A Research-Practice Partnership to Promote Classroom Dialogue in Early Head Start

• In Event: Empowering Early Childhood Professionals through Innovative Research-Practice Partnerships

Abstract

Problem Statement

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Early Head Start (EHS) programs have taken a hard blow on multiple fronts – enrollment dropped, centers closed, teachers left (Weiland et al., 2021). Stressors, including low wages, high demands, and insufficient resources, overburden current EHS teachers (Swigonski et al., 2021), resulting in a vicious cycle of high stress and turnover. These challenges further hamper the quality of instruction for young children. Our local EHS leaders sought support to improve the quality of instruction.

In our study, we formed a research-practice partnership (RPP) with EHS leaders to design and evaluate a coaching program targeting classroom dialogue. Dialogue in preschool classroom tends to lack quality and opportunities for children to practice complex language and thinking skills (Hindman et al., 2019; Muhonen et al., 2022). The quality and equity of dialogue between teachers and children also vary across children within a classroom (Chaparro-Moreno et al., 2019; Rojas, 2021).

We utilize video technology and data visualizations (e.g., dialogue network mapping) to provide teachers real-time and video-based feedback to enhance their quality and equity of classroom dialogue. In this presentation, we present the current progress of our ongoing study and discuss how our RPP has facilitated our development of a program that aligns with EHS needs.

Method

Our collaboration with EHS to design this coaching program is guided by the RPP framework defined as long-term, mutualistic collaborations between educators and researchers to develop solutions for problems of practice (Coburn et al., 2013).
We co-design with three EHS leaders a coaching program based on the Practice-Based Coaching model (Snyder et al., 2015) with four cycles of co-planning, observation, and feedback/reflection. During co-planning, