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Early Childhood Competencies: On the Shelf or Driving the System?

Posted by Tracey West at Jun 26, 2009 |
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I have been looking for examples of how states are using their early childhood professional competencies to drive their professional development systems.

Early Childhood Competencies: On the Shelf or Driving the System?

by Tracey West

For the last few months I have been on a quest. I have been looking for examples of how states are using their early childhood professional competencies to drive their professional development systems.

I have been finding too many examples of competencies that are thoughtfully developed, disseminated, and then filed away on shelves. I wonder if one reason this happens is because nothing official links the competencies to the early childhood system - using the competencies is voluntary.

Competencies should drive our early childhood systems, providing the framework and content for professional development and the basis for teacher licensure and certification. However, challenges exist; even the first step, identifying competencies that are meaningful and appropriate for the many sectors of early childhood is difficult.

Does anyone have any ideas or examples of how to connect professional competencies to the professional development system? I am interested in hearing about how people are addressing this issue.

Join us at the Inclusion Institute for a session that focuses on this issue. We will be sharing related resources and exploring this subject and other issues related to early childhood competencies at a session that will be presented at the Inclusion Institute this July.

By the way, I am also interested in whether these same competencies include the knowledge and skills to support inclusion, but that is a blog for another day …

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Connecting Teacher Competencies

Posted by Carol Ayres at Jul 09, 2009
I agree with Tracey that this is compex since we have such a diverse population of providers in the field. I know that MO and KS are looking at our competencies again. In my positions, we haven't used them, but I think if we are challenged to create a state wide comprehensive plan for PD, we should be starting there. Involving stakeholders and the higher education folks is important as well. I know there are grants out there looking at systems and including multiple states, perhaps that would be a way to tackle it? I also really appreciate thinking about the competencies being "vetted" by a professional organization - or, jointly NAEYC and DEC? I am interested to hear/read what you find out.

Connecting Teacher Competencies

Posted by Tracey West at Jul 10, 2009
Hi Carol,
Thank you for sharing your ideas! I agree, aligning competencies with in-service and pre-service (higher education) professional development is critical to developing a comprehensive professional development system. Also, the idea of state competencies being vetted by NAEYC and DEC is interesting, some type of quality control could be useful.

The Inclusion Institute session on competencies is going to be available as a webinar. I would like to invite you to attend. The session is on Wednesday, July 15th at 3:30, the link to register is: http://uncodum.qualtrics.co[…]57gV2YT5CJx4g&SVID=Prod

Connecting Teacher Competencies

Posted by Kari Stewart at Jul 10, 2009
I would love to sign up for the webinar, but the link you provided is not working. Could you please provide the full link to the registration? Many thanks.

Utility of competencies

Posted by Sarah Hoover at Jul 09, 2009
You raise a good consideration (not only for competencies, but for many documents that are thoughtfully created but are seldom, if ever, used). In Colorado, one of among a number of professional development activities related to competencies has been to embed our set of early childhood social-emotional competencies into the community college coursework where many of our early care and education professionals receive their training. By embedding in lieu of trying to create an overlay to the existing places where professional development occurs, I think people and programs are much more receptive.

Utility of competencies

Posted by Tracey West at Jul 10, 2009
Hi Sarah, Embedding competencies into community college coursework is a great way to ensure the early childhood workforce receive the information! Community colleges serve many of our preschool teachers. I would be interested in knowing if CO also links this information to in-service training. I would like to invite you to attend our webinar session on competencies at the Inclusion Institute online. The session is on Wednesday, July 15th at 3:30, the link to register is: http://uncodum.qualtrics.co[…]57gV2YT5CJx4g&SVID=Prod

Utility of competencies

Posted by Carol Ayres at Jul 10, 2009
Sarah,
It sounds like CO is taking this seriously. Is there information that could be shared with our local community college population? I completely agree with your strategy to embed this information. I am trying to be sure to make everything connect and be relevant to those needing the information. Quite a challenge, but at least we are thinking about it.

Utility of competencies

Posted by Robin A. Wells at Jul 10, 2009
I'm excited to know that there will be a webinar on Wednesday, July 15 at 3:30 regarding embedding of competencies and professional development (both preservice and inservice). While New Mexico has had a wonderful Early Childhood Higher Education Task Force for over 15 years which collaboratively has embedded competencies in all coursework (and we're in the process of doing this again now) for preservice educators, reminders to inservice educators by linking to competencies is such a powerful idea. We always have session "objectives" but why not link those objectives to competencies as a reminder of our professionalism to educators. See you on Wednesday afternoon!
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