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EC725 Early Childhood Teachers and Leaders

  • Subject Code :  

    EC725

  • Country :  

    NZ

  • University :  

    New Zealand Tertiary College

Answer:

A leader is an individual who is responsible for creating a vision for a team and achieving the desired goals along with the members of the team effectively (Shields & Hattingh, 2022). In this essay, we'll talk about a situation where I was able to plan a playground trip in my preschool and represented myself as a leader. For this purpose, I identified the date and time first on which the trip will be planned for all the preschoolers, Moreover, how many preschoolers will be going along with teachers and what activities will be conducted once we reach there will be analyzed. I will arrange the refreshments to be provided to all the students or preschoolers for the whole trip according to the activity or situation. This is one of the major aspects of a good leadership which ensures the comfort of the fellow mates (Bricker et al., 2022). After conducting this trip, I learned how to take a lead in a group and finalize the activities according to the situations and the members as it is one of the major element of most of the leadership style (Chen, 2022). Also, the suitable arrangements will be made about selecting outdoor playing activities that is to be played during the trip along with the proper equipment. Including the playground with all the preschoolers successfully, I was praised for the arrangements that I made and the initiative I took to plan this trip and all the related activities (Shields & Hattingh, 2022).

Authentic leadership is a method to lead the particular group or a task with the help of self-awareness and the ability to resolve any type of conflicts among the group members (Gardner et al., 2021). This works on the beliefs such as motivations, thoughts and feeling of the group members related to the activities that are being conducted (American Physical Therapy Association, 2019). It is also about the values and beliefs required for a particular task. I could use these attributes for  concluding the activities in the most positively and effective manner (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018). I used my values and beliefs while planning the trip with the preschoolers and also while identifying all the activities to be conducted during the trip (Hannah, Avolio, & Walumbwa, 2011). With the help of an authentic leadership style, I also prioritized the comfort and learning of other preschoolers so that they can also learn maximum from this trip (Jaworski et al., 2022). This style makes it very easy to comprehend the morals, standards, principles, ideals and beliefs associated with the preschoolers and the teachers during the trip (American Physical Therapy Association, 2019). My role was expanded to not just the playing activities but also to learn something valuable from this trip as it is very vital (Kelly & Hashemi, 2022). For example, the activities conducted during this playground trip were not just for fun and entertainment but also served as a learning outcome from those particular activities for all the preschoolers (Irvansyah, Sumardjo & Syah, 2021). All the teachers highly praised all these actions of mine during the entire course of this journey which was an ultimate outcome of the authentic leadership style (Cumming & Wong, 2012). These kinds of playground activities where the overall development is ensured are vital for all the preschoolers other than studying activities (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018).

The second type of leadership style that I used while running the functions with the pre-schoolers is the distributed leadership style. It is a concept and an approach frequently used to decentralise the tasks from the group leader to the subordinates or the other team members (Tam, 2019). Under the style, various tasks identified for completing the particular goal are distributed among all the members according to their capability and talent (Cumming & Wong, 2012). This specific method of distributed leadership helps reduce the workload of the group leader and complete the individual tasks by the group members more effectively and in the given time (Davos, Tuytens, & Hulpia, 2014). For example, if there are two or more members in a team to complete the individual tasks, the group leader can distribute the tasks into smaller units by which all the tasks can be completed quickly (Printy & Liu, 2021). It also helps a lot to achieve the desired results from the particular goal identified by the leader of a group (American Physical Therapy Association, 2019).

The burden of planning the playground trip for all the preschoolers was not mere a plan per se, but rather some tasks were also distributed among preschoolers and teachers for the sake of better implementation (Jarvis, 2021). During the course of planning of this playground trip, my teachers assisted me in identifying and analyzing some of the activities (Cumming & Wong, 2012). These planned activities are to be conducted in the playground with the assistance of preschoolers available during that time. Under the distributed leadership style, I was also able to designate some tasks regarding the time management of the playground activity to a teacher for increasing the effectiveness of playground activity (Limon, Dilekc, & Demirer, 2021).

