This qualitative study explores how a group of preservice teachers, all of whom had been well prepared to become primary-grade teachers, made a transition into infant/toddler group care settings.
The authors used the teachers’ daily journal entries, individual interview, document analysis (course syllabus, weekly planning sheets), and weekly team planning meetings as data sources.
Findings revealed that the teachers initially struggled to work with the infants/toddlers and that their long-held notions of children, teaching, and learning were challenged.
Yet, their daily work with the children over 15 weeks of practicum helped them deepen and broaden and become more skillful and insightful of early childhood education, which the teachers found applicable to primary-grade teaching.