Developing the Experiences Organizing Process of Early Childhood Teachers by Using the Learning Community Concept to Promote Executive Functions for Early Childhood

Abstract

This research employed a quasi-experimental group study with the objectives of developing the experiences organizing process of early childhood teachers by using the learning community concept to promote executive functions for early childhood and investigating the effects of the experiential learning process of preschool teachers using the community of learning concept on the cognitive skills of young children. The research sample consisted of 16 early childhood teachers from a demonstration school of Lampang Rajabhat University and 115 kindergarten students from grades 1-3. The research tools included the experiential learning plan for executive functions and the early childhood executive functions assessment forms. Data analysis was conducted using basic statistics, percentages, means, and standard deviations.

       The research findings revealed that the developing the experiences organizing process of early childhood teachers by using the learning community concept to promote executive functions for early childhood, as the researcher had synthesized the data from the teachers' experiential organizing process by using the learning community concept to promote executive functions for early childhood, consisted of four main components: 1) the rationale of the development of executive functions in experiences organizing process, 2) the process of developing executive functions experiential in experiences organizing process, 3) the outcomes of using executive functions in experiences organizing process, and 4) the reflection on the outcomes of using executive functions in experiences organizing process. The results of the experiment using the developed process showed that after training, early childhood teachers had a higher ability to organize experiences that promoted executive functions in early childhood. The average score after training was 4.75 with a standard deviation of 0.44, which was higher than before the training. Additionally, the executive functions of early childhood after experiencing the program showed a executive functions development rate of 85.60%.