Edu 675 - Effective Professional Development

Final Project on Effective Professional Development

Jaida Ward

Ashford University

Change Leadership for Differentiated Educ. Environment

EDU 675

Dr. Lisa Galloway

November 13, 2011

My final project consists of two different things entwined into one and going more in depth of them at my worksite. One is differentiation instruction: which means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction. The other one is effective professional development. NAEYC defines professional development as initial preparation (preservice) and learning experiences (inservice) designed to improve the knowledge, skills/behaviors, and attitudes/values of the early childhood workforce (LeMoine, 2008).

Professional development is required for the early childhood workforce. I myself as childcare teacher have an Associate's Degree, my Bachelor's Degree and I am working on my Master's Degree, I still do not consider myself professional. I feel as though childcare professional developments are different than plans at different worksites. By having a professional development plan in childcare the director has the responsibility to guarantee that everyone who render care for small children are capable to do so. As a childcare teacher we are required to have the following trainings within 6 months of hire date:

1. First Aid/CPR Training & Recertified every 2 years

2. SIDS Training every 2 years

3. Credentials I & II

4. Trained in how to identify abused children

5. Trained in preventing illness and injury

6. Trained in Child Development

7. Trained in how to disinfect their toys and clean their rooms properly

8. Hand washing Training: All employees must wash their hands each time they diaper a child and before fixing meals or snacks

After being hired we have six months to get enrolled, if we have not already, to get our Associate's Degree in Early Childhood. There is no maximum to how many classes that we take at a time as long as we can handle the work load. However, we are required to take at least one with the exception of the summer. We haven't had to worry about the price of the school as long as we were at the Community College, because they offer financial aid if your income meets the requirements. Working in daycare we as teachers we are required to get between 10 and 20 workshop hours a year, according to our education level and years of experience. Most of these workshops are free, and after the class is over we get a certificate stating that we went and the amount of credit hours that were received. CPR & First Aid is a $ 50.00 class. It is all according to whom you work for if you have to pay for all of this class, part of it, or none of it. The daycare that I have been blessed to get a job at pays for all our workshops no matter the cost as long as it benefits the daycare.

There are two teachers at the daycare that are still working on their Associate's Degree in Early Childhood, two of them have got there's and are taking transfer classes, and me, I am working on my Master's Degree in Children with Special Needs. I will heighten my experience in assigning and compiling assessment statistics to satisfactorily layout interventions, to enhance children's knowledge by going to workshops and conventions on developmental tactics, evaluation devices and qualification requirements. I will attain knowledge on how to advance children's wisdom in the area of recognizing letters, numbers, colors, and shapes in order to consolidate them into my daily educational practices. I plan to acquire my teacher's mission in order to advance on my educated practices through the process of self-reflection.

I will sharpen my educating ability in order to better benefit special need infants or toddlers by remaining up-to-date with advanced academicals practices through professional development in-services, workshops, and training conferences. I will obtain facts needed to gather details, establish materials and put into place distinguished learning/behavior plans that are relevant for distinct autistic children by being active with an autism specialist and by going to different autism workshops. I will intensify my intelligence in instructing children in order to advance children's knowledge by acquiring my Master's Degree in Children with Special Needs. Also, I will inspect mediation tactics to merge Response to Intervention (RTI) developments into my classroom in order to better differentiate children teaching by cooperating in in-service and community workshops. Lastly, I will encourage alliance among co-workers to better balance our lesson plan by conducting professional committees concentrating on long-term planning for service to special need children and families.

There are many strategies that we use at our daycare, but I am going to emphasize on the three main ones that we think are the most important. First is Action Research: "" a cycle of posing questions, gathering data, reflection, and deciding on a course of action" (Ferrance, 2000). This is also considered "a cycle of action and reflection is the heart of action learning" (Tom Bourner, 2000). This is where we ask the following questions and then go into the second strategy:

* What actually happened?

* What did we intend to do?

* Why did this happen?

* What are we going to do next?

The second strategy is Instructional planning time. In the public school systems teachers are given a class period with no students each day to do her daily planning. This usually last no less than forty-five minutes each day and the teachers are compensated with pay for this. The teacher is free of any job duties or assignments during this time also. In daycare we have almost the same type of instructional planning time, ours consists of a bit of lite duties though and it is an hour and a half instead of forty-five minutes. We get to do our instructional planning from 11:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. with a one hour lunch. This is during the children's