Junko Minowa

<p>In this four-year longitudinal study, the authors explored how children develop their self-control and interpersonal collaborative skills. The total of 318 children in five regions across the country participated in this study when they had been 4 years old to 2nd grade. The average of the whole group observational rates of the collaborative and self-control competencies increased along with the ages. However, to illustrate the four-year transformation by dividing the data into high and low groups with median quartiles, the collaborative and self-control competencies were distributed in 16 types, which depicted children developed the competencies with their own pattern individually. This study suggested the social and emotional competencies do not follow a constant developmental curve, therefore, high quality care and education is necessarily in order to foster the children's collaborative competencies.</p>

In order to depict a mechanism of preschool teachers' ways of learning at their on-site training session, this study consists of two research projects: project 1 is to clarify preschool teachers and directors overall learning experiences through on-site training session, and project 2 is to examine ways of preschool teachers' and directors' learning process at their actual on-site training session. As results, the feel-secured atmosphere of on-site training session facilitates preschool teachers learning process and making practice visible and being aware of its importance through exchanging their minds and thoughts with each other are considered as what they learnt at the session. In order to give on-site training sessions a structure, it is implied that examining its phase, each teachers learning process, and their interweaving mindsets emerged between within inner-self and interaction with others is crucial.

<p>The purpose of this study is to analyze the practical knowledge of preschool and nursery at clean-up time, namely how teachers help children who carefully tidy up, but do not enough time to complete the next activity. It analyzes preschool and nursery teachers' answers to the questionnaire survey. The result runs as follows: (1) teachers admit or accept that the child carefully puts things away; (2) answers of teachers associated with how preschool and nursery students usually clean up; (3) each preschool and nursery has their own practical knowledge about how to help children who carefully put things away, but do not have enough time to complete the next activity.</p>

This study investigated the differences, depending on the time of year, in preschool clean-up time used by teachers. It analyzes preschool teachers' narratives based on videos of clean-up time in June and October in a class of four year olds. The results were as follows: (1) The teachers in both June and October respect children's play. However, in October the teachers expect the children to clean up after themselves. (2) In June, teachers constantly emphasize the need to clean up to the children, but in October they don't need to mention it so often. (3) In June, teachers clean up first and then work together with the children, while in October they mainly leave this work to the children. (4) In June, teachers instruct directly and concretely, while in October teachers instruct indirectly and generally. (5) Because clean-up time becomes part of the daily routine, differences of practical knowledge between June and October occur. (6) The differences of practical knowledge depending on the time of year are related to the preschool curriculum, teaching plans and children's developmental changes.

This study investigated the practical knowledge used by teachers during clean-up time. The results suggested the following. (1) Teachers worked together when using certain strategies, respecting children's play, planning how to speak to children, and providing information about the next activity, in both outdoor and indoor situations. (2) Teachers were concerned about their distance from children in outdoor situations, because distances were greater than in indoor situations and thus sometimes required changes in location. (3) In outdoor situations, teachers communicated their respect for children's play by initiating clean-up activities after ascertaining that the children were satisfied with their playtime. (4) The structural characteristics of preschools affected the balance between how teachers communicated their respect for children's play and how teachers conducted clean-up activities in outdoor situations. (5) Teachers combined play and clean-up activities in indoor situations because it was not necessary to change locations in these circumstances. (6) During indoor situations, teachers participated in clean-up activities with children and considered and devised ways to speak to children.

The purpose of this study is to examine kindergarten teachers' discourse styles and factors as observed at early childhood education and care conferences. Participants include 22 teachers from four kindergartens. They reviewed videotaped presentations and analyzed the teachers' discourse. This study revealed two main styles : (1)Teachers share words and exchange ideas with colleagues, or(2) Teachers rarely share words and exchange ideas with colleagues. The first style was indicated by the following factors: (a) 'Ne'-utterances as the ending particle ; (b) Making agreeable responses ; and, (c) Acting to rephrase colleagues' words with their own words. The second style was determined by : (a) Analyzing the situations ; (b) Critical thinking ; and, (c) Speaking order of those being observed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between preschool teachers' practical knowledge and preschool characteristics. This study analyzes three preschool teachers' narratives based on a video of "Clean-up Time". The results suggest that (1) all preschool teachers have a common purpose; the children should participate in clean-up time voluntarily, but (2) each preschool teacher has her own practical knowledge about what "Cleanup Time" means. (3) This practical knowledge held by the teacher is connected to the particular characteristics of that teacher's preschool such as the area of playground, the number of teachers per a class and the daily time schedule.

In this study, Japanese 3-5-year-old children who play with sand and make sand mountains are observed. As the result, 3-year-old children discover the nature or sand by playing with sand, and they learn how to make mountains using sand by watching their peers who play alongside them. Children as young as four can access this knowledge of the nature of sand and readily develop the skills to make mountain with sand. They also have social skills at this age that allow them to cooperate with peers in the making or sand mountains. Moreover, children of five developed cooperative play by dividing up areas of "work" in making sand mountains.

Internationally, many researchers have studied the issue of quality in early childhood education. This paper reviews what the term ""quality"" means, and how it is studied. First, the paper discusses international research trends and suggests two political strategies and two curriculum traditions that have led to two discourses: the discourse of evaluation and that of meaning-making. Then, Japanese research on the issue of quality is reviewed, and the paper clarifies that Japanese research has focused mainly on issues of quality that are related to professional development and what constitutes professional development for early childhood teachers. Finally, research on measuring quality is reviewed; this review shows that internal evaluation is needed and that there are differences between the evaluation performed by outsiders and that undertaken by insiders.

This research examined what kind of images are verbally and visually exchanged between infants during group play with sand. While they played with sand, their roles, plans, objectives, and circumstances were analyzed. It was clear that they exchanged and shared their images of themes, plans, roles, and associations through some verbal communication, but mostly through their movements with sand, and furthermore that they use the sand itself to communicate with each other through their movements with sand. The study suggests that children exchange and share their images, often in unspoken ways, through their movements with sand and the sand changed by their movements.

This research is a review of the early research on children's (3-6 years old) joint play. The researchers who did study about children's joint play paid attention in the number of people of children and the form of the group, or paid attention to the content of the communication of the child. However, it is difficult in these researches to catch the flow of child's play. It can be said that it is necessary to pay attention what to have occurred in the process of play in being research in the future.