Early Childhood Teacher Education Classroom: Article Analysis

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Purpose of the Article In the article, Playing at School: An Inquiry Approach to Using an Experiential Play Lab in an Early Childhood Teacher Education Course, the authors discuss their study regarding the importance of play in early education. Research supports the contribution of play to children’s development, learning, and well-being. According to the authors play is considered an important activity of the early childhood years. Despite the vast amount of knowledge that supports play, play is being removed in many early childhood programs. It is being replaced by greater time allotted to formal instruction in narrow academic skills to be tested eventually by standardized test Kemple & Porter, 2015, p. 250). For that reason, the purpose of their study was to document and analyze what happens when an experiential play lab is implemented in an early childhood teacher education program. Furthermore, their qualitative study includes multiple forms of data collection, including two forms of reflective writings and group discussions (Kemple & Porter, 2015, p. 251). According to their study after …show more content…

During this session, students rotated through six play centers. The centers were equipped with materials as follows: dolls and dollhouse furniture; “play-dough only; play-dough and basic play-dough tools; collage materials; large and small blocks;” and materials to create stabiles (Kemple & Porter, 2015, p.253). The lab period consisted of six rounds of 10 minutes each. For each 10-minute round, there were 3–4 students per center who were assigned to play the role of children. Teachers were given minimal instruction; they were told that they “were all in charge of the whole group, and could move around or station themselves at a center as they saw fit” (Kemple & Porter, 2015, p. 254). The professor gave a one-minute warning prior to time to clean up and move to the next

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