Final Blog Assignment

The consequences of learning about international early childhood field for my personal and professional development…

1. I am learning about issues and trends outside of my country.
2. I have the ability to network with other professionals that I would not have had opportunity to do so.
3. Additional growth professional growth in my profession.

 

My goal is to continue my relationship with my contact in South Dakota. We have already committed to stay in touch and hopefully meet in person. I will continue to research international issues to keep myself informed. I would like to build on my list of international contacts. I was not successful with making contact outside of the United States so I will try different countries to attempt to establish a professional contact.

Getting to Know Yor International Contacts-Part 3

I thought it would be appropriate to ask my contact Julie to answer the following questions. She has been extremely helpful communicating with me throughout my course. I really appreciate her participation assisting me with each question I asked of her. Her are her answers:

What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work?

I believe our state is finally getting on board in supporting the need for early childhood professionals.  I think this applies in childcare settings as well as early childhood educational settings.  State child care licensing is working very hard in requiring all licensed childcare workers to have at minimum a Child Development Associate Credential (CDA) which is a national certification.  Our state is now funding all of the training hours needed to meet CDA requirements.  Once the CDA is achieved, staff must re certify every 3 years.  Our Head Start program requires our teachers to have a 4 year degree in Early Childhood Education or a related field with a major equivalency in Early childhood Education.  I do believe that in itself bumps up quality.  I think we are seeing more potential teachers going into the field of Early Childhood now as research has demonstrated the correlation of high quality interactions and experiences during those early years and their impact on brain development. I feel there are so many more resources available now for Early Childhood Educators.  I think as educators in the field of early childhood, we need to continue to advocate for quality child/caregiver interactions.   Our program actually uses a tool on which the quality of interaction is rated on a scale of 1-7 and measures  3 domain areas:  Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional support.  The tool is call Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS).   Because this tool is evidence and research based, it was adopted by the  Office of Head Start to be used as a tool to determine the amount of quality each program demonstrates.  If program scores fall below identified minimum thresholds, the program’s grant could be up for re designation.  This criteria also bumps up quality especially for the Head Start programs. 
What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

I think as more and more state funded preschools are popping up, there will be more opportunity for Early Childhood Education professional careers.  Currently, because our program has partnered with our district’s preschool special needs program our teachers are under contract with the Dickinson Public School District, so our teachers must meet the same requirements as any other teacher; keeping their teaching license current and attending professional development to maintain the renewal of their license.  We also have an Early Head Start program (serving children from 0-3 yrs of age) with current minimum primary caregiver requirements is having a CDA with Infant/Toddler certification.  This staff must renew their CDA every 3 years.  In order to renew they must obtain 4.5 continuing education units or 45 clock hours of training relating to infants and toddlers.   Our Head Start Teachers are invited to all professional development training provided through the district as well as all training provided through the Head Start program.  There are many college level courses available now that pertain to early childhood that can count toward licensing renewal. I personally utilize Learner’s Edge which gives a nice variety of professional development courses specific to Early Childhood.  I can receive credit through several ND universities.  
What are some of your professional goals? 

My professional goal right now as building administrator of the Early Childhood Center and Education Coordinator for the Head Start program is to serve as a resource and mentor/coach for the teachers to help them in becoming the best teacher possible for our young children; giving children the opportunity to experience success in kindergarten.  Helping teachers to identify and achieve professional goals to improve teacher/child interactions. 

What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?

My professional hope is that all teachers who are going into early childhood realize that every interaction they engage in with a child will  impact a child’s development. My hope is that all teachers will ensure that their interactions are always making a positive impact.   My dream is that every child who enters the building will be excited about walking through those doors each day and excited about learning new things and seeing their teachers.  Every child will feel safe and secure enough to know that it is okay to take risks and talk about the learning embedded within each experience.   My dream is that every child who leaves our program is school ready and can experience success in kindergarten. 

A challenge is accepting a teacher where they are at and helping them build on what they know.  Sometimes I expect them to be at an exemplary level knowing that it will be a process to help them get to that level. 

Again I thank my contact because this has been an informative  and rewarding experience for me.

Sharing Web Resources

One of my most used websites is Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center (ECLKC). This website offers a great deal of information that supports early childhood professionals, children and families. There are so many articles that speaks to subjects I’ve researched in this class. There is an article that talks about a Dual Learner Toolkit. This toolkit provides resources that can be used to support young children who are learning their home languages and English. It is divided into three sections: administrators and managers; teachers, caregivers, and family services staff; and families (ECLKC, 2015). I was able to watch a short video which explained why it’s important for children to continue to learn their home language even when they are learning English. It’s a way for the child to see that their culture and home language are supported. It’s also a way for the children to identify who they are. It develops a strong sense of self that helps the child to develop school readiness skills. When home language is taken away, children’s identity and culture can be weakened or lost. This can affect their ability to succeed because it cause the children to struggle to keep up.

Another article was about Family Engagement and Ongoing Child Assessment.  The partnership between parents and staff is fundamental to children’s current and future success in school readiness and beyond. These programs shares information with families about children’s learning. The program also can share information gathered from assessments with families about children’s development. Finally, the assessments can identify specific strategies that support relationship building with families.

We talked this week about access, availability, affordability. ECKLC provides a wealth of current events, policies, funding issues, strengthening outcomes, family engagement programs and so much more. There are programs available and resources accessible to families, they would just need some guidance on knowing where to find them.

I personally have gained additional knowledge on issues relating to limited funding and limitations when it comes to providing services for immigrant families. I strongly believe if our goal is to provide equal opportunities for all children, that statement should be honored by policymakers and not contradicted through selected explicit polices.

Reference:

https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc

Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 2

 

I have not received a response from any of my attempted contacts. I received an automatic response from my contact in North Dakota who is currently on vacation. I had to take the alternate route to complete my assignment. I chose to research The Grand Challenges Canada. Grand Challenges Canada is partnered with a program which is called Saving Brains. Together they seek to improve outcomes for children living in poverty through interventions that nurture and protect early brain development in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (Harvard University (n.d.).  Saving Brains consist of mentors and experts in the field of early childhood development. The focus is to assist in improving the impact of saving brains in early development by:

• Articulating a common theory for action based on scientific knowledge and practical experience
• Developing shared metrics and evaluation frameworks for interventions
• Fostering an ongoing learning community to accelerate innovation through sharing lessons and results
• Encouraging policy translation through cross-sectional leadership development

The research and professional knowledge is combined to strategize and develop ways to progress, improve, and evaluate advanced solutions. Currently, projects are being implemented in low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

I feel this is a great collaboration that should be implemented throughout the countries. They provide research in several areas of development within the first 3 years to support in setting up the child to reach their fullest potential. . In the video segment Saving Brains (n.d.), Dr. Mike Evans stated, “1/3 of the world’s children never meet their fullest potential. He also noted that play based responsive information and better health and nutrition are crucial contributors to a well-developed brain. The areas focused on are health and nutrition, enrichment, and protection. With programs like this fewer children’s brains would be subjected to toxic stress and other negative impacts.  This is a wonderful contribution to promoting children the chance for lifelong success.

Reference:

Grand Challenges Canada (n.d.). Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/#Canada

Saving Brains (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.savingbrainsinnovation.net/about/