and learn with confidence. In the theory section, the child's involvement and small group activities at the daycare were examined, too. Methods. The research material is based on the observation material of daycare collected from the municipalities, which were involved in the Orientation Project (Reunamo, 2014). The material was collected in spring 2010 in Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. The total of 892 children, aged 1–7 year, from 65 different day care, ECEC or family care groups participated in this study. The observations were systematically made in spring 2010, and they were made by the kindergarten teachers who participated in the study. This study focuses on the ECEC educator, who is closest to the child during the observation period. By observing the activity of the educators we learn about their behaviour in different situations. This study represents a quantitative study of the activities of ECEC educators of daycare. Results and conclusions. This study showed that the educators are the closest to the children of age 1-3 years. As the children grow, the time of interaction with one or more children reduces. The study found that the educators very seldom play an interactive role in the children's games. 36.5% of the educators leave the children to play by themselves or other children inside. The children received most of the attention of the adults in different teaching situations. Indoors, the play activities directed by the educators represented 2% of the daily activities. The main part of the play was directed and selected by the children by themselves, the part of the guided outdoors play was 3%.
  • Väänänen, Jenna (2016)
    This study is meant to examine the variety of opinions of educators (kindergarten teachers,childminders) about one group of children in day care. The goal is to find if educators that work with one group of children see the same three (3) children alike. This study collects the opinions of one team of kindergarten educators together to compare them with each other. Research questions are 1. How do the members of the team describe the children of the group? and 2. How do these opinions about children differ or support each other? Results are formed out of individual interviews answers, which are observed from human’s individuality’s perspective, considering characteristics such as temperament and personality. Categories of temperament and development of personality are presented in this study’s theory for their influence to educators’ findings and opinions about children. In this study both the children’s and educator’s individuality is emphasized, and it also brings different perspectives to the material. Earlier studies have shown that human’s individuality affects to interactions development and its maintenance. There is also research that shows how teachers opinion of a child affects how teacher evaluates the child, and therefore also child’s identity. This study emphasizes the importance of professional attitude. One kindergarten group in metropolitan area took part in this study. There are three educators working in that group; two kindergarten teachers and one childminder. Research material was collected with individual interviews alone with each team member (3). Children to this study were picked coincidentally, and according to these children the educators answered to 12 same questions. In coincidence all three children were boys. In addition to these ready-made questions interviewees were asked to exemplify some of their answers with examples of situations. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, after which they were categorized and analyzed. In results the team turned out to be quite similar according to their answers and opinions about the children were alike. A couple of the answers were different but any great contrasts weren’t found for example between educators or between a particular child and educator. One child separated educator’s opinions more than two other children. By all appearances the team is close, cooperative and familiar with the children.