When visiting Hong Kong in June, members of our research community, Professor Pirjo Aunio and doctoral researcher Terhi Vessonen, were invited by Professor Kerry Lee to visit Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education (YCCECE). YCCECE is currently the only tertiary institution specialising in early childhood education (ECE) in Asia.
Although ECE students had already left for the summer, Pirjo and Terhi were able to visit the impressive early childhood education discovery space. The local ECE centres can book a time slot for their own group of children and spend time in the discovery space. It provides children, teachers, and caregivers with state-of-the-art facilities for intriguing exploration and play activities. For instance, children can simulate grocery store shopping, travel in a real-world-like metro, and dress up in different costumes backstage to perform on the theatre stage. The discovery space also had exciting materials to do arts and crafts, as well as science activities.
As mathematics learning researchers, Pirjo and Terhi were intrigued by the discovery spaces’ various early mathematics learning opportunities. For example, observational studies to investigate how children use provided materials for learning mathematics and how they collaborate when they face novel mathematics problems, would be a truly interesting research avenue. These kinds of facilities would also allow to interview children while they enjoy the new learning environments.
YCCECE facilities were also very useful for ECE teacher education. ECE students may observe and interact with children in the discovery space before going to do their practice period in local schools. The discovery space would also offer possibilities for researchers, teacher educators, and students to test materials and learning activities for educational interventions and assessment tools prior to having them tested in experimental research projects.
We would like to thank YCCECE and Professor Kerry Lee for the opportunity to visit YCCECE and wish that the future holds opportunities to collaborate with researchers and teacher educators at YCCECE!