Scholar Practitioners Who Impact Future Change

·         Explain your responsibility, as a scholar practitioner, to lead evaluation initiatives.

As a scholar practitioner, it is my duty to make sure all information that comes to me is accurate and correct. It is my duty to make sure that the information is given to the right individuals so they can perform their duties. The gather of information based on research is used to give a conclusion on certain cases or help to provide services.

·         Explain what might be your greatest barrier and/or most important downfall to avoid when leading program evaluations and why.

The greatest barrier I can see happening is obtaining false information in my research. Although it may seem that it doesn’t happen, when doing research you have to be careful of the sources you obtain, they can be false which will have you giving false information out to others. Another would be getting my audiences attention, the way you would present your findings to different groups of people.

·         Describe how you might minimize this barrier and/or downfall to ensure that evaluations are effective.

By making sure the information I obtain is truthful and reliable before I use it in my findings. Making the extra effort to make sure that what I have backs up what I’m trying to show is something that is very important to me. When addressing the stakeholders, I have to make sure my approach is appropriate for them. Each group has a certain tone, and approach that you have to find in order to make sure that your presentation is getting across to them.

Scholar Practitioners as Program Evaluators

What I hope to gain from this course is more knowledge on Early Childhood Programs. I want to become a trainer and being able to know as much information as possible about programs that help in the early childhood field will benefit me when I teach others what I know. As a lead teacher now, I have staff who look to me for information on how to become a lead, having this information and the skills I already have will prepare me for my next adventure in the early childhood field.

By doing this course I plan to be able to evaluate programs correctly, and see what works for all types of situations. I can't wait to continue learning more about program evaluations and how they help form the perfect program.

Policies and National Regulations and Standards for Early Childhood Education

In the state of Texas, our goal is for all children entering the school system have the foundational knowledge and skills to be confident and successful learners. With support from the families, schools, and communities providing aligned early learning opportunities, policies and programs that: Support a highly-skilled early learning workforce, providing resources that engage and support development of young children, provide access to high quality 3 and 4 year old prekindergarten. With NAYEC their standards are similar with making sure the curriculum that is used is challenging and developmentally appropriate. They make sure their programs are in place to help children transition to the school system.



With both standards, I think that the constant checking of how the program is running is a good thing. You want to make sure the things you put in place are working and that if at any time there is a issue you can replace what needs to be replaced. As the world moves towards the future trends, and changes come around and learning paths tend to shift and early childhood educators are finding out they need to do things to help accommodate these changes. With NBPTS teachers work with evolving dynamics when it comes to understanding how children develop and using that to make programs that will feed into the learning experience.


In the state of Texas there is room for more information to highlight their programs used to teach early childhood children. Even though their standards were similar to NAYEC, they didn’t go into more detail about the programs they use to help with children’s development. I just wished that they had more information about the importance of early childhood education.



Questions??

How often is programs reviewed?

How many assessments must be done to get a valid answer?

How will these assessments help with learning how children develop?



References

https://tea.texas.gov/academics/early-childhood-education

https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/position-statements/CAPEexpand.pdf

Sharing Your Tracking Tool

    For tracking my goals, I have a traditional way of keeping up with what I'm accomplishing. I have a folder that has a list of goals that I want to complete by certain times. I like to look at my goals and see where I'm at with them. Some may like to have theirs on a electronic device but for me looking at a handwritten diagram of what I want to accomplish makes it more personal for me. I make sure to track my progress to my goal and able to add new things to the list. This keeps me accountable of the things I want to achieve and how close I am to them.

Sharing Your Annotated Bibliography Topic

For my annotated bibliography topic, I choose Effective Communication with parents. This is something that is extremely important in the work place no matter what profession you are. Some people think communicating shouldn't be an issue, but it can be for a lot of people who aren't use to be social. When working with children we use communication throughout the day, we also encounter their family, staff, and management. Having these effective communication skills in place will help build a solid foundation between you and everyone you encounter. I have found several articles that research why it is important to have open communication with parents.

I also will be researching what happens when there is no communication between both parties. This could result in a lot of missed information getting told, children's development not being properly reported, etc.


I will also be very happy to see your insight, and suggestions on what I'm doing my paper on. Being able to share some pages, or research I should consider in order to write a great paper on my topic.

Fostering Classroom Communities

Title of Dissertation: Analyzing parental involvement dimensions in early childhood education

Author: Zeynep Kurtulmus


Kurtulums(2016) Believed that parent involvement with their children’s education also helped with their social skills. There has been a wide spread of research that supports his beliefs. Studies have shown positive effects on a child’s development as well as their academic achievement. Research was done to show the positive side of parent involvement versus no parent involvement. With the research it is able to show why it is important for parents to be involved with their children’s education. Kurtumuls study focused on two parts parents involvement  and parents education. It also involves home visits and school based activities.  The focus of the study was how to increase parent involvement and its quality, For this, dimensions of involvement needs to be known, and parents’ behavior in these dimensions needs to be analyzed ( Kurtulums, 2016).  The dimensions are development based dimension, activity based dimension and involvement based dimension.





The study was conducted in a Turkish early childhood program, about 300 parents with 5 year old’s. Fathers were excluded due to not contributing. The children picked for the study were from independent preschools and public kindergarten. Each parent was given a letter explaining the study One part of the study parents were given a study to obtain their parental involvement. Other parents were interviewed with questions pertaining to activities they do at home and school with their child. After compiling the data it was sent off to be reviewed and the results were given back to the researchers. The data revealed parents scored high when they closely follow what their children learn in school. Praising children when they accomplish a good job was second, followed by talking to their children about their interests. The lowest involvement involved redirecting school based activities to do at home. Parents also scored highest when encouraging children to change an activity when they lost interest. Study showed that while parental involvement was moderate for all three dimensions, the highest involvement was observed for the involvement based dimension ( Kurtulums, 2016). When it involves activity based behaviors parents involvement declines, this is where parents may need assistance on how to remain involved with their children’s activities.



After the readings of this week lesson, it is important that parents are involved with their children’s development and education. During this study it showed that in some areas parents aren’t that involved and suggests developing more research to help parents remain involved in all aspects of their child’s learning process. In my classroom now I make sure to have open communication about what their child is learning in my class. Monthly I do newsletters for the families so they can see what were doing in class and encourage them to do the same at home with their child. By doing this the parents have a blueprint on what their child is learning and encouraging them to continue with the learning and development process.



Reference

Kurtulmus, Z. (2016). Analyzing Parental Involvement Dimensions in Early Childhood Education. Educational Research and Reviews, 11(12), 1149–1153. Retrieved from https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1104563&site=eds-live&scope=site

Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm Shakira I live currently in El Paso TX. We are a military family and have been here for 2 years now. We have 6 children and one grandson, we are a blended family. I'm currently completeing the post Masters certificate deciding if I want to continue after it is finished. I currently work at the CDC on post with toddlers, and I was recently promoted to lead teacher of another toddler room. I've worked with children for over 14 years. My main goal is to have my own childcare center when my husband retires in 10 years.