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Community Engagement Project forPreservice Early Childhood StudentsHilary Seitz aa University of Alaska Anchorage , Anchorage, Alaska, USAPublished online: 18 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Hilary Seitz (2005) Community Engagement Project for Preservice Early ChildhoodStudents, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 26:3, 297-304

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Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 26:297–304, 2005Copyright © National Association of Early Childhood Teacher EducatorsISSN: 1090-1027 print/ 1745-5642 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10901020500371262

UJEC1090-10271745-5642Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Vol. 26, No. 03, November 2005: pp. 0–0Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education

Innovations in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Reflections on Practice

Community Engagement Project for Preservice Early Childhood Students

Community Engagement ProjectH. Seitz HILARY SEITZ

University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska, USA

This article describes how a preservice early childhood program collaborates with alocal agency in a community engagement project. The project was implemented in a fam-ily–community partnership class for preservice teachers. There were three purposes forthis project. First, to build a partnership between the University of Alaska AnchorageBachelor of Arts in Early Childhood (BAEC) program and a local child care center; sec-ond, to provide support for the child care center’s administration and teachers based ontheir needs and interests; and third, to offer authentic opportunities and experiences forpreservice BAEC students to work with the children and their families. This project was asemester-long endeavor, which evolved through rich collaborative experiences.

Introduction

This article describes how a preservice early childhood program collaborates with a localagency in a community engagement project. The project was implemented in a family–com-munity partnership class for preservice teachers. There were three purposes for this project:first, to build a partnership between the University of Alaska Anchorage Bachelor’s of Artsin Early Childhood (BAEC) program and a local child care center; second, to provide sup-port for the child care center’s administration and teachers based on their needs and interests;and third, to offer authentic opportunities and experiences for preservice BAEC students towork with the children and their families. This project was a semester-long endeavor whichevolved through rich collaborative experiences between students and instructor, students andfamilies, students and children, as well as faculty and child care administration.

The Project

The project began in a Family and Community Partnership course, one that was underdevelopment and open to new ideas. Researchers from The University of Alaska Anchor-age center for community engagement and learning (2003) inspired the basis for this

Received 12 March 2005; accepted 10 August 2005.Address correspondence to Hilary Seitz, College of Education, University of Alaska, Anchorage,

K Bldg Suite 220, 3211 Providence Drive, Anchorage, AK, 99508-4614. E-mail: afhjs1@uaa.alaska.edu

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project, at which time they were implementing various projects in the science field. Thecenter defines community engagement as follows:

It’s a partnership that strengthens both university and community. Projects aredesigned to meet the needs of partnering organizations, and students put theirlearning into action as they go to work. Organizations get help they really need,plus the chance to raise awareness and inspire new advocates for their causes.Students gain practical skills and the experience of civic responsibility and par-ticipation. The university becomes more deeply involved in the life of its com-munity as it improves academic performance, retention, and student success.

This idea is similar to a Service Learning Model—one that involves students in organizedservice that meets community needs, is collaborative between a school and community,helps foster civic responsibility, enhances student learning, and provides opportunity forreflection (Freeman & Swick, 2003; National and Community Service Trust Act, 1993;Swick, 1999). The National Service Learning Clearinghouse discusses the notion ofservice learning as (2005):

Service-learning combines service objectives with learning objectives withthe intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of theservice. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structuredopportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acqui-sition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.

After attending a professional development seminar at UAA on community engagementand carefully considering my course expectations, I chose a community-engagementproject as a collaborative piece for the Family and Community Partnership course. Ibelieved that students would be able to better bridge theory with practice by incorporatingthis model of instruction, which enabled them to work with others including peers,instructors, teachers, parents, and children. Having a collaborative project—one whereeach participant has a different experience base and these experiences enrich others’understanding—was important to the BAEC program. Hewitt (2001) states, “Communica-tion and the sharing of ideas is believed to bring meaning to knowledge and, in turn,understandings may vary according to the individuals, the group, and the social context.”

James Comer (1980) describes a program between a university and a public schoolsystem where their primary goal was to establish a long-term collaboration between teach-ers, parents, and children. This was one of the goals of our project. We, the BAEC pro-gram wanted our preservice teachers to collaborate with others in the field and haveauthentic opportunities working with children and families. In addition, we wanted ourstudents to have the opportunity to work with children and their families that Blasi (2002)calls “with promise.” The child care center I selected has a diverse population including arange of ethnicities and socioeconomic factors. The project succeeded in meeting the threegoals of building a partnership, supporting child care administration, and offering authen-tic learning opportunities for students.

Purposes of Project

There were three primary purposes for this project: The initial purpose was to create apartnership between the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Bachelor of Arts in Early

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Childhood (BAEC) program and a child care center. The BAEC program encourages part-nerships and relationship-building as a foundational piece for constructing knowledge(Fraser & Gestwicki, 2002). The BAEC program is new to UAA; therefore we are build-ing our relationships and creating partnerships with appropriate early childhood sites thatinclude both child care centers and elementary schools. Our program has been closely fol-lowing how a secondary teacher education program (at UAA) has been utilizing a partner-ship model similar to a professional development school model. Darling Hammond andCobb (1996) state, “A growing number of teacher educators have argued that professionaldevelopment schools may be the best hope for addressing beginning teachers’ needs.”They go on to say:

Ideally, professional development schools will also provide serious venues fordeveloping the knowledge base for teaching by becoming places in whichpractice-based and practice-sensitive research can be carried out collabora-tively by teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. By creating settings thatmerge theoretical and practical learning, PDSs may help transmit a commonset of expectations that link preparation and practice.

Our goal, in the BAEC, is to create partnership sites, based on this model, where our stu-dents have opportunity to observe, facilitate, collaborate, and reflect in “real settings” forfield experiences and internship in combination with early childhood courses and meth-ods. Some criteria guided our selection of partner sites, including interest in working withthe University of Alaska Anchorage BAEC, diversity of student/teacher population, socio-economic status of children and families, NAEYC accreditation, age groups served, andearly childhood foci. The particular child care center described in this article, RurAL CAPChild Development Center, met most of the criteria, including diversity of students andteachers, low-income children/families, NAEYC accreditation, and serving infantsthrough school-age children up to five years of age, a requirement specific to the childcare center’s criteria and not the elementary school’s. Hence, RurAL CAP Child Develop-ment Center was an ideal participant for our partnership.

RurAL CAP is the only non-profit community Action Program in Alaska! Our mis-sion is to protect and improve the quality of life for low income Alaskans. The ChildDevelopment Center is a year round development program based after the HeadStart philosophy; however we are not a Head Start program. The Center offers fami-lies in the Anchorage area a high quality, all day program that focuses on eachchild’s development, child’s interests, family involvement and staff development, allthe while creating a warm, family, community feeling. (RurAL CAP, 2004)

As the partnership conversations evolved, one key area of exploration emerged: moreparent/family involvement at the center (Berger, 2004; Gestwicki, 2004). RurAL CAPChild Development Center wanted to learn how to incorporate more opportunities for par-ents to participate and be involved in their children’s child care experience. The otherideas that emerged included infant-teacher support, literacy rich experiences, knowledgeabout the Reggio Emilia Approach, and the emergent curriculum process, all of which aretopics of instruction at the university. Key representatives including, faculty and child careadministration, decided to further explore these ideas in the future.

To help with the idea of more parent/family involvement at the center, the instructorin Early Childhood Development (ECD) 242 Family and Community Partnerships course

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partnered with the director and classroom teachers to decide on a course of action; one thatwould assist the child care center needs and interests as well as offer authentic opportuni-ties for the UAA early childhood students. This process of working together strengthenedrelationships between the university and child care center (Baker& Manfredi-Petitt, 2004;Malaguzi, 1993).

The students in the ECD 242 Family and Community Partnerships class at UAA ben-efited from the project in many ways, primarily through the application of knowledge theyhad in conjunction with authentic experiences. In the class, students read about and dis-cussed a variety of approaches to incorporate family involvement (Gandini & Edwards,2001). Students had the opportunity to discuss these ideas and theories with actual class-room teachers. Students worked with child care center teachers and administrators tounderstand needs and limitations; together they implemented several strategies to promotemore family involvement based on ideas they had from the course and course texts(Berger, 2004; Gestwicki, 2004; Taylor, 1997). They bridged the theory with practice,creating a meaningful experience for all involved.

