Sabbatical Awards 2005-2006 

Sabbatical Report: Julianne Stermer

Winter 2006 Sabbatical

(Faculty Professional Development Long-Term Leave)

My sabbatical studies were in the areas of Early Childhood Education and Curriculum development.  Since my teaching assignments focus on the study of children and how best to facilitate their development through high quality child development programs I considered the following Research Question:

“Is it possible to fully integrate an Emergent Curriculum Early Childhood Education (ECE) model into an existing high-quality laboratory child development program?”

Nearly 50% of my teaching assignments focus in some way on early childhood curriculum models and approaches and I felt that I was ready for some new information about one in particular. The Emergent Curriculum model is one of several models I present in the ECE Curriculum 1 and ECE Curriculum 2 courses I teach.  The model itself has been around for about 10 years and is part of current “best practices” in ECE.  Our students take the following principles from the classroom setting and apply them to their practicum experience every term in the LCC Child Development Centers (CDC), and my plan was to explore these principles in community child development programs.

Principles of Emergent Curriculum: (Carter & Curtis, “Reflecting Children’s Lives: A Handbook for Planning Child-Centered Curriculum,” Redleaf Press, 2005.)

-Our image of the child guides all our decision-making.

-Teachers pay careful attention to the use of space and time. 

-Curriculum planning is based on observation.

-Curriculum projects grow through many opportunities for children to present, reflect on, and think critically about what they know.

-Teachers thoughtfully document the life of the classroom and emerging curriculum projects.

-Teachers consider relationships to be central.

My plans for accomplishing this project included:

1.  I Read about Emergent Curriculum.

Margie Carter and Deb Curtis are authors, consultants, researchers, and teachers currently residing in Seattle, WA.  They are among the national experts on the Emergent Curriculum model.  Their organization, Harvest Resources, offers many opportunities to explore and apply the principles of Emergent Curriculum to early childhood settings.  I was able to read all of the following Carter & Curtis books:

              -Spreading the News: Sharing the Stories of Early Childhood                                                              Education

              -Training Teachers: A Harvest of Theory and Practice

              -The Art of Awareness: How Observation Can Transform Your                                                        Teaching

              -Designs for Living and Learning: Transforming Early                                                                             Childhood Environments

              -Reflecting Children’s Lives: A Handbook for Planning

                            Child-Centered Curriculum (Previously read)

2.  I Observed Child Development Programs.

After I read as much as I could I set up visits and conducted observations of as many early childhood programs as I could find which use the emergent approach.  During the remaining seven weeks I visited programs and documented my observations with many photos which I will use in my classes.

Local programs I studied were the UO Moss Street Child Development Center, the UO Family Co-op, and EWEB Child Development Center.  As I ventured out of the local community I was also able to spend time at the Helen Gordon CDC at Portland State University in Portland and Chemeketa Community College CDC in Salem. Both programs share lab school components with our Lane program, but each has developed curriculum activities and materials based specifically on the emergent curriculum approach.  I was able to note particularly how each of these programs works with student teachers, lead teachers, parents and the community in providing unique opportunities for young children’s development.

I had originally planned to visit the nationally-recognized Hilltop School in Seattle, Washington.  The school is one of the best examples of Emergent Curriculum “at work” The school uses the emergent Reggio Emilia approach, and school faculty typically offer the Hilltop Institute which is a series of short courses which explore emergent curriculum concepts.  The school chose not to offer the institute in 2006, so I made alternative plans.  I gained approval to visit a very unique program in Roseville, California.  After five full days at the Roseville Community Preschool where I “shadowed” author/trainer/master teacher Bev Bos, my studies took on a special focus.  Bev’s use of the inside and outside environments and her total focus on promoting play as a child’s primary task left me in awe and totally rejuvenated. (It must have been serendipity that I had received Bev’s newest book, “Tumbling Over the Edge: A Rant for Children’s Play” about the same time I heard that the Hilltop Institute would not offer their classes when I needed them.) 

3.  I shared what I learned.

-State Conference Presentation

I was invited to be a session presenter at the March 3, 2006 Oregon Association of Child Care Directors (OACCD) state conference.  Participants in the session were actively engaged and seemed hungry to explore the ideas and images I shared from my studies.  I will likely continue the discussion and exploration at later OACCD conferences.

-LCC CDC Staff inservice

An original goal of this leave project was to make plans to develop and facilitate an LCC Child Development Center staff study of Emergent Curriculum.  I was able to present a brief synopsis of my leave activities at our fall 2006 program staff inservice session.  Center teachers were eager to discuss the ideas and practices explored in the presentation, and we agreed that further discussion of selected ideas will be part of future Early Childhood program staff meetings.

I will continue to facilitate discussion of the Emergent Curriculum approach in our program, and hope to be able to promote the following goals.  To foster:

Professional Development

This was the first time in more than fifteen years that I have had the opportunity to plan and conduct uninterrupted research.  I enjoyed and valued the time spent with other professionals in the greater early childhood community.  I definitely gained perspective on this approach and its practical application to our early learning program.  After visiting other college and university ECE programs I have some new ideas about how to help our students apply classroom theory to the real world of child care and education. All in all this was a worthwhile experience for me.  I was able to do things and go places that wouldn’t have been possible without the leave.  I gained fresh perspective and was reminded of the roles we early childhood professionals play in the lives of young children.  I believe that children are trying to teach us to slow down, see the world around us, reflect on it, and be playful in our life.  I will remember this lasting gift from the children.