Center-Approved PD

Hope and Direction: Helping Children Understand Diversity

Children notice differences in others starting at birth. This includes awareness of variances in physical appearance and abilities, gender, culture, and families (Derman-Sparks, L., 2009 & York, S., 2016). Teachers may notice that children use stereotypes and social labels when interacting with others (or avoiding them). As cognitive abilities advance, children question differences regarding race and culture. During this time, a child’s experiences and perceptions influence the development of acceptance or prejudice.

In this training, we will explore stages of children’s developing awareness of differences from infancy through age 5. This will include discussion of children’s developing awareness of diversity, attitudes toward race and culture, and their tendency to exclude and include others based upon certain stereotypes. Participants will explore strategies to teach children about diversity and a respect for differences.

Honoring all Families

Build the knowledge and skills needed to interact with culturally diverse families in a manner that is respectful and appropriate to their diverse needs. This course strengthens educators’ cultural competency, including understanding how distinct cultural perspectives influence interactions with families. This course equips participants with an awareness and understanding of different cultural groups and provides strategies to effectively engage culturally diverse families, including families of children with disabilities, families who identify as LGBT, and families from different refugee and immigrant communities. This is the third course in the Quorum family engagement series.

Administrative Leadership

Leadership is an often used but seldom defined concept. While leadership skills are important in every business endeavor, these skills are particularly critical in an early childhood setting. Due to the many challenges child care owners/managers face daily, they rarely take the time necessary to focus on their own knowledge and skills. This course seeks to provide early childhood leaders that time. Essentials of Leadership will give participants a foundational understanding of leadership and multiple opportunities to assess and reflect on their own leadership abilities. Leadership can take many forms. The leadership skills addressed in this course focus on the day-to-day operations and the big picture task of vision-setting.

Child Assessment: The Essentials of Individualizing

Learn how to recognize what each child in your classroom needs to reach their full potential. Explore the principles of child assessment, the role of observation, and techniques for collecting anecdotal notes. Survey a variety of assessment tools, and link assessment results to planning for each child as an individual.

Children with Special Needs: Physical Disabilities

All children have needs; some have more specialized needs than others. In this 8-hour online course, you will learn the goals of early education for children with special needs, the characteristics of common physical disabilities, how various disabilities affect children’s ability to function, and curriculum adaptations to meet the needs of children with physical disabilities and help them develop and learn.

Exploring the Piramide Approach

The Piramide Approach to Learning was created in the Netherlands to help teachers better understand their role in supporting children’s higher order thinking skills and become more intentional about deepening children’s learning. Piramide is not a curriculum. It is an approach to teaching and learning that helps teachers effectively scaffold and deepen children’s learning. Piramide can be used with any developmentally appropriate classroom curriculum. Piramide is an easy, four-step approach that can be applied to any curriculum and provides teachers a way to help children deepen and extend learning. This course provides training suitable for teachers working with students from infancy through kindergarten.

Recipe for Good Health: The Fusion of Nutrition and Physical Activity with Young Children on the Go

In this hands-on session, participants will learn a variety of activities to support children in the areas of nutrition and physical activity. Participants will have a better understanding of the basics of informed, healthy eating and how they can implement nutrition activities throughout their curriculum. But it’s not only about what happens at the lunch table! They will also explore new ways to implement creative, moderate-to-vigorous movement activities throughout the classroom routine. Join the facilitator in learning exciting ways to teach children how to eat, run, skip, jump, and roll into a healthier future!

You Are A Brain Architect!

Quality early childhood care and education has a positive impact on children. The child’s brain grows more during the first five years of life than any other time. High-quality care has a positive impact on children’s development. During this training, we will discuss ways educators can positively influence a child’s brain development using structural and process supports. The framework for the session includes the Infant/Toddler and Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales.

Creating a Responsive and Supportive Environment for ALL Children

Creating a responsive and supportive environment includes many elements: designing effective physical spaces that match the developmental needs of the children, selecting and using appropriate materials, creating a structure of the day through a consistent schedule and routine, and sending positive messages through positive relationships.

Following the Leader

This workshop will explore various characteristics of leadership and how every early childhood professional (regardless of role or title) has a unique opportunity to be a leader in his/her own way. While there are certain universal qualities that all leaders embody, the early childhood field includes some unique traits that will be discussed and shared, including communication with families, advocacy work, and community involvement.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

This class is an overview of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for teachers and caregivers of young children. Students will gain knowledge and insights about ASD, strategies for working with young children with ASD in the group environment, and legal and ethical considerations when you are working with a child with special needs, including a child with ASD.

