Shifting Early Childhood Leader Mind-Sets Through Job-Embedded Professional Development: Implications for Classroom Practice

• In Event: Early Childhood Education Workforce: Quality, Leadership, and Development

Abstract

Little research has examined the capacity of ECE leaders to build capacity for job-embedded professional development in local ECE centers. This study reports findings from a three-year evaluation of a job-embedded early childhood education professional development initiative in a major mid-western city. Results indicate that ECE administrators will engage the challenges of job-embedded PD when they see evidence of instructional improvement and when scaffolding is sufficient to promote productive reflection on leadership practice in concert with other ECE leaders. Transformations in leader mindset do not emerge quickly nor in a linear sequence. Research in this area is vital given the significant pressures facing local ECE leaders as well as the considerable front-end costs associated with ambitious PD strategies.

Authors

• Heather L. Horsley, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Samuel Paul Whalen, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Debra M Pacchiano, The Ounce of Prevention

• Steven E. Tozer, University of Illinois at Chicago