Bhagwanji, Yashwant

Environmental Education (EE) has an overall goal of fostering eco-literate citizens who are capable of building a more sustainable planet (North American Association for Environmental Education, 2019). While EE is associated with a plethora of benefits, it is still not widely implemented in the field of education due to the many types of barriers as well as the complexity of EE content knowledge and skills.
Professional Development (PD) in EE may be a viable way to increase effective implementation of EE, yet PD in EE is not widely attended or offered. It is, therefore, imperative that PD programs are designed in a way that will maximize the benefits for participants. This mixed methods case study examined the experiences of K-5 educators who attended a one-day, Everglades Literacy Teacher Training Workshop in order to understand the effective components of the workshop, changes in teacher content knowledge and self-efficacy, and experiences of teachers after the implementation of the Everglades literacy curriculum in their classrooms.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand, describe, and
make meaning of the experiences of early childhood educators of young foster care
students. The researcher examined the experiences of teachers regarding the attachment
behaviors of their foster care students. This study also sought to explore how early
childhood teachers implement their curriculum and how they design their classroom
environment to meet the needs of young foster care children.
Data collection and analysis included 20 questionnaires and 20 face-to-face semistructured
interviews. Data analysis consisted of a three step process. The first step began
by reading interviews through a holistic approach. During this step, the researcher read
the entire transcript as a whole before digging deeper. The second step in coding was a
selective reading. In this step, the researcher read through each transcript by finding key
words and/or phrases. The third step in the coding process was a detailed reading. The researcher read the text word-by-word. This step aided the researcher in finding those
words that captured the phenomenon of the teachers.
The researcher found three major overarching themes: social and emotional
behaviors, triad relationship, and classroom accommodations. This study revealed three
main themes: attachment-related behaviors of social and emotional development, teacher
relationship strategies with student and caregiver, and classroom curricular and
environmental adjustments. Within all three of these themes was an underlying theme of
a teacher-as-mother perceived attachment from the teachers. The teacher-as-mother
perceived attachment was embedded in the experiences of the teachers. It is
recommended that this main theme be explored in future research. The experiences of the
teachers were completely based on their experiences in this study. The way they
intervened on behalf of their foster care students did not appear to relate to any
professional development or training; it was entirely based on their experiences. It is
recommended that the arena of early childhood would benefit immensely with a course,
training, or professional development in learning about the foster care system and dealing
with young children in foster care.

The quality of early caregiving and educational environments has a significant
effect on children’s later cognitive outcomes. Early childhood teachers are an important
determining factor in the quality of these environments. Due to inconsistencies in practice
across the early childhood field, there is a call for better prepared teachers. Teacher
preparation itself is criticized for its lack of innovative and effective practices. While
research finds that more effective teacher preparation programs are those that are steeped
in clinical practice, these types of experiences are inconsistent and fragmented in the
early childhood field. Part of the issue is the lack of knowledge on how to integrate highquality
clinical experiences carefully into early childhood teacher preparation in order to
prepare all preservice teachers successfully for the classroom.