Associate Professors Mary Knight-McKenna and Heidi Hollingsworth co-authored two articles, along with Nicole Ammerman ’16 for one article. Both articles presented findings of research on academic service-learning in early childhood.
Mary Knight-McKenna and Heidi Hollingsworth, both associate professors of education, have co-authored two articles, working with Nicole Ammerman ’16 for one article. Both articles presented findings of research on academic service-learning in early childhood.
From the abstract:
This research investigated the impact of academic service-learning (ASL) on undergraduate students’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions for partnering with culturally and linguistically diverse families to promote young children’s early academic learning.
Three themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Students entered the ASL experience with excitement and a mostly positive approach; (2) Early to mid-semester, students articulated a high degree of nervousness and discomfort as well as challenges to partnership-building, yet also noted family interest and engagement; and (3) Mid- to late semester, most students expressed their growing confidence in their own skills for relating to diverse families, and identified family strengths.
Our findings support ASL as an effective teacher-preparation pedagogy to help students build family-teacher partnerships.
Hollingsworth, H. L., & Knight-McKenna, M. (2018). “I am now confident”: Academic service-learning as a context for addressing math anxiety in preservice teachers. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 39(4), 312-327. doi:10.1080/10901027.2018.1514337
From the abstract:
This study investigated the impact of academic service-learning (ASL) in an early childhood teacher preparation math course and answered the following research question: Was the ASL experience effective in improving students’ dispositions and self-efficacy for teaching early math? Results of this mixed-methods study indicated the university students expressed considerable math anxiety near the beginning of the course, yet they believed in the importance of math and aspired to support children’s math.
Students articulated challenges and assumptions related to supporting early math. A key finding was that, across the ASL experience, students experienced a shift away from anxiety and toward self-efficacy for teaching math and a disposition to advocate for early math. Children’s math knowledge was also assessed and was significantly higher post-ASL than pre-ASL.
The article concludes with a discussion of the obligation of early childhood teacher preparation programs to address possible math anxiety among preservice teachers and provide experiences that help students build self-efficacy for teaching math.