3-012 - Recent Innovations in Promoting Instructional Quality in Early Childhood Education Programs

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Classroom quality, in particular the social and instructional nature of teacher-child interactions, is an important predictor of children’s academic and social development (Hamre et al., 2013). However, children in early childhood education are not consistently exposed to high-quality teacher-child interactions. Although a recent meta-analysis showed that interventions are moderately effective in improving instructional quality in early childhood education (ECE) programs (Werner, Linting, Vermeer, & van Ijzendorn, 2016), additional studies are needed to understand what critical components are most effective to improve caregiver interaction skills thus providing policy-makers and practitioners with the knowledge needed to make decisions about which programs to implement to increase ECE quality.
The symposium brings together a group of papers exploring innovative teacher professional development models in three different countries, the United States, United Arab Emirates, and Chile. All studies used the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) as a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. The first paper investigates professional development models that focused particularly on the Instructional Support domain of the CLASS. The second paper applies eye tracking methodology to natural classroom settings and explores teachers’ gaze behavior and a gaze-based professional development model. Finally, the third paper examines whether teacher qualifications moderate the impact of teacher professional development on classroom quality or child outcomes.
Discussion of communalities and differences of these studies, and their implications for the implementation of effective interventions, will by a leading expert in the measurement and improvement of instructional quality.

Sub Unit

• Prevention and Interventions

Chair

• Antje von Suchodoletz, New York University Abu Dhabi

Discussant

• Bridget Hamre, UVA

Individual Presentations

• Georgia’s CLASS-Related Professional Development Project: Building on Lessons from a Randomized Controlled Trial - Presenting Author: Diane Marie Early, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Bentley D Ponder, Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning; Laura Kuhn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Doré LaForett, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• In the Eyes of Teachers: A Training to Promote Instructional Quality Using Recordings of Teachers’ Gaze Behavior - Presenting Author: Irene T. Skuballa, New York University Abu Dhabi; Antje von Suchodoletz, New York University Abu Dhabi

• A Moderated Mediation Model of the Role of Teacher Characteristics on Classroom Quality and Children’s Language and Literacy - Presenting Author: Natalia Rojas, New York University; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University