What I hope to learn
I have been working on my Ed. D for the last 2 years and as I come to the end of my journey, I am working to decide what is next for me. My goal is to be the director of our new Early Learning Center, helping to increase the capacity from 2 community preschool classrooms and 3 special education preschool classrooms to a total of 8-10 classrooms.
As I have been learning more about STEM and Montessori principles in my course work, the idea of incorporating STEM and Montessori into the Early Learning Center is appealing to me for two reasons. The first being that young children are capable of learning through STEM and Montessori methods and can use those skills to prepare them as they enter elementary classrooms. Second, as we service many low income families in our district, a STEM and Montessori center would allow access to those ways of thinking and learning that are not typically available in lower income areas.
During June and July, I will be observing in a Montessori Academy during their summer camp program. Although some of the parts of the school year day will be missing from the summer camp, after speaking with the administrator, I feel as though I will still be able to learn about Montessori and the methods used.
I did purchase several "beginner" Montessori texts to read for my own knowledge and will read those throughout the summer as well to educate myself and to link ideas and methods to what I observe.
The texts are:
Lillard, P. P. (1972). Montessori, a modern approach. New York, Schocken Books.
Haninstock, E.G. (1997). The Essential Montessori. New York, Plume Books.
Montessori, M. (2014). The Montessori Method. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
If I am chosen as the new director for our early center, I would like to take what I learn from this observation experience and use it to create a new path for the center and combine Montessori methods with ideas from Vygotsky's sociocultural work to allow our young learners (ages 3-5) to learn from older peers and explore the natural world around them in a safe place.
This is a great start, Kristen! I like the books you've chosen. They'll give you a good overview. I'll take a look on my shelf at work and see if I have any other suggestions for you. You may want to do some searches for any academic articles about 'STEM' and 'Montessori'. I think this experience will be interesting for you and hopefully, if (or when!) you get the position as the director, it will give you wonderful background upon which to draw on as you shape the curriculum and programming at the early center.
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