3-083 - New Approaches to Understanding and Improving Early Childhood Classroom Quality

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Evidence suggests that high-quality early childhood education (ECE) programming is critical for children’s early learning outcomes. In response to recent evidence that not all ECE programs are “created equal” in terms of quality, policymakers are focused on improving classroom quality. However, there is little understanding of how various dimensions of quality interact to promote children’s development, and how best to design programs to improve classroom quality.

We examine the issue of ECE instructional quality in three papers. The first paper generates a set of distinct ECE quality typologies based on observed classroom characteristics, and finds four unique patterns of quality across classrooms based on process, structural, and “policy-regulated” quality characteristics. Children’s gains on the PPVT were largest among classrooms characterized by high process quality and favorable teacher-child ratios. The second paper examines variation in the effect of a professional development program targeting the quality of teacher-child interactions. Results suggest the impact of the program was more positive among classrooms where teachers had relatively low levels of instructional quality at baseline, across a range of early learning outcomes. The third paper employs ethnographic methods to explore the factors affecting the teacher-coach relationship in ECE, and the characteristics enabling coaches to be effective in optimizing teacher capacity. Findings indicate that early educators view the instructional coach as both a pedagogical and emotional resource.

The discussant will provide integrative comments on how these three methodologies provide new and innovative perspectives on how ECE quality and practices can best improve children’s earliest learning experiences.

Sub Unit

• School Readiness/Childcare

Chair

• Christina Weiland, University of Michigan

Discussant

• Terri Sabol, Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• Unique Patterns of Process and Structural Quality as Predictors of Children’s Pre-Academic Skills During one Year of Preschool - Presenting Author: Allison Friedman-Krauss, NIEER/Rutgers University; Dana McCoy, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Maia Connors, Ounce of Prevention Fund

• Variation in the Effect of Professional Development and Classroom Quality on Child Development - Presenting Author: Kathryn Eveline Webb Gonzalez, Harvard University

• Early Childhood Instructional Coaching - Presenting Author: Rebecca Lebowitz, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Stephanie Jones, Harvard University; Nonie Lesaux, Harvard Graduate School of Education