On August 31, 2020, the TRACKs project came to the end. On our website you will find all the publications on the ECEC situation as well as the assumptions and application of the video coaching method prepared during the project, as well as reports enabling the reconstruction of the process of reaching these results.

All publications and reports are available in English and in the national languages of the project: Polish, Italian and Dutch.

Enjoy reading!

In June, a Polish Multiplier Event took place. Due to the limitations caused by the the Sars-Cov2 pandemic it was held online on the platform.

We conducted workshops for two groups, 41 people in total from all over Poland participated. Participants represented kindergartens, nurseries, children's club, primary schools, universities and NGOs.

The agenda of the meeting included a lecture presenting all work in the project and work in groups:

• Workshop To understand more ... - how to work with video coaching (led by M. Rościszewska-Woźniak, U. Majerska)
• Workshop Out-door education in Poland? Experiences from the forest kindergarten Leśna Grupa, PIPL and the project LAS Leśna Akademia Sztuki (led by Justyna Gorce-Bałut)

People interested in sharing the lecture "To make every child visible ..." please contact us (magdalena.slusarczyk@uj.edu.pl)

We are happy to annouce a new publication of the TRACKs project. In the spring issue of the "Infanzia" journal (Aprile / Giugno 2020) we had the opportunity to present our project and its results. It is great because it is a practice-oriented journal  that reaches practitioners: kindergarten teachers, child care workers and educators.

We have presented the assumptions of the method and its theoretical foundations:

- article by Arianna Lazzarri Introduzione. Sviluppare la riflessività di educatori e insegnanti: la pratica della video-analisi

- article by Lucia Balduzzi Il contributo della video-analisi nel campo della ricerca nella prima infanzia)

And the national specificity:

- article by Jan de Mets and Sofie Verschaeve presenting the Belgian (Flemish) context "From blurred to sharp”: il video-coaching come strumento per riflettere sull'importanza di interazioni educative di qualità nei servizi per l'infanzia,

- article by Chiara Dalledonne Vandini, Daria Quaglia and Daniela Turco Liverani on Italy (Emilia Romagna) - Sostenere la riflessività di educatori e insegnanti attraverso la video-analisi per creare contesti inclusivi: lo studio di caso italiano;

- article by Magdalena Ślusarczyk characterizing the case of Poland - Per coinvolgere tutti i bambini... Servizi per l’infanzia inclusivi per bambini e famiglie che provengono da gruppi svantaggiati: lo studio di caso polacco

We are pleased to inform you about the article regarding the research realized in TRACKs project. The article entitled The Contributions of Video-Analysis in Early Childhood Education and Care Research authored by Valientina Migliarini, Arianna Lazzari, Lucia Balduzzi, Jan De Mets and Magdalena Ślusarczyk has been published in „Italian Journal of Educational Reseach” („Giornale Italiano della Ricerca Educativa”) no 23/2019, an open access scientific journal.

The paper presents a review of the literature on the use of video-analysis in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) contexts. The purpose of conducting such review emerged from the needs of exploring possibilities and limitations of video-analysis as a research mediational tool in ECEC services, especially in a European context. Constituting an integral task of a project, this review considers English language studies and studies written in the languages of the project partner countries (i.e. Italy, Poland and Belgium/Flanders).

The narrative synthesis of the studies considered develops around three emerging areas in which video-analysis in ECEC has been used already, namely:

(1) teachers/parents/community’s reflection, consciousness and empowerment;

(2) diversity and inclusion;

(3) interaction children-educator.

The paper ends with a final conclusion on the relevance of video-analysis for ECEC practitioners’ professional development and collaborative growth.

The article is available here https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/sird/article/view/3686/3401/

During the 17th Polish Sociological Congress I, We, They? Subjectivity, Identity, Belonging Magdalena Ślusarczyk (Jagiellonian University) presented TRACKs project results. On the basis of the research conducted in the Polish, Italian and Belgian (Flemish) context, she considered the concept of inclusion in educational systems in ECEC (early education) phase going beyond the adjustment model and giving the potential to integrate all pupils regardless of their socioeconomic background, ethnic origin or disability.

The day before of our transnational meeting, on 5th June, Lucia Balduzzi and Arianna Lazzari (UNIBO), Sofie Verschaeve (Arteveldehogeschool) and Jan de Mets (Ghent University) presented the first results of the project and discussed the use of video coaching during 7th International Week Artevelde College University. The two project teams of Bologna and Ghent were joining forces to have a session on “Enhancing reflexivity through video-analysis: comparing two case studies”. Both teams explained the way they set up action research and video coaching sessions, with focuses on the basic principles of (video) coaching, on the background concept note (Quality of Interaction), on the methodology, on the organizing aspects. They used a few film fragments to show the participants how these concepts and approaches were used ‘on the field’. They concluded by summing up both differences and overlaps of the two cases, emphasizing the added values of video coaching/analysis as such.

Just a few days later, Sofie Verschaeve (Artevelde University College), Jan De Mets (Ghent University), Valentina Migliarini, Lucia Balduzzi and Arianna Lazzari (UNIBO) presented two case studies of our research at the ISSA (International Step by Step Association) annual conference Nurturing Enviroments in Leiden, the Netherlands June 18-19, 2019.

On our website, there are reports on the ECEC situation and the assumption of video coaching in national languages: in Polish, Italian and Dutch. Publications are available here.

We invite you to read!

The first phase of the TRACKs project is coming to the end slowly. Each team actively cooperates with selected educational institutions and soon we can expect the results of this work. For now, we present the first publications:

• Working Paper 1 Comparing ECEC across Italy, Poland and Belgium - a comparative report of ECEC systems in the countries participating in the project. The report can be read here.
• TRACKs Concept Note - assumptions and a guide to work using the videocoaching method. The publication is available here.

We invite you to read.