Growing Professionally in Early Years Education

Edited by Katey De Gioia, Alma Fleet, Catherine Patternson, Marina Papic

Key components of practitioner inquiry provide an effective approach to lasting educational change. By including narratives of practice from across diverse early childhood settings, this book investigates issues that arise during implementation of inquiry-focussed professional learning cycles. It presents practitioner inquiry as a vehicle for empowering educators and educational systems.

Research-based, this book brings together theory and practice from authors and internationally recognised commentators to inform and inspire early childhood educators. Chapters are thematically grouped in three focus areas. The first centres on background contextual information to set the scene, the second offers real-life stories based on authors’ experiences and the third provides insight into broader issues of leadership and professional learning. Voices of educators, teachers and leaders are included to provide multiple points of entry for readers with different interests, backgrounds, and levels of expertise.

As a resource to support ongoing professional practice in the prior-to-school sector, this book is essential reading for early years educators, teachers and leaders of educational change. It is relevant for those investigating how educators in early childhood centres, executive offices and consultancy positions can use data-based, locally relevant investigations of practice to improve educational outcomes. generous contributing authors, educators, children and families who shared their stories. 

A note from Adam

Engaging with practitioner inquiry as a teacher and educational leader has been a source of both joy and complexity. It has invited me to embrace tension, stay with questions and play with ideas that have deepened my thinking and practice over time as a process of professional learning. Through practitioner inquiry, I have come to value research, dialogue and the interpretation of larger ideas within the realities of everyday practice. I was delighted to co-author a chapter with Jessica Dubois and Alma Fleet in this book. Thinking together about practitioner inquiry and pedagogical documentation,  weaving through their intersections, was such a treat!