My Personal Research Journey

The general topic that I chose to work with is development delays/special needs. The topic that I have chosen to do my simulation on is the challenges for families who have children with developmental delays/special needs. I will be choosing a specific challenge and researching it. I chose this topic because it is something that I am very familiar with. Both of my girls have developmental delays/special needs and their dad does, too. I have personally been involved in advocating for all of them and am currently in the position of advocating for my children in order to get them the accommodations they need in school and life. Completing the research chart has helped me to see the importance of reviewing literature. Being aware of the information that other people have come up with about your topic is very beneficial to one’s research process. Knowing about other published information about a topic can help guide and assist one’s research. I have found that pinning down the specific topic in a way that allows me to complete a research simulation to be challenging. I was wondering if any of my colleagues have had the same challenge, and how they have overcome them?

Sharing Web Resources

There is a lot of information on the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) website. The section that seemed particularly relevant to my professional development is the section on professional development. This section provides information on developmental tools that are offered by the DEC. I was especially interested in the area about learning decks which are professional development webinars offered by the DEC in different areas.

I did not really see anything that I would immediately  say is controversial, but I would say that the recommendations section could be controversial depending on beliefs. Everyone has different thoughts on what is best when working with young children. I personally find the recommendations that are offered by the DEC to be a great help and guideline to providing a great program for children.

The website contains a section that talks about how to get involved with the Division of Early Childhood. This section guides people through how they can be involved with ways to help children in the early childhood field.
The one thing that I really found to be interesting and helpful about trends in early childhood is the fact that they offer conferences that can help teach about ways to provide quality early childhood  professionals.

Getting to Know my International Contact

The person that I am communicating with is the director of the Regland Park Early Childcare Center in Australia. She was very willing to talk to me about her center and the types of children that attend. From the research that I conducted and the information that my conversation partner shared with me. I discovered that many of the concerns that they deal with are similar to ours. As the cost of living went up in New South Wales, Australia so did the numbers living in poverty. The thing that I noticed was that they were similar to the USA in the since that parents are doing what they can with what they have. In a lot of cases parents are sacrificing so that their children get what they need. I hope to learn more as I continue to communicate with my conversation partner. I am waiting to receive my next communication from her and unfortunately it was not before this was due. I hope to have more info for my next post.

Establishing Professional Contacts

Part 1

For part one 1 I am going to attempt to contact someone in Australia and in Ireland. I have sent e-mails to a couple of different people connected with early childhood and am waiting for responses. I am hoping to receive a response from at least one of the people that I have contacted early this week. I would prefer to be able to communicate with an Early childhood professional throughout this course, but we will see what happens.

Part 2

The organization that I chose to connect with is the Division for Early Childhood. I chose this organization after going through each organization in the resources and looking at each one. I took the time to look through the website for each organization and find the one that I felt I could connect with the most. I also, wanted to choose the organization that was new to me. I already regularly visit and use a couple of the websites for resource purposes. I wanted something that I could learn about as I went through this course. This is why I chose the Division for Early Childhood.

References

http://www.dec-sped.org/