Welcome Tamara

Today I had the pleasure of showing Dr Tamara Cumming around The Treehouse. The Early Childhood Research Group was founded by Tamara in 2020 and she invited me to co-lead it. She was the first co-chair of the Early Childhood Voices Conference (ECV2020) and helped write the application for the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) Sturt Scheme. She has been working at Macquarie University for the past 2.5 years. We have continued to collaborate - last month this chapter was published:

McLeod, S., Gregoric, C., Cumming, T., & Downey, B. (2024). Refusing to silence early childhood voices: The establishment of the Early Childhood Voices Conference. In L. Mahony, S. McLeod, A. Salamon, & J. Dwyer (Eds.), Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals (pp. 251-269). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56484-0_18

Book meeting

We received great feedback from Springer about our book proposal for "Early childhood voices in the lives of children, families, and practitioners". Today was our last book meeting for the year. We have been working hard as an editorial team.

Linda Mahony, Sharynne McLeod, Andi Salamon, Jenny Dwyer

Future research collaborations

Last week I met with Prof Julian Grant, Dr Tamara Cumming and Dr Sarah Verdion to plan our future resarch collaborations. It was a productive and inspiring meeting.

Sarah, Julian, Sharynne and Tamara

Planning an edited book

Over the past few months a team from the Early Childhood Research Group have been planning an edited book. Our proposal is almost ready to be sent to the publishers.

Linda Mahony, Sharynne, Jenny Dwyer, Laura McFarland, Andi Salamon

Early Childhood Research Group: First meeting for 2021

Today was our first Early Childhood Research Group for 2021. We reviewed the excellent feedback from our ECV2020 conference - then planned for ECV2021, an edited book, communication with professionals, and infrastructure grants.

Faculty Research Groups Symposium

Today the Faculty of Arts and Education held a Research Groups Symposium to profile the work of the six research groups https://arts-ed.csu.edu.au/research/research-groups:

1. Critical Research in Indigenous Studies Research Group 
2. Environmental and Social Justice Research Group 
3. STEM Education Research Group 
4. Libraries Research Group 
5. Early Childhood Research Group 
6. Professional Practice, Learning and Education Group

The day began with presentations from Executive Dean John McDonald and Associate Dean Philip Hider. Karen Bell and I presented about the Sustainable Development Goals. Then each group presented their work. 

Feedback from an attendee “I felt this was a milestone in the Faculty- I have not felt such a sense of common purposes and mutual, respectful, interested engagement in either the research or the learning and teaching space since Education and Arts joined together in 2016.”  

 

Early Childhood Research Group - Celebration Meeting - Dec 2020

This afternoon the Early Childhood Research Group met for the final time this year. We discussed how we exceeded our expectations for this year - and really lived our philosophy, particularly through our ECV2020 conference.

Faculty of Arts and Education Research Groups' narrative

ECV2020 ECRG watching sessions together

Each lunchtime this week the Early Childhood Research Group have watched an ECV2020 keynote presentation (or two) then discussed it together. Today we watched Laureate Professor Marilyn Fleer's presentation.

Early Childhood Voices 2020 Conference statistics - one week before it begins

The latest statistics about our Early Childhood Voices 2020 Conference are amazing: 

• 8 keynote presentations
• 93 oral presentations from 17 countries
• 2102 registrations from 70 countries (+ "unknown location")
  
• 4438 page views of our ECV2020 website in the past month
• One busy and very happy conference committee
  

Registrations are from: Albania Argentina Armenia Australia Bahrain Bangladesh Belgium Bhutan Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Cambodia Canada Chile China Costa Rica Croatia Denmark Fiji Finland France Germany Ghana Greece Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Japan Jordan Kuwait Latvia Macau SAR China Malaysia Malta Mexico Moldova Morocco Myanmar (Burma) Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Panama Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Russia Samoa Saudi Arabia Serbia Singapore South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Turkey United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Vietnam Zambia Zimbabwe 

 

CSU News has run the following story: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/strong-international-registrations-for-online-early-childhood-conference

Thank you everyone - next week is going to be spectacular!
Details here: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2020/

ECV2020 conference committee meeting - 10 November 2020

ECV2020 preparation and promotion

CSU News has begun their series of news stories to promote ECV2020:

https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/strong-international-registrations-for-online-early-childhood-conference

Meanwhile in the background the team are busy:

Belinda Downey, Greta and Sharynne checking the reviews of the video presentations

ECV2020 - 1104 registrations from 52 countries so far

We are working hard on preparing for ECV2020: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2020/

We are so delighted by the number of registrations we have for ECV2020. We currently have 1104 registrations from 51 countries (+ unknown) so far. The conference is still 3 weeks away! 

1. Albania 
2. Argentina 
3. Australia 
4. Bahrain 
5. Bangladesh 
6. Belgium 
7. Brazil 
8. Canada 
9. Chile 
10. Costa 
11. Rica 
12. Denmark 
13. Fiji 
14. Finland 
15. France 
16. Germany 
17. Ghana 
18. Greece 
19. Iceland 
20. India 
21. Ireland 
22. Italy 
23. Japan 
24. Jordan 
25. Kuwait 
26. Latvia 
27. Macau SAR China 
28. Malta 
29. Moldova 
30. Morocco 
31. Myanmar (Burma) 
32. New Zealand 
33. Nigeria 
34. Norway 
35. Oman 
36. Pakistan 
37. Peru 
38. Philippines 
39. Poland 
40. Saudi Arabia 
41. Singapore 
42. South Africa 
43. Sweden 
44. Switzerland 
45. Turkey 
46. United Arab Emirates 
47. United Kingdom 
48. United States 
49. (Unknown Location) 
50. Vietnam 
51. Zambia 
52. Zimbabwe

Early Childhood Research Group - new website

 Today we launched Charles Sturt University Early Childhood Research Group website: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains

We also have a new Twitter account: @CSU_ECRG

We will be advertising the Early Childhood Voices 2020 Conference very soon!

Here is our overview:

The Early Childhood Research Group (ECRG) promotes social justice for children, families and practitioners working with the early childhood sector (generally birth-8 years). We do this by using innovative methods, theories and partnerships with children, families, practitioners and the early childhood sector to co-produce, translate and implement research, and to generate evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence. Our research emphasises sustainability, children’s rights, enhancing children’s access to, participation in and outcomes from equitable, quality early childhood programs and services, workforce sustainability, and transformation of the social, policy and organisational conditions that enable social justice. We seek opportunities to bridge gaps and promote holistic approaches between settings (early childhood education and care, schools, homes, health and disability services), and bodies (government departments, international and national organisations). We build capacity for engaging in transformative research within our group and with other researchers. 

We are guided by Charles Sturt University’s ethos: Yindyamarra winhanganha "The wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in" and Charles Sturt University’s motto: "For the public good". We also align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals  3, 4, 8, 10

 More information 

Website (CSU-FOAE) https://arts-ed.csu.edu.au/research/research-groups/early-childhood-research-group 

Our research (CRO) https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/early-childhood-research-group 

Our impact (PlumX) https://plu.mx/csu-au/g/early-childhood-research-group 

Please contact us if you would like to join our research group, partner with us, or participate in our research.We welcome comments and inquiries from professionals, researchers, research partners, and aspiring PhD students. Dr Tamara Cumming tcumming@csu.edu.au and Professor Sharynne McLeod smcleod@csu.edu.au 

We have purchased some fantastic new iStock images to use on the website.

 Photo credit: iStock.com/monkeybusinessimages

Early Childhood Research Group meeting - exciting innovations

Today our Early Childhood Research Group met and discussed a number of innovations stemming from the focus on research by our new Dean, Professor John McDonald.

https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/early-childhood-research-group

Research outputs for Research Groups in the CSU Faculty of Arts and Education

• Early Childhood Research Group: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/early-childhood-research-group in CRO and https://plu.mx/csu-au/g/early-childhood-research-group in PlumX 
• STEM Education Research Group: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/stem-education-research-group in CRO and https://plu.mx/csu-au/g/stem-education-research-group in PlumX 
• Libraries Research Group: http://csu.edu.au/libraries-research https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/libraries-research-group in CRO and https://plu.mx/csu-au/g/libraries-research-group in PlumX

Planning Early Childhood Voices - A virtual flipped pop-up conference

The Early Childhood Research Group are planning a virtual flipped pop-up conference titled "Early Childhood Voices". Many great ideas were discussed today.

Planning team - Tamara Cumming, Sharynne McLeod and Nicola Ivory

Early Childhood Research Group planning meeting

Today Dr Tamara Cumming came over for an Early Childhood Research Group planning meeting (applying physical distancing during the COVID-19 restrictions). We had a brilliant brainstorming time inspired by our recent meeting with the Executive Dean who asked us to undertake "edgy, bolshy, noisy research that is not vanilla". We have been allocated 100 hours to work with Dr Nicola Ivory and Prof Philp Hider, our SubDean Research is supportive of our ideas. Watch this space.

Early Childhood Research Group meeting

Today our CSU Early Childhood Research Group met online. We discussed category 1-4 grants, and had an interactive presentation from Jane Norton from CSU Library about Research Professional. We also had a wonderful discussion to support one another through the COVID-19 pandemic changes to our research lives.

Early Childhood Research Group Workshop

Over the next 2 days Dr Tamara Cumming and I are hosting a 2-day Early Childhood Research Group Workshop a Charles Sturt University. We have 28 people (staff, post-docs, PhD students) who are in the group with backgrounds in early childhood education, speech pathology, psychology, etc. Day 1: Research agendas, plans and objectives Day 2: Implementation fundamentals (lead by Dr Tamika Heiden)

Early Childhood Research Group Dr Tamara Cumming (Chair) and Prof Sharynne McLeod (Deputy Chair)

Dr Tamika Heiden's workshop on Implementation Science

Participants in Bathurst

Some of the online participants: Sarah Verdon, Kate Margetson, Van Tran, Nicole McGill,
(Michelle Brown, Mandy Cooke, etc.)

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