By: Diane Kashin, EdD, RECE. Professional friendships provide a platform for educators to offer emotional support to one another, helping them navigate the hills and valleys of their shared profession. We learn from one another through professional friendships that foster personal and collective growth. We can engage in reflective practice about relationships and friendships between … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, EdD, RECE I have used the word “just” too many times in my professional life. “I am just …”. It is a word that devalues whatever I am going to say. I often used it as a way to express a sense of dissatisfaction, devaluation, or belittlement regarding my role, profession, and … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, EdD, RECE. Mentorship and professional friendship are valuable strategies for supporting professional learning and growth in early childhood education. The College of Early Childhood Education in Ontario defines mentoring as a reciprocal, relationship-based, and process-oriented experience between a mentor and a mentee, aimed at improving professional practice through reflective practice, self-directed learning, … Continue reading
By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. One of the greatest joys of my life has been sharing my favourite children’s books with my grandchildren. Inspired many years ago, by the amazing duo of Margie Carter and Deb Curtis, I have been using children’s literature as prompts for reflection with early childhood education students and teachers. In … 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Ed.D, RECE For my entire career in the early learning sector, I have been focused on how to support others to update outdated practices with the goal to improve day to day interactions with children and their families.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. 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. 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 