Shifting Power: University Researchers and Teachers Collaborating in the Development of an Early Childhood Curriculum

• In Event: University-School Partnerships: Building on What We Know in the Service of Students and Families

Abstract

All of the presenters in Commentary 4 are professors and researchers in northeastern institutions of higher education and research institutions, teachers, and parents who have been involved in a study on early childhood development, families, and communities, based in Head Start sites in an urban setting. Their presentation will focus on the process and subsequent outcomes associated with a partnership among Head Start teachers, teacher assistants, and university researchers, participating in a federally funded project to develop and study the implementation of an early childhood curriculum that integrates early literacy, early math, and social-emotional development of young children, with a pointed effort to engage parents and families. In the project, small groups of classroom teachers, teaching assistants (i.e. teaching teams), mentor teachers, early childhood coaches from the school district, and university researchers met monthly throughout the academic year. The mentor-teacher served as a small group discussion leader and provided other hands-on support to teaching teams. Teachers, researchers, and district administrators worked collaboratively to develop, write, and review components of the curriculum, assisting with both the conceptual planning and revision.

This commentary will offer learnings from the on-the-ground efforts designed to form and sustain relationships with Head Start educators. It will draw from five data sources: (1) observation data of eight small group meetings that took place over a year; (2) surveys completed by 46 teachers and 46 teacher assistants; (3) interview data of eight mentor teachers who facilitated the monthly meetings, as they considered the content of the project, and their roles; (4) interview data of selected classroom teachers on the integration and process of collaboration; and (5) reflections of researchers on the relevance of partnering with practitioners as an overarching framework in which to ground research collaboration among researchers, teachers and teacher assistants, as well as parents and communities in the future.

Analysis of interview and observation data from the study demonstrated that teachers described and shared classroom practices, drawing on the actual context of their ongoing work and that teachers challenged each other, providing feedback and encouraging colleagues to make explicit their pedagogical frameworks and assumptions around what counts as learning in early childhood classrooms. Targeted analysis of researchers’ reflections surfaced their growing understanding of early childhood educators as experts and knowledge-holders. In the partnership, traditional power dynamics were disrupted. For example, in the revision of the curriculum, researchers, teachers, and parent knowledge were utilized in the preparation and refinement of curricular content and focus. Presenters will also highlight the tensions that persist, such as who initiates these partnerships and collaborations, the degree to which universities and school districts are advantaged, and the degree to which those who are to be recipients of change—students, teachers, and communities—fare better as a result of these relationships or are simply reconfigured in the day-to-day workings of systems.

Authors

• Jie Yie Park, Bard College

• Cleopatra Jacobs Johnson, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.