The Process

The experience of collaborating with each other and planning, reflecting on, and facilitat-ing family workshops in child care centers has its rewards as well as challenges. Studentsinitially discussed what the partnership expectations were with the child care teachers andwith each other. They brainstormed possible ideas, reading from our textbook Parents asPartners in Education: Families and Schools Working Together (Berger, 2004) and otherresources about possible ways to promote more family/parent involvement. The studentslater toured the site and talked with workers, children, and a few parents. The students dis-cussed why we were doing this, what we were doing, how we were going to do this, andwhen. The following is from one of the initial conversations:

Student 1: So what are we going to do?Student 2: I want to do something so every child and parent is attending —that way they will really see all the stuff we are doing.Child care teacher: I think we have to do something fun after pick up (around5:00 PM) something like a popcorn and movie party.Student 2: Will a popcorn movie party be helping with family involvement?Student 3: What about something fun but educational. We could teach theparents something about literacy and bring lots of kid’s books.

The conversation went on in this vein for 20–25 minutes. The group discovered a via-ble idea to encourage family involvement in the child care center.

We created what we called “family support teams.” Teams consisted of universityfaculty, university early childhood students, RurAL CAP Child Development Centerteachers, RurAL CAP Child Development Center administrators, and RurAL CAP ChildDevelopment Center parents, creating a total of 6–9 people per team—four teams, eachplanning for more family involvement per classroom. Students toured the site, met somefamilies, observed the classrooms, interviewed teachers, and became familiar with eachother. These initial meetings, while essential to the later success, seemed slow and awk-ward to all the participants. As the teams bonded with each other, they became inspired byeach other and suddenly everything fell into place. BAEC students kept a journal of reflec-tions throughout the process, which discussed these previous thoughts.

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One student wrote the following in her journal:

The teachers did not do very much at the last meeting. I am not sure how theyare helping us to facilitate the parent night: I think that it might be becausethere was a misunderstanding of responsibilities. Maybe at the next meetingwe will talk about this.

Another student wrote, “Wow, I never thought of doing this kind of thing before inmy center. It is going to be really fun. I will even get to play with kids in a college class.”

Each team had a minimum of three planning sessions. One met as many as five times.At the first session, teams brainstormed and discussed the pros and cons of each idea, thenloosely decided on an idea or theme on which they would reflect for a week. The teams metthe following week for the second meeting. During this meeting, teams wrote proposals,which included (a) purpose(s), type of family involvement, and activities to meet the pur-pose. Once the proposals were solidified, team members felt more confident, based on theirwritten reflections in their journals. Judy wrote in her journal, “Taking time to plan and cre-ate this workshop has let me know that by working together with the community, we canhave an effective and active partnership with parents.” All four family support teamsdecided to facilitate a “family night” of sorts, where families and children could participatetogether at the child care center with teachers and administration. All agreed that by having a“fun and meaningful” experience, at the site, it would promote greater family involvement inthe center. At the third meeting (or fourth or fifth, for one group), teams discussed all theissues associated with the logistics, invitations, food, and activities. Judy ended her finaljournal reflection with the following: “From a child’s point of view, they may not haveknown the reasons for being at RurAL CAP that evening. What they will remember is thetime their parents took to spend with them and to do something fun and exciting at theirschool/child care.” One other student wrote, “I believe this was a meaningful experience forthe moms and dads. A couple of them asked me when we were going to plan the next event.”

Four separate themes for family nights emerged from the teams:

1. Family Scrap Booking. Families brought photographs to the meeting. The family sup-port team provided scrap-booking materials (fancy paper, stickers, markers, glue, etc.).They also had a big potluck.

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2. Gingerbread House Construction. This event was scheduled around the winter holi-days. The family support team provided gingerbread and frosting. Families broughtcandies and creativity.

3. Make Believe Night. Everyone attended the event in costume. There was dancing, facepainting, and lots of eating.

4. Quilting Bee. All the families (some families participated from their homes) createdone or more quilt squares to be added to a large classroom quilt, which now hangs inthe entrance to the child care center.

All four family nights were well attended, ranging from 50% attendance to 80% atten-dance and, therefore, meeting or exceeding the family-involvement expectations of thechild care center and students.

Family support teams administered surveys or questionnaires at the culmination of eachfamily night, to assess family ideas, suggestions, and gain feedback. These surveys were notmeant to be used as quantifiable data, but merely as a way for students to learn of their suc-cess and forthcomings. The students created their own open-ended surveys for the events,which resulted in a variety of feedback. Most feedback was very positive, such as “It was fungetting know my child’s teacher better” or “The chili was great.” Several families commentedabout their confusion about the partnership idea between the center and the university; how-ever, nearly all the parents mentioned it was fun and they wanted to participate in a futureevent. Other parents made additional comments such as “the chairs were too small” or “youran out of the purple sparkle paint.” All 31 returned surveys mentioned something positive.The feedback was passed on to the administration at RurAL CAP Child Development Center.

After the family-night experience, University of Alaska Anchorage BAEC studentswere asked to write a reflection about the entire experience. Students had equally positiveremarks about the experience. One student stated, “that was an amazing experience. I neverknew so much work goes into planning a family night. I can’t wait until I have my ownclassroom to try this out.” Another student wrote, “It was great getting to work in a real situ-ation where there were actual kids and parents instead of just reading about them in a book.”

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Impact

The impact of this project was widespread, ranging from relationship building, to commu-nity engagement, professional development for child care workers, authentic experiences/opportunities, and doing something sustainable that could be recreated in the future at thechild care center. All participants found meaning and purpose in this project.

Students formed closer bonds with each other and with their instructor by workingand collaborating on this project. Students also found resources for part-time work, sum-mer employment, and resources in the community. Child care teachers and administratorsgained support from their new ties to the university and fresh new ideas to encourage fam-ily involvement.

Working with a local community agency in a supportive way for the betterment of chil-dren and families is very rewarding, especially when the agency is limited in some resources,as is the RurAL CAP Child Development Center. Students have been eager to offer theirknowledge, support, extra hands, materials, food, and time to create and facilitate a positiveexperience for the children and families of the RurAL CAP Child Development Center.

These experiences, while meaningful and fun to do, are also authentic. These authen-tic opportunities provide a place to try out the ideas that students have read about and dis-cussed in university class settings, they provide a deeper understanding of many concepts.Students are able to construct their knowledge base in a real way. They have the support ofother students, instructors, and teachers in trying things they may be reluctant to try ontheir own. This safe environment promotes a sense of security and success in a memora-ble, authentic way—one that bridges theory and practice.

Future Possibilities

Family involvement is a critical element in the early childhood field. However, very littleresearch has been conducted on specific strategies for training early childhood teachers tofacilitate positive and meaningful interactions with families particularly in authenticsettings. Dr. Joyce Epstein (1995, 1996) is one of the world’s most prominent researchersin the field of parent involvement. Her six types of parent involvement (parent obligations,communication, school support at school, school support at home, school governance, andcommunity collaboration) promotes and supports working with families (Epstein, 1995).These types of involvement can be adapted to meet needs of young children and their fam-ilies. Research on specific strategies, based on one or all of Epstein’s types of involvementwill enhance the field of early childhood.

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This study found that collaboration between a university program and a local childcare center was beneficial for creating partnerships, community engagement, helping ini-tiate a sustainable family involvement plan, and offers authentic learning opportunities.This study was conducted in a child care setting. I would like to see the process of collabora-tion continue in a public school setting as well as other agencies that work with families.Similar formats could be used or adjusted to meet the needs of the population.

Further investigations could also answer questions that emerged throughout thisstudy. Questions relating to parent perceptions of family involvement, length of time thisformat can be sustained, evaluation of family events, university’s place in other agencies(child care centers, public schools, other agencies), specific family involvement strategies,and experience with diversity are all areas that could be explored in the future. Therefore,to fully understand how the community engagement concept works with university stu-dents, and how to understand family involvement principles better, it is recommended thatfurther research is conducted in preservice teacher education programs.

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