Name it and claim it: supporting early childhood teachers to recognise themselves as researchers

ABSTRACT

There are increasing demands for teachers to continue to improve the quality of education. This focus is evident in the Early Childhood Education and Care sector in Australia where the professionalisation agenda is tied to teacher professional learning. While the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL) has strengthened expectations on teachers to engage with research and become inquirers into their own practice, current early childhood documents that guide practice use non-descript terms without ascribing them to research or researching. We argue that greater opportunities are needed for early childhood teachers to be recognised as consumers and producers of research and validated as researchers of their own practice. Professional learning programs, such as the Supporting Oral Language Development (SOLD) Program outlined in this paper, provide the potential to acknowledge and build the research skills of early childhood teachers, thereby supporting their self-efficacy and confidence as researchers.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers as researchers
• professional learning
• early childhood education

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge the early childhood teachers and educators who willingly took part in the research aspect of the Supporting Oral Language Development (SOLD) professional development program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).