About Voices of Practitioners
Young Children is pleased to offer Voices of Practitioners, a feature focusing on teacher research in early childhood education. The main purpose of this feature is to provide a vehicle for publishing the research of early childhood teachers who are often underrepresented as authors in the educational research arena. Voices of Practitioners also includes resources, tools and informative articles that promote the participation of early childhood teachers in teacher research. Included in Voices of Practitioners is a section designed as a resource for teacher educators. It highlights innovative strategies for teacher educators who are interested in incorporating teacher research into their teacher education programs and/or supporting teacher research in early education centers and schools.
In teacher research, teachers engage is systematic study of their own practice. Grounded in the daily lives of children and their families, teachers provide the critical insider perspective through publishing their investigations and reflections on the ongoing reality in their classrooms. The published studies detail the teacher research focus, background of children and early childhood setting, methods for collecting and understanding the data including samples of the data, discussion and reflection on the findings, and recommendations for other teachers, teacher researchers, and policy makers. (See manuscript guidelines for more details on submitting teacher research.)
Teacher research is important to the early childhood profession. Teachers grow more competent as they examine their own underlying questions about teaching and learning, engage in reflection with educational colleagues, and make improvements in their teaching practice. Teacher research benefits the early childhood field by making a unique contribution to the knowledge base of how young children develop and learn and providing special insight into the role of the teacher.
