Teach

As an instructional leader, you play a critical role in helping staff identify, plan, and implement developmentally appropriate practices. You may support, or coach, staff on what and how children learn. You may also coach on how adults can maximize the learning experiences of children and youth throughout the day.

It is important to support staff as they try implementing what they learned in their own courses. Remember, there are different courses for professionals who work with Infants & Toddlers, Preschool, and School-Age children. You will need to teach staff members the specific requirements of your program. For example, at the most basic level, you will need to provide staff members with appropriate lesson or activity planning forms. You will need to teach staff members how to complete these forms, how and where to turn them in, and how the plans will be monitored. It is important that you help staff members understand why they plan what they plan. In their own Cognitive course, staff members learned about typical child development and the experiences that promote optimum development and learning. You should continue reinforcing staff members' learning in their own classrooms or programs.

It is also important that you help staff members be reflective about the experiences and activities they offer. We must all be responsible consumers of information. First, and most important, you can help direct-service providers (teachers, caregivers, school-age staff) understand and use best practices. By being knowledgeable yourself, you offer them a wealth of resources and new ideas. You also offer them a way to explain what they do and why to families and policy makers. Second, you can use your knowledge of research and evidence-based practices to be a stronger advocate for children, youth, and families. Often, programs continue using curricula or practices because that is "what we have always done." Bringing new information into the discussion can help move the field toward better services for children, youth, and families.

Model

When you help staff members plan and deliver effective learning experiences for children and youth, you are modeling for staff members. You are collecting information about staff members' practices or skill level. You are using that information to make professional development decisions. Then you are observing, providing feedback, and using observations to inform future planning. This is what we want staff members to do in their work with children. This parallel process is a very powerful tool for teaching adult learners.

It is also important to model curiosity, problem-solving, and data-based decision-making. To do so, you must be informed. There are many ways to stay informed about evidence-based practice. The Internet offers several reputable sources for learning more about up-to-date research. Much research to date has focused on school-age populations, but more and more research is dedicated to early care and education. Good places to look for information about evidence-based practice include:

• Penn State Clearinghouse https://www.militaryfamilies.psu.edu
• What Works Clearinghouse http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
• Best Evidence Encyclopedia https://bestevidence.org/

As staff develop or design learning experiences, you might:

• Provide encouragement and feedback on conducting a lesson or collecting data.
• Model teaching strategies or interactions.
• Observe and note teaching opportunities. Share these at a meeting and brainstorm additional opportunities for teaching important skills.
• Meet with the team (teacher, assistants, specialists, families) to plan additional learning experiences based on ongoing assessment data.
• Help narrow the focus and plan for an individual child or small group.
• Review planning forms and provide feedback on how curriculum objectives were addressed during your visit.
• Problem-solve and brainstorm solutions for individual children who seem to struggle with curriculum activities.

Observe

You should focus on getting to know each classroom or program's needs. It is important to spend time observing. You may use observation tools provided by your program or those available commercially. It is also important to ask staff members what their immediate needs or challenges are. Their perspectives might be different from your own, and this is very important information to have.

Case Examples Step 1: Observing and Understanding Each Staff Member

Based on your assessment, you might discover a variety of strengths and barriers.
The following vignettes explore scenarios you might encounter.

• Percy is on staff in the school-age program. He graduated from high school one year ago and is enrolled in the local community college. Percy comes to work on time, but he seems very forgetful. He often forgets important things like his ID badge and work shirt. He is very good at building relationships with the kids, but he is most often seen camped out on the couch in the videogame room. Sometimes, you feel like he is one of the kids. This type of staff member has strong interactions, but he needs support around instruction.
• Trish writes excellent lesson plans for preschool. You have even asked her to share them with others as examples. While you're observing in the classroom, though, you notice that the math activities she carefully plans don't seem to happen. When you talk to her about it, she shares her anxiety about math. She wasn't good at math in school, and she still avoids math any way she can. She knows what she is supposed to do and spends time on the Internet finding interesting ideas. When it comes time to do them, though, she gets nervous and finds something else to do (like guide a child's behavior, monitor the art area, or spend time following a child's interest in another area). All of these are important things, but she is not addressing math. This type of staff member focuses only on certain content areas and excludes others.
• Roderick runs your school-age science program. He spends a lot of time preparing experiments and is very conscientious about child safety. You have noticed, however, that the children don't seem excited about the science program. Fewer and fewer children are choosing it. As you observe, you notice that Roderick seems to be very rigid in his experiments. He does not ask questions, he does not encourage the children to ask questions, and all experiments have one "correct" outcome. This type of staff member has unrealistic expectations and does not offer appropriate levels of challenge.
• Juana has developed an impressive investigation in her preschool classroom. After ordering some new furniture for the classroom, the children were fascinated by the boxes the furniture came in. Juana and her team worked with the children to develop a concept web about boxes. The children seemed most interested in how boxes were delivered, so the class investigated the topic. It culminated in a trip to the local post office. Juana's documentation and planning process made sure every child reached learning objectives. This type of teacher is ready to mentor others and might need support around sharing her expertise.
• Bryshon offers amazing learning experiences in his infant room. He is a responsive caregiver and seems to intuitively understand how to promote cognitive development during caregiving routines. Unfortunately, the lesson plans he turns in are always of very low quality. There is no documentation of the great work he is doing with the infants. This type of teacher looks great in the classroom, but struggles with paperwork.

