By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE As we begin a new year, my heart goes out to fellow early childhood educators who are continuing to struggle with caring for children and themselves during trying times. I am not surprised with the strength and resilience shown by educators and children. I have never underestimated the capacity of … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Connecting to early childhood educators is at the core of my practice. Making connections is central to my being an early childhood educator. Pre-COVID, I would be making time to visit child care programs to learn from those who are working directly with children. I really miss being where the … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. I am proponent of emergent curriculum. Emergent curriculum emerges from the interests of children. I have a continuing desire to help others move forward to embrace this empowering pedagogy. The question of what I teach (emergent curriculum) has been framed by how I teach it. When I began this journey, … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE For my entire career in the early learning sector, I have been focused on how to support others to update outdated practices with the goal to improve day to day interactions with children and their families. Early on I approached this professional goal with bluntness and judgement. Now I recognize … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Questions can be a wonderful way of supporting children’s thinking, theories, and emerging interests. On the other hand, they can be used to test children’s memory and can end up stifling their language development. Open-ended questions are developmentally more appropriate than closed-ended and testing questions. Open-ended questions are questions that … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. The 21st century began on January 1st, 2001. Today’s children deserve learning experiences grounded in practices that are in keeping with a new era of play and learning. Now is the time to critically reflect on the practices that linger on from the previous century. I am a child of … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. and Rosalba Bortolotti, RECE. Our last post introduced our perspectives on the Studio Approach to Early Learning influenced by the ‘ateliers’ in the infant-toddler and preschools of Reggio Emilia. In North America the term studio refers to what is known as the atelier in Italy. “It is at once an … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. Close your eyes and visualize a coach … what image did you bring to your mind? Now do it again and see YOU! We often hear about images in early learning. An image describes a picture in the mind. If the picture you conjured up was that of a sports … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. When I first started work on my doctorate, about twenty years ago, I was determined to remain true to my early childhood education roots and to focus my research on issues that connected to my context of early learning. I wanted my research to reach early childhood educators to build … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. How do you see yourself? Are you a mentor? Are you a leader? Are you a supervisor? You have probably thought about these roles and what they mean, but have you considered yourself as a coach? In this blog post, I will be exploring the coaching role in early childhood … Continue reading
Technology Rich Inquiry Based Research 