Practical, Creative, Strategic, Informative & Reflective - CONNECT
What do you think about CONNECT's Module 1?
Erin Speer Smith, Program Coordinator for Early Childhood/ Public Service Technologies North Carolina Community College System
If you haven't had a chance to view the recently released preview of CONNECT's Module 1, you've got to check it out! I was very excited to have the opportunity to preview it and was really excited about the design of the module. CONNECT's five steps lead adults through the process of making informed, evidence-based decisions. The situations (dilemmas) were realistic to what practitioners face each day when working with children with differing abilities and their families. The modules take the learner beyond just the situation at hand and into figuring out how to form a question and providing specific resources that relate to this question and situation that can help lead to a decision. Everything from research, to policies, to the personal stories of children and their families, the learner is able to review and synthesize this information to help formulate an informed decision. Most importantly, in my mind at least, is the opportunity to reflect and assess the process and decision. Video clips, summaries, and activities make CONNECT modules easy and practical to use in a variety of professional development situations and appropriate for all sorts of different learning types.
I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the 58 Community Colleges in North Carolina, all of which have Early Childhood Education Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degrees. I certainly will be getting the word out to my fellow Early Educator faculty colleagues across the state about this resource so that they might consider embedding some of the CONNECT resources and modules within their coursework. They will likely all appreciate the CONNECT instructor guide to assist them when using these materials too!
Community Question
I would love to hear YOUR thoughts about Module 1 and how YOU might use it in your own work.



Can't wait to embed the module
them in my courses. They are easy to follow, provide "real-life"
examples and encourage the students to use their own knowledge and
analyze situations. It is evidence-based and very current. The module
design is easy to follow and very user friendly, even for those students
with little computer skills. I agree with Erin, check them out.