About this session

Saturday, 10:20 AM - 11:50 AM

Centering Teachers in Early Childhood Education Quality Improvement Initiatives

Responsive child-caregiver interactions represent a cornerstone of development in children’s early years and a key indicator of quality in early childhood education (ECE; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Many ECE quality improvement (QI) initiatives therefore seek to improve outcomes for children through changes to teacher practice. Yet despite the focus on teachers’ actions, few QI initiatives consider teachers’ needs and wellbeing in their design and implementation (Meek et al., 2022).

In this symposium, we feature four papers that aim to center ECE teachers in QI. We start by providing quantitative evidence in favor of a whole-person approach to supporting ECE quality, as Paper 1 builds on the growing evidence base linking teacher wellbeing to teacher practice - specifically, teacher depressive symptoms to use of punitive responses to challenging behaviors. We then share findings from two papers focused on what teachers want and need from QI initiatives, including classroom observations (Paper 2) and instructional coaching (Paper 3). Using interview (Paper 2) and participatory design methods (Paper 3), these papers find that teacher agency and feedback that accurately captures teachers’ context are priorities for teachers in QI initiatives. Paper 3 further gathers teacher feedback on their experiences piloting a new coaching tool developed through the participatory design process. Finally, Paper 4 shares teacher feedback on a novel QI initiative that engages teams of teachers, administrators, and parents to enact change in their programs. Together, these studies offer promising directions to develop and test strategies to improve ECE quality by supporting teachers’ learning and wellbeing.

Paper #1
Title	Linking early educator emotional wellbeing to classroom practices in response to challenging behaviors
Presenting author	Flora S. Ziprin, University of California - Los Angeles, United States

Paper #2
Title	Exploring Teachers’ Experiences with and Perceptions of Video-Recorded Classroom Observations
Presenting author	Nancy Perez, SRI Education, United States

Paper #3
Title	Co-Designing Coaching: An Educator-Centered Approach to Enhancing Quality Improvement Efforts
Presenting author	Dorothy Sanchez, Teachstone, United States

Paper #4
Title	Centering Educator Voice through an Innovative Quality Improvement Methodology
Presenting author	Jennifer Cleveland, Child Trends, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Anne Partika, Ph.D., SRI Education, United States

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