Early Childhood Competencies1. Promoting Child Development and Learning

Educators are grounded in a child development knowledge base. They use their understanding of young children's characteristics and needs, and of multiple interacting influences on children's development and learning, to create environments and learning opportunities that are healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging for each and every child.

1.2 Knows and understands the multiple influences on early development and learning such as biological, genetic, environment, cultural, and adverse childhood experiences.

Evidence 1:

Introduction to Exceptional Populations, EDU 2110, Johnson State College, 2005, JSC Transcript

Description:

This course is an introduction to mentally, physically, and emotionally challenging conditions and approaches to working with children with special needs in various settings. This course provides a study of the history, philosophy, and current practices relating to education of children with special needs and assists participants in defining their roles with special needs children.

Analysis/Reflection:

This course covered the different ways typical development can be delayed in young children, and discussed language, motor, cognitive, emotional, and social problems that can result from that. We discussed and demonstrated appropriate ways to observe, report, and record information about challenging behavior in children. I learned about current remediation techniques used in classrooms, treatment centers, and homes with children who have disabilities or impairments. We not only learned about disabilities, but also how to identify and describe the characteristics of the gifted and talented students, and discussed methods of instruction to help them flourish as well.

Over the years I have worked with many children that had physical and mental challenges. Just recently, I enrolled a 1 year old child that was born premature. She was born at 26 weeks gestation, at 2 lbs. 13 oz. She comes into my program with a couple Occupational and Physical Therapists that work with her in my program. I meet and work with these specialists to help guide my interactions with the child, to better enhance her learning and development while in my program. Knowing that her early start in my program will benefit her, in her lifelong journey to succeed in life.

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Evidence 2:

Fostering Resilience Through ARC- Attachment, Regulation, Competency: Workshop, Marie Olsen, LCMHC/RPT 6 hours, 2016, Professional Development Certificate

Description:

This 6 hour training covers the ARC framework which identifies the three domains for supporting children and adolescence. This framework, which was designed for treating traumatic stress in childhood, is also the foundation of healthy social emotional development.

Analysis/Reflection:

This six hour interactive training on the ARC framework covered all the areas of trauma, such as developmental trauma, and an overview of the ten "building blocks" and strategies to support my work with children ages birth to adolescents. We examined how attachment, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue affects young children, and learning what the emotional and physical signs are in children helps me understand what to look for in the children I care for on a daily basis. We also talked about working with children to help them self-regulate their own emotions and actions. One surprising part about this training was that I need to take care of myself and my emotions first, before I am able to help the children in my care. I learned many new strategies on how to support children with trauma, through "feelings" toolboxes to modulation. I learned that working on the executive functioning idea, that sometimes in order to help children, I may need to delay my response to problem solve, and come up with alternative outcomes for children to actively recognize their ability to make better choices on their own.

This training definitely helped me understand working with children going through trauma. I know that all children sometimes need space and time to be alone and regroup themselves, especially children going through trauma. I have several spaces throughout my classrooms for children to have that space when needed.

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Evidence 3:

Introduction to Early Childhood Education, EDU 1030, Community College of Vermont, 1995, CCV Transcript

Description:

This course is an overview of early childhood education. Students will examine historical, philosophical, and practical issues related to the education of children from birth to age eight. Topics include early childhood learning, behavior, and motivation; curriculum models and materials; observation techniques; and instructional issues.

Analysis/Reflection:

I received these course credits through Community College of Vermont’s course Assessment of Prior Learning. I was able to prove I received the learning by my experience and hands on working with children birth through age 8 years. My experience included coursework through CCV in Child Development and Methods and Materials in ECE. Through my past job placements I learned a lot from my mentor teachers at Mary Johnson Children's Center, such as how to develop lesson plans and employ effective teaching strategies. Then, through my lead teaching roles at Children’s Growth Company, Otter Creek Children's Center, and my home child care program, I learned to design and implement an educational learning environment. I was able to plan my classroom setting taking into account the needs of the children by their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development.

Having a multi-age program sometimes comes with challenges in making sure every child is exploring their environment to their fullest potential. Challenging myself to find the right amount of balance between providing materials and equipment for infants as well as preschoolers is tricky. I try to incorporate a little bit of both in each area for the ages of the children enrolled. An example of this would be, when I decided to rearrange the a few areas to incorporate more mirrors into the learning environment. Being "Reggio" inspired I added mirrors into each room of my program. Children are naturally drawn and fascinated to mirrors. As children explore reflections of themselves, it heightens self-awareness and enhance visual perception skills.

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