Educating the Educators: Effective Practices for Early Childhood Teachers’ Training and Professional Development

The rich developmental growth that occurs in early childhood makes providing young children with stimulating and developmentally appropriate early childhood education (ECE) environments an important target for promoting positive developmental trajectories. Traditionally, research studies designed to identify ECE pathways that promote positive child development have typically measured the impact of structural ECE components, such as the quality and availability of appropriate learning materials and the formal educational credentials of teachers. These inquiries have offered inconsistent findings and largely inconclusive results. Weak support for structural components of ECE has shifted researcher focus toward process elements of ECE (e.g. teacher-child relationships and classroom emotional tone), with promising findings. An emerging body of work has identified significant patterns of association between responsive teacher-child interactions, and positive emotional classroom climates, and augmented child academic and social-emotional outcomes. Inconsistent effects of teacher credentials on child outcomes call into question teacher preparation program practices, and the quality of in-service professional development teachers receive. Identifying effective practices in teacher training, professional development, and curriculum instruction offers an important area of investigation as policy makers and educators continue to work toward supporting improved outcomes for young children through ECE participation. Teacher Training Analyses of teacher preparation programs across the United States show highly variable quality of instruction and breadth and depth of coursework requirements. Efforts to establish effective preparation standards must ensure new teachers are:  Exposed to course content that prepares teachers to work effectively with children and families from diverse language and cultural backgrounds  Provided intensive coursework pertaining to child development (ideally across the preschool to third grade continuum)  Taught evidence-supported curricular and teaching practices, especially in the areas of developing social-emotional, early math, and early literacy and language competencies in young children  Offered the opportunity to experience diverse, high quality, well supervised pre-service practicum and student teaching placements  Supported through ongoing mentorship and coaching while transitioning from preparation into teaching roles. Professional Development In-service professional development (PD) represents another area for promoting successful teaching in ECE and beyond. Examination of effective PD practices suggests that teachers benefit from PD that is:  Specialized and directly applicable to classroom needs and experiences  Sustained over longer periods of time through regular mentoring or coaching after participation in initial workshop trainings  Collaborative and encourages support for teachers from different grade levels, especially for teachers in an aligned P-3 model Educating the Educators …