Home schooling – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Porous learning: what do families and schools need to know and do about learning@home in a digital environment to enhance children’s literacy?

Introduction School students increasingly use digital technologies at home to enhance learning and bridge the school– home divide. The porous learning project was designed to explore the factors that both enabled learning and created barriers to learning at home for students in a low socioeconomic community using the digital learning environment, which we refer to as learning@home. The study investigated ways to inform families and schools, and also equip them with strategies to enhance children’s literacy within a digital learning environment at home. The term digital learning environment (DLE) describes technology used to enhance learning; for example, netbooks, the internet, blogs. A key motivation for the project has been a growing

Homebased early childhood education (family day care) – The Visiting Teacher’s role in improving Educators’ practices

Abstract This project investigated the role of Visiting Teachers (formerly called coordinators) in improving the quality of Educators’ practices, and children’s learning outcomes, in the homebased settings supervised by the Dunedin Community Childcare Association (DCCA). The Visiting Teachers in the project engaged in two action research cycles, one per year, examining how the different activities, tasks, professional development workshops and Visiting Teacher-Educator interactions enhanced educational and care practices in the homebased settings. We focused on support services within the homebased early childhood education and care setting (the Visiting Teacher as well as professional development provided by the DCCA) as international research has shown this role of Visiting Teacher is both a

Training on the job: How do home-based co-ordinators support educators to notice, recognise, and respond?

1. Aims, objectives, and research questions The aim of this research was: To investigate how home-based co-ordinators support educators[1] to notice, recognise, and respond to children’s learning. The research objectives were to: investigate co-ordinators’ practice document educators’ understanding of children’s learning discover how (a) impacts upon (b). There were three research questions: What are co-ordinators doing to support educators to notice, recognise, and respond to children’s learning? What changes are evident in educators’ practice as a result of what co-ordinators do? What factors seem to be important in this process? Background New Zealand home-based childcare services, as with all services within the early childhood sector, must meet certain requirements set out