Abstract
This first edition of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood for 2025 makes a strong contribution to our understanding of a diverse range of topics including pedagogical practices, programs for children and families, and mentoring programs for early childhood professionals. While these topics offer variety, they all have a focus on the provision of ongoing continual improvement of quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children. As an early childhood educator it is important to continually broaden one’s perspectives and knowledge by engaging in professional development, and these seven articles offer rich learning for the early childhood professional.
Teaching geometry using digital pedagogies to three- to five-year-olds is the focus of the paper by Zhao and Roberts. By interviewing four early childhood educators, who were familiar with the use of digital technologies to teach geometry, the authors identified pedagogical practices that enabled children’s learning when using digital technologies: these being positioning oneself in the children’s play and making the learning of relevance to the children. The multimodality and versatility offered by using digital technologies was found to support practical teaching and learning, and interactions between children, and between children and educators. However, the educators reported that making learning meaningful for the children was challenging and perceived that physical activities for teaching geometry were preferable and offered many advantages.
Exploring baby talk (BT) in a rural Indo-Fijian community was the focus for the article by Diamond. By being immersed in 11 children’s homes with their mothers and family members, Diamond captured the local beliefs that children learn to talk through engagement in proto-conversational BT. This occurs throughout the day, including care routines and playing games accompanied by affection. Implications for pedagogical practices working with young children is discussed.
The nutrition enhancement program (Wallace et al.) involved 116 early childhood professionals’ perception of nutrition. Half of the early childhood professionals were given the online nutrition enhancement program and half were a control group. At the end of four weeks participants involved in the online program had positive changes in confidence, use of nutrition information, and felt empowered in their role in children’s nutrition.
Encouraging Aboriginal children and their families to attend ECEC programs is important for Aboriginal children to grow up strong. This was the focus of Moort danjoo kaadadjiny (MDK), which means family together learning (Whyman et al.). The MDK is a culturally appropriate program, co-designed and implemented to provide a foundation for Aboriginal children to grow their culture and identity by building trust in a culturally safe environment.
The homebased parenting intervention programs for youngsters (HIPPY) targeted at three-year-olds was evaluated in Graham et al.’s paper. The evaluation of the program involved 10 trained coordinators supporting 102 parents from socially disadvantaged backgrounds in their homes. The HIPPY program was found to be an excellent support for parents motivated to strengthen their child’s learning and development.
Mentoring is an established way to support professional development and satisfaction in the workplace. The two mentoring papers- McCosh and Clarke's paper set in New Zealand highlighted the importance of the 138 mentors surveyed, who actually required mentoring to access their own professional learning. The Australian paper (Kervin et al.) presents research of a mentoring program to build capacity for mentees. The strategies included written modules, short videos, and building a community of practice to empower the mentees in their work.