Includes bibliographical references and index.

Teaching practice in early childhood settings -- What is teaching practice? -- Teaching practice : becoming professional -- Teaching practice : opportunities for learning -- Preparing for teaching practice -- Ways of knowing and understanding children -- Teachers and children : building relationships -- The nature of observation -- What can be observed when getting to know children? -- Using observations in curriculum decision making -- Some questions about observations -- The role of observation in assessing children's learning -- Early childhood curriculum -- The nature of curriculum -- Examples of curriculum work -- Curriculum work : embedded in a set of beliefs -- Developing knowledge and beliefs about children, learning and teaching -- Factors influencing early childhood curriculum -- Achieving curriculum goals -- A framework for decision making -- Creating physical environments for learning and teaching -- Organizing the physical environment : what's involved? -- Considering the messages and effects of the physical organization -- Linking beliefs about learning and teaching with organizational decisions -- Being prepared -- Creating socially secure environments for learning and teaching -- Welcoming and celebrating diversity -- Building caring and cooperative relationships -- Fostering a sense of independence and responsibility in children -- Engendering a sense of fairness -- Promoting problem solving and conflict resolution -- Guiding behaviour -- Becoming a teacher and a researcher of teaching -- Developing your own knowledge about teaching -- Developing and refining practical skills -- Using research to grow as a teacher -- Gaining the most from the teaching practice experience -- Building effective working relationships in early childhood settings -- Becoming familiar with organizational structures, roles and relationships -- Promoting partnerships with families -- Setting personal goals for teaching practice -- Developing professionalism -- Stories from beginning teachers : what's the reality? -- Kylie's story : 'working in a community-based centre is really for me' -- Janine's story : 'that first day I realized I was totally responsible' -- Suzanne's story : 'a major high for me was that I survived' -- Amy's story : 'we are like a prep class so there is emphasis on transition to school' -- Kate's story : 'what I learnt most about this year was how to work with other people' -- Brittany's story : 'five years down the track I might be where I want to be, at a place where my philosophy and practice meet'.

All Ages.