Case Examples Step 2: Planning

Your role during this stage is to guide the staff member through self-evaluation and reflection. It can be useful at this stage to think of the adult's own stages of learning. It can be helpful to think of skills as beginning, progressing, or refining (Heroman, Jablon, Stetson, & Aghayan, 2009). In the scenarios above, we might consider Percy as having a beginning level of skill in math, science, and technology. He may not understand the curricular expectations of his job, and he may need support around basic professionalism. Trish and Roderick are probably progressing in their skills. They have knowledge of what to do, but are struggling with implementation. Finally, Juana could be considered in the refining stage. She has carefully and successfully planned and implemented curricular goals.

To address these scenarios, you would use the information you have gathered to help set reasonable goals. The staff member guides this process. As you share results of observations and have reflective conversations, you will help each adult self-identify areas for professional improvement. For Percy, a reasonable goal might be to increase his interactions with children outside of the game room. Trish may choose one area of math she feels comfortable with, such as shapes, and incorporate that into at least one activity per day. Roderick may set a goal to research open-ended experiments or reflective questioning techniques. For Juana, you may suggest that she serve as a mentor teacher or present her work at a conference.

You and the staff member should make a realistic plan for how to accomplish the goals. Action plans should have at least four components: the goal, measurable action steps, person responsible, and timeline. Here is a sample action plan for Trish.

Case Examples Step 3: Providing Resources and Helping Staff Develop Skills

You have a variety of tools at your disposal while staff members are learning new skills. During this stage, you can be a trusted mentor and supporter. You can give ideas, provide resources, and model the behaviors of interest.

For a staff member like Percy, who is just beginning his career, you might:

• Provide a work-day checklist to help him remember important materials.
• Develop a schedule for the areas of the program he will be responsible for each day.
• Model interactions with children that are not related to videogames.
• Suggest he shadow an experienced staff member.

For staff members like Trish and Roderick, you might:

• Find materials and help find resources. You may find the Creative Curriculum Study Starters (Heroman, 2005) or Young Investigators (Helm & Katz, 2011) helpful for integrating math, science, and technology across the curriculum.
• Monitor and record opportunities for mathematic or scientific talk; point them out.
• Help set up discovery trays, math activities, or technology centers.
• Offer to video record conversations with children and review it together later.
• Model discussions with children that incorporate math and scientific exploration. Use words like what, why, and how.

For staff members like Juana, you might:

• Help record her class' experiences.
• Ask about her planning process and how she documents learning.
• Suggest she attend professional conferences to share ideas and learn from others.
• Ask if other staff members can observe the classroom or her documentation.

For staff members like Bryshon, you might:

• Ask about his planning process and how he decides what infants need.
• Discuss the learning experiences he offers and help him see how intentional he really is.
• Provide sample plans.
• Encourage him to plan with another teacher who excels at writing lesson plans.
• Discuss individual children's development and what learning experiences he thinks are important for them. Help him transfer these ideas to his lesson plans.
• Encourage him to share lesson plans with families as motivation.

Case Example Step 4: Providing Feedback for Skill Building

The final step in the coaching cycle is providing feedback on what you see. This is perhaps the most important part of coaching. You can use sources of data from the Observation and Assessment stage. You can also use your own anecdotal observations.

Here are some phrases that might help you provide meaningful feedback to staff members:

• "Percy, you spent 30 minutes in the snack area, 30 minutes in the gym, and 30 minutes in the videogame room during my visit. You've really worked hard to broaden your interactions with kids. That's a great start!"
• "Trish, I noticed you [added new materials to the block area, etc.]. Tell me more about that. What did you choose? Why? How is it working with the kids?"
• "I heard you [talk about patterns] three different times today. Those were perfect examples of …."
• "Roderick, you had a much larger group of children in the science program today. Why do you think that is?"
• "Juana, you rearranged your centers. They look great! Tell me about your choices."
• "Bryshon, your plan for this week includes individualization for every child. I can tell you put a lot of effort into this and that you really know the kids."

What You Might See: Additional Examples of Learning Experiences

Staff members offer a range of learning experiences to infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children. These videos will explore the range of supports staff might need. As you watch, think about how you might support each staff member.

In conclusion, you have an important role in helping children develop and learn. You can help staff members develop appropriate learning experiences for all children. In so doing, you improve children's cognitive development and school success.