The third leadership style identified is the Pedagogical Leadership Style. This is used frequently in the teaching and learning methods to improve the efficiency of the work done (Yang & Lim, 2020). This style is also called as instructional leadership style as its framework works on the continuous quality improvement in the work of the teaching and learning (American Physical Therapy Association, 2019). When this style is concerned, it becomes important to have some learning outcomes from all the playground activities in the trip (Ahtiainen, Fonsen, & Kiuru, 2021). I included some outdoor brainstorming activities for preschoolers along with the teachers in order to increase their IQ levels and decision-making skills during the trip (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018). The pedagogical leadership style along with the teachers had assisted me to plan all the activities as per the proper time management (American Physical Therapy Association, 2019). This was very crucial that we complete all the activities in proper time so that other schedules should not be hampered (Gomez-Leal et al., 2022). Moreover, I was also able to plan some playground activities in which the participation of all the preschoolers was required. This had helped them to build team-building and social skills among all the preschoolers (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018). For example, I planned an activity with the proper equipment, which required an active participation of the entire lot of preschoolers present over there to successfully conclude that particular activity (Heikka & Waniganayake, 2011). The activities that are planned for the playground trip under the pedagogical leadership style resulted in an effective approach and were praised by all the teachers (Cumming & Wong, 2012). The major reason for this praise was that the activities are so systematically planned that every moment during the course was fully optimized and the trip turned out to be productive as well as an adventure at the same time (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018).

Our code our standards are the set of procedures that are necessary for effective and ethical activities in the team. These codes and standards ensure the ethical behavior of the team members in the group for the utmost effectiveness of the tasks that being performed (Bricker et al., 2022). It helped me plan this whole playground trip to consider all the values and beliefs involved in all these activities (Cherrington, 2017) However, the fact cannot be denied that it would not be possible without the assistance and the constant guidance of the fellow teachers (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018). I tried to follow all the codes and standards regarding all the activities by the virtue of building moral values in the group along with the team members. Moreover, these ethical behavior approaches make the tasks or activities easier to conclude as it involves active participation of all the emotionally connected preschoolers (Teschers, Devine, & Couch, 2021). Besides achieving the educational aim for preschoolers, it is also necessary to learn the value of ethical behavior in personal growth and development (Irvansyah, Sumardjo & Syah, 2021). This approach helped me a lot in arranging the equipments related to the playground activity and for deciding the time which has to be allotted to a particular activity during the whole trip.

It can be well determined from the above discussion that during the early childhood development, different leadership styles plays a crucial role. Also, it is very important to include the importance and elements of leadership styles during the education premise and practice (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018). It is concluded that all the theories and practices are essential for the development of all the students from the very starting of their educational realm (Coogle et al., 2022). It is analysed that all these practises mentioned above, such as distributed leadership style, pedagogical leadership style and authentic leadership style, are interconnected for achieving the educational aim of the students (Bricker, Xie & Bohjanen, 2018). These methods or concepts which the leader uses for achieving the educational objectives are also responsible for bringing some positive change in the behaviour and the academic curriculum (Lee, Joswick, & Pole, 2022). The situations where a student has to initiate becoming a leader of a group or a team, teaches a lot about the various leadership concepts and methods (Yang & Lim, 2020). So it is essential for the students in the early childhood education environment to at least read and understand the central idea behind these leadership styles used for the growth and the development.

Moreover, these leadership styles helps to transform the leader's personality by accepting the challenges that occur while managing a team or a group to achieve the desired educational aim (Murray, 2022). Also, these elements contribute to the personal development and growth of the student that directly impacts the performance of the whole group for conducting a particular activity or a task.

References

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American Physical Therapy Association. (2019). Interprofessional education and collaborative practice resources. https://www.apta.org/Educators/Curriculum/In-terprofessional/

Bricker, D. D., Felimban, H. S., Lin, F. Y., Stegenga, S. M., & Storie, S. O. M. (2022). A proposed framework for enhancing collaboration in early intervention/early childhood special education. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 41(4), 240-252. doi: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0271121419890683

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Chen, J. J. (2022). Self-compassion as key to stress resilience among first-year early childhood teachers during COVID-19: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. Teaching and Teacher Education, 111, 103627. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X21003528

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