Fitting It All In Remembering What’s Really Important

Camille Catlett

Professional Development Institute Heartland Early Childhood Paraeducator Grant

Shifting Paradigms

•be able to doKnow &

•Evidence-based practicesEvidence

Shifting Paradigms

• Developmentally appropriate practices

NAEYC standards

• DEC recommended practicesDEC

standards

How do you currently use DAP in your work?

Parts of a Whole

Individually Appropriate

Developmentally Appropriate

Culturally Appropriate

Use DEC Recommended Practices to . . .

Promote discussion of intentional teaching practices (example: C2)

Guide observation (example: C1)

Promote reflection (example: C4)

Build rubrics (example: F6-7)

Ways of Making Shift Happen

Looking Ahead

What’s on the Horizon?

Tools You Can Use

What’s on the Horizon?

Continued emphasis on early childhood systems through RTT-ELC grants

• CA, DE, MD, MA, MN, NC,OH, RI, WA have grants

• CO, IL, NM, OR, WI have just submitted applications

Grants bring a focus on . .

• Kindergarten readiness assessments

• Tiered quality rating and improvement systems (new acronym = TQRIS)

• Tools for assessing quality (environmental rating scales, Classroom Assessment Scoring System/CLASS)

Debate continues on the age range of early childhood: What are the implications of each option?

• Birth through 8 (or grade 3)?

• Age 3 through grade 3 (or grade 4)?

• Birth through 5?

Evidence continues to mount for the value for play being lost

How are you preparing your students to defend play?

Is there an early childhood course into which you could NOT appropriately incorporate an emphasis on play?

Evidence continues to mount of an increased emphasis on academics at earlier and earlier ages

Do you know a teacher who “does” calendar?

Calendar: What’s age appropriate?

Age Range Expectation

Birth through three No mention of calendar skills

Four through five Let children write on old calendars, order forms, check registers, or grocery lists.

Develop daily pre-calendar activities (identify numbers on a calendar, briefly expose children to time concepts such as a day, a week, etc.)

How are you addressing the interplay between DAP and academics?

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/Publications/ArticleExamples/02Neuman.pdf

The fastest growing segment of the population is children of immigrants age 0-6 many of whom (96%) are US citizens

Projections indicate that by 2030, 41% of the nation’s children will be culturally diverse

One in four children under age 3 lives in a family in which one or more of the parents were born in another country. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007)

Nearly seven out of every 1,000

pre-kindergarteners are expelled each year—

an estimated 5,117 preschoolers in all. The

rate is 3.2 times higher than the national

expulsion rate for children in grades K-12. (Gilliam, 2005)

Boys are expelled 4.5 times more than girls; and African-Americans are

twice as likely to be expelled as Latino and Caucasian kids and

more than five times as likely asAsian-American kids. (Gilliam, 2005)

One out of every 45 American children go to sleep without a home of their own each year (National Center on Family Homelessness, 20012)

Improving Quality:What a teacher does really matters

Children form academic trajectories early in their school

careers that tend to be stable and difficult to change over the course

of their schooling (Alexander & Entwisle, 1993)

Children’s negative perceptions of competence and attitudes become stronger and harder to reverse as children progress through school (Valeski & Stipek, 2001)

Improving Quality:What a teacher does really matters

“If a bad year is compounded by other bad

years, it may not be possible for the student to recover”

(Hanushek, 2010)

An effective teacher can have a stronger influence on student achievement than poverty, language background, class size, and minority status(Aaronson, Barrow, Sander, 2007; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Jacob, Lefgren,

& Sims, 2008; Kane & Staiger, 2008; Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges,

2004; Rivkin, Hanushek,& Kain, 2005; Rockoff, 2004; Rothstein, 2010)

High-quality, culturally responsive early learning environments are critical to closing the achievement gap between children living in poverty, especially children of color, and their peers.

Improving

Quality

(Whitebrook, Gomby, Bellm, Sakai, & Kipnis, 2009, p. 1)

Culturally responsive interactions between

teachers and young children are

more likely to support progress toward

children’s mastery of language, literacy,

science, and math skills

Improving Quality

(Au & Jordan, 1981; Boykin, 1986; González et al, 1993; Roseberry, Warren & Conant, 1992; Tharp, 1991, 1992)

Lessons Learned from First

School: Promote Caring

We believe that this work is difficult and complex-that seeking simple answers to pervasive problems is not productive.

We support teachers as they look at their classrooms through the lenses of race, language, culture, ability and poverty

We developed a set of guiding principles and intentional approaches that focus on different things than have traditionally defined quality.

Nurturing Positive Relationships

Developing the Whole Child

Strengthening Self-Efficacy & Identity 

FirstSchool 2012

Culture of Caring

Prioritizing communication

Promoting self-regulation

Supporting independence Fostering peer interactions   FirstSchool 2012

Culture of Competence

Balancing Teaching Approaches  Integrating and Balancing Curriculum Building Higher Order Thinking

FirstSchool 2012

Culture of Excellence

Tools You Can Use

CONNECTThe Center to Mobilize Early Childhood Knowledge

http://connect.fpg.unc.edu/

Module 2: TransitionModule 1: Embedded Interventions

Module 3: Communication for Collaboration

Module 4: Family-Professional Partnerships

Module 5: Assistive Technology Interventions

Module 6: Dialogic ReadingModule 7: Tiered Instruction

(Social emotional development & Academic learning)

CONNECT

Research Synthesis Points on Quality Inclusive Practices

NPDCI

How Do We Move from paper to PRACTICE?

It’s just a piece of paper

ACCESS PARTICIPATION SUPPORTS

Define each key feature of inclusionShare professional development resources

related to each feature

Moving from Policies & Research to Practice

CONNECTNPDCI

Landing Pads

A sampling of evidence and resources, related to each feature, to support your learning and professional development needs

Find them online at http://npdci.fpg.unc.edu/resources/quality-inclusive-practices-resources-and-landing-pads

CONNECTNPDCI

8 New Landing Pads Just Released!

Defining Features Access

Access – means providing a wide range of activities and environments for every child by removing physical barriers and offering multiple ways to promote learning and development.

Universal Design (UD)/Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Assistive Technology (AT)

Evidence-Based Practices that Support ACCESS

EBP: Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning

UD and UDL mean the removal of physical and structural barriers (UD) and the provision of multiple and varied formats for instruction and learning (UDL).

CONNECT

Why Do It?

NPDCI

CONNECT

Read About It

NPDCI

CONNECT

See For Yourself

Photo from CONNECT Module 5

CONNECT

See for Yourself

NPDCI

CONNECT

See for Yourself

NPDCI

National Center to Improve Practice Early Childhood Guided Tour

Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center

National Center for Quality Teaching and Learning

Fred Rogers Center Early Learning Environment

Curriculum Toolkit

Learning Table Resources

Silence is a Powerful Statement

I didn’t know what to say . . .

• http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlWpVm

eEeb0

Children’s Awareness of Human Differences

www.adoptionstogether.org

During the first two years

Infants find skin color interesting

Infants recognize familiar faces

Toddlers can correctly place photos of themselves in their correct racial/ethnic group

Toddlers begin to ask questions about differences

Toddlers begin to imitate others “Just like Mommy

or Daddy”www.creative tots.com

Two year olds…

Classify people by gender

Can tell the difference between black and white

May begin to use social labels: “I’m a girl”

Three and Four year old children…

Ask “why”Become aware

negative stereotypes and feelings about people including themselves

May show discomfort or fear to someone who is different in some way

“Boys can’t be princesses!”

“You can’t have two mommies”

From ABC’S What Would You Do? “You can’t be a Princess!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFn81_HAvWg

Three and Four year old children…

May tease or refuse to play with someone who is different

Begin to seek labels for racial/ethnic identity

Do not have gender or ethnic constancy

Mask fear of differences with avoidance or silliness

“You cut your hair. Now you got boy hair”

“That’s a boy’s toy”

“When I get big I am going to have skin like you.”

Five and six year old children….

Develop a core sense of racial identity and negative societal biases can undermine their self-esteem

Can identify stereotypesShow aggression through insults and name-

calling

www.scholastic.com

“She can’t be my friend she has ugly clothes”

“ I got the most toys”

What messages do children receive about newly bought things?

“Wow! Look at your shiny new shoes”

Develop their own conclusions about differences if not guided by adults

Describe both poverty and wealth in concrete terms – the number of possessions

Five and six year old children….

Seven to nine year old children…

Continue to develop and elaborate on their ideas of differences

Begin to identify with groups and are interested in learning about these groups

Want and need accurate information

• Beliefs about differences remain constant and solidified unless the child experiences a life changing event

www.avianocenter.com

Sources

Bilson, Julie (1999) Overview: Development of Ethnic,

Gender Disability & Class Identity & Attitudes in Children and Youth, handout.Wolpert, Ellen (2005) Start Seeing Diversity,

Redleaf Press, St. Paul, MNYork, Stacey, (2003) Roots and Wings, Revised. Red Leaf Press, St. Paul, MN.

Four strategies from Teaching Tolerance

• Interrupt•Question•Educate•Echo

What would you say?

What would you say?Charlie, a teacher in a kindergarten

class that serves many children who

qualify for free or reduced lunch asked

the children about the work their

parents do. He was surprised to hear

4-year old Katie reply, “Nothing. My

mommy doesn’t work.”

http://abcnews.go.com/WhatWouldYouDo/

What would you do?

In the end, we will remember not

the words of our enemies, but the

silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King