Member Spotlight

 

The Arlitt Child Development Center is a diverse and inclusive urban laboratory preschool in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati that serves approximately 150 preschool children each year in multi-aged groups. Children and families are served through our Head Start Delegate Agency funding, tuition fees, child care vouchers and/or Cincinnati’s Preschool Promise dollars. With strong roots in constructivist and experiential models of learning, the curriculum and environments reflect a focus on authentic experiences that support the whole child. 

 

We connected with Dr. Victoria Carr, Executive Director of the Arlitt Center for Education, Research, and Sustainability to learn more about Arlitt CDC. 

 

 

University-based laboratory preschools are charged with researching and demonstrating high quality early learning for young children for college students and the greater community. Educators are encouraged to experiment with practice, forging new approaches to applied learning. At the Arlitt CDC, educators work within a community of learners themselves, delving into multi-faceted issues facing children and families that require nuanced pedagogies to address diverse learning needs and social-emotional supports.

 

 

Research conducted by faculty, graduate students, and practitioners at the Arlitt CDC has been supported by entities such as the National Science Foundation, PNC Grow up Great, and our University’s Research Council. Many master’s research projects and dissertations have reported research conducted at the Arlitt Center. Practitioner research often leads to changes in practice or modifications to the classroom environments. Research conducted at the center has been broadly disseminated and/or used for continuous improvement.

 

 

We view the playscape and its affordances as an embedded opportunity to focus on nature-based early learning (NBEL), yet concepts explored at the playscape and natural materials are also infused into the center’s classrooms, emphasizing an interconnectedness that is integral to a sustainable world. For example, at the playscape, children see how the bees are “pollening,” plants get put into the ground roots first, water has great properties, and there are critters under rocks; they also see and explore these ideas on the playground and in the classroom. Specific to the playscape as an environmental space within our program, teachers’ have stated that “children dictate their experiences…,” with “room to roam and explore” in an unencumbered green space that is “a little piece of the wild world” in our urban setting. Throughout our playscape research, teachers commented on how the playscape environment supports the whole child, that complex play, collaboration, and creative problem-solving occurs in the stream bed, sand pit, log fort, treehouse, and with the myriad of available loose parts. 

 

 

We hope conferees gain insight into the collective worldview held by the Arlitt educators and support staff – that children are capable of engaging with complex learning opportunities in their environments, that thoughtful planning and shared responsibilities for learning underpin transformative teaching, and that relationships and human connections are essential to a peaceful and sustainable world.

 

 

We are thrilled to offer a special opportunity to tour the Arlitt Child Development Center in person as part of this year's Nature-Based Early Learning Conference in Cincinnati, OH. Learn more about the conference here and explore the opportunity to tour Arlitt, along with two other amazing nature preschools in the Cincinnati area.