Boosting Quality Through Effective Self-Assessment

Course details

Standards alone do not boost the quality of a child care program. Consistent, appropriate, effective practice and assessment go a long way to increase the level of quality a program provides.

Join me as we take a serious look at the partnership between standards, practice, and assessment. We will discuss, in broad terms, the ways in which each component supports or hinders quality. We will design a bullet-proof self-assessment questionnaire that you cannot fail. Finally, we will discover how powerful personality and learning styles are at influencing our judgement of best practice.

Intended for Level 2 (skilled) and Level 3 (Mastery) early childhood professionals. This course is NAC approved for training credit through the Iowa AEYC. Some restrictions apply. For information on receiving a certificate for 1.5 hours of clock time towards your NAC accreditation or renewal of creditation, please contact the instructor prior to enrolling in the course as special discounts may be available.

Course Objectives:

After taking this course, you will be able to:

• Define synergy
• Realize that it is the increased effectiveness of standards, practice, and assessment working together that will boost the quality of an early childhood education program
• Recognize that children are concrete learners
• Develop an understanding of common core strategies
• Identify ways in which the common core impacts curriculum development, practices, and assessments of both the program and the practitioner's professional development.
• Describe how standards influence practice within an early childhood classroom
• Identify one difference between licensed center and family child care programs
• Develop a list of critical questions designed to help increase the quality of the current program and practices
• Consider how diverse learning styles or multiple intelligences of staff and teachers are beneficial to increasing program quality
• Identify multiple learning styles and personality traits and consider how these enhance child development
• Develop an understanding of how perceptions influence practices and performance
• Gain insight on the extent of influence that perceptions have on their personal views, actions, attitudes, and personal truths of not only the children in their care, but also of themselves and their colleagues.
• Appreciate the value and importance of diverse learning styles and personalities
• Actively participate in purposeful self-discoveries through introspection and self-reflection
• Gain awareness and familiarity of NAEYC guidelines, positions, and standards
• Gain awareness of cultural competence in the classroom