CSM Professor Publishes Book on Playfulness in Early Childhood Education

OMAHA, Neb. – A book by a longtime College of Saint Mary faculty member was recently published. Melanie K. Felton, PhD, associate professor of teacher education and director of the early childhood education program at CSM, co-edited “Re-Exploring Play and Playfulness in Early Childhood Education: Narratives, Reflections, and Practices” with Diana H. Cortez-Castro, EdD, program coordinator and faculty of teacher education at Texas Southmost College.

The book explores early childhood teacher educators’ lived experiences in designing and implementing intentional play-based approaches in teaching preservice teachers.

“After numerous discussions sharing our stories of using play and playfulness teaching strategies with our college students studying early childhood education, publishing a book of our ideas became our dream,” said Felton, who has taught at CSM for more than 35 years.

As co-editor, Felton helped prepare the book for proposal and acceptance, seek authors to share their stories and write personal and collaborative chapters.

“Guiding the book to publication is one of my greatest professional achievements because it allowed me to share my own story of teaching my early childhood students at College of Saint Mary and provide an avenue for 20 other contributing authors to share their stories, strategies, and research,” Felton said. “I take pride in knowing that the book has the potential to influence other early childhood teacher educators to re-explore their instructional strategies and be inspired to use play and playful pedagogy to bring their teaching to life and help these future teachers use play with young children in their future classrooms.”