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New Tool Helps Teachers Hone Skills for Young Children
Early childhood education today is far more than coloring and learning the ABC's. How do early childhood professionals ensure that the children will be ready for kindergarten?
Beth Ardoin Watson, seated, demonstrates a new training database for early childhood educators to, from left, Liz Plaster, Lori Smith, Kathy Martin and Pat Flowers. The professionals from around the state are participants in the Texas Early Care and Education Career Development System. Photo by Ina Fried
A program in the Texas Head Start State Collaboration Office is helping early childhood educators find conveniently located research-based training. The office is headquartered at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston under the umbrella of CIRCLE (Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education).
"People who work with children from 0 to 5 need to be taught how to work with them," said Dorothy Calhoun, Ed.D., coordinator of the Texas Head Start State Collaboration Office. "We want to foster high standards to be sure we're all on the same page for teaching children."
In response to House Bill 1863 passed in the last session of the Texas Legislature, Calhoun and the Texas Early Care and Education Career Development System council put together a registry of Texas trainers and the classes they offer. In February they launched a Web-based database through which Head Start and other early childhood educators can search for classes by core knowledge area, trainer or location.
"We hope the database will provide an effective professional development resource for early care and education providers and trainers in the state of Texas," Calhoun said.
About 50 trainers attended the initial database roll-out in Houston. Once early childhood educators sign up online for training, the database sends a list to the instructors. The number who indicated interest and those who actually took each course can be tracked, explained Beth Ardoin Watson, who worked with the council and designed the database. Watson is manager of multimedia production in the health science center's Office of Academic Computing (OAC). Aaron Hark, Web site and content coordinator in OAC, handled the programming.
"It's unbelievable how easy it is to use," said Jean Kuecher, from Spring. She helps teachers learn to use puppets in educational activities. "I'm very impressed. I can't wait to go home and see if anyone has indicated interest in my class."
The project is under the direction of Susan Landry, Ph.D., the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professor, who heads both the Texas Head Start State Collaboration Office and CIRCLE, which has been designated the State Center for Early Childhood Development. Landry also is chief of the Division of Developmental Pediatrics in the UT Medical School at Houston.
By Ina Fried, Public Affairs