Active Minds/Active Bodies Part 3: Extending the Journey Further — Helping Children Benefit from a Focus on Physical Activity and Nutrition

This training is the third training of my first two Active Minds/Active Bodies workshops. The purpose of this training is to further help participants continue their work of integrating both physically active learning opportunities and nutritional activities into their daily routines on an ongoing basis.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go: Social Studies in the Early Childhood Classroom — Learning about People and Places

For young children, learning about social studies begins with children making friends, building upon emerging social-emotional skills, and then grows to exploring the local community and beyond. This training will explore the various components that make up a developmentally appropriate social studies curriculum and help teachers with their implementation.

Basic Child Development: Preschool I — Physical

This online training discusses the physical development of the preschooler and the effect that play and nutrition have upon development. It also covers immunizations and health issues.

Professionalism and Boundaries for Early Childhood Educators

Reflecting and understanding all that it means to be an early childhood professional is crucial to our work each and every day. This includes understanding how to maintain appropriate boundaries and roles with children, families, and coworkers. This workshop will explore both of these topics through discussion and specific scenarios.

Basic Child Development: The Brain

This online training explores the anatomy and development of the brain, its function, windows of opportunity for learning, and environmental influences.

Active Minds/Active Bodies Part 2: Continuing the Journey — Helping Children Benefit from a Focus on Physical Activity and Nutrition

This training is the second part of my first Active Minds/Active Bodies workshop. Its purpose is to help participants continue their work in integrating both physical activities and nutritional activities into their daily routines.

Learning Every Day Through the Senses

This course offers an overview of the principles, concepts, and foundations of infant/toddler development; it concentrates on how caregivers can enhance sensory development and provide modifications for infants, toddlers, and twos who need additional supports. This course provides training suitable for teachers working with students from infancy to kindergarten.

The Impact of Emotions in the Classroom — Emotional Intelligence De-Mystified

This workshop will focus on how a teacher’s emotions can have a significant impact on the overall classroom environment. Participants will gain an understanding of the five skills related to emotional intelligence as well as how they can create and sustain an emotionally safe classroom for their children.

Practicing Peace in Early Childhood

Participants will learn about practicing peace with young children (ages 3–6). Activities, projects, songs, and experiences will be shared through a combination of slides, active demonstration, and work samples. Participants will be introduced to a framework for supporting peaceful problem solving, align peaceful classroom practices with RIELDS, and discuss family engagement.

Conscious Discipline: The 5 Steps for Self-regulation

In the world of young children, emotional upset is triggered every day. Limits are set, rules enforced, and the world does not always go their way. Transform conflict to cooperation by coaching during teachable moments using the Feelings Buddies Program, 5 Steps to Self-Regulation.

Where Do I Start?

The goal of healthy relationships is to balance the need to be an independent self (the sense of “I”) and the need to be connected (a sense of “we”). A secure student feels comfortable with both. Learn how our attachment history can unconsciously impact current relationships. Learn how the structures, rituals, and routines created in a School Family create a model for building positive school culture.

Better Kid Care Lecciones en Español

Better Kid Care, una iniciativa de Pennsylvania State University ofrece entrenamientos en línea en salud y seguridad, como responder a las necesidades de las familias, las áreas de ciencias, diversidad, prácticas de cuidado de bebe, la investigación y mucho más. Para acceder los entrenamientos debe de abrir una cuenta en el sistema de Better Kid Care On Demand.

Certificado de Finalización: Si

Early Childhood Investigations Webinars

Early Childhood Investigations is an ongoing series of conference-quality free webinars for early childhood educators. These engaging webinars are presented by many of the thought leaders and experts in the field of early care and education. The webinars explore critical topics that offer new ideas and insights to early childhood professionals. You can participate in live webinars or view recorded webinars.

Read Right from the Start Online Courses

Read Right from the Start on the Cox Campus is a professional development platform that offers free, research-based online courses designed to improve the language and literacy instruction of teachers who work with children from birth to third grade. The courses provide classroom practices that can help increase children’s vocabularies and prepare them to learn to read. The courses were developed by the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy at the Atlanta Speech School. To enroll in a course, participants must create a free account on the Cox Campus website.

Certificate of Completion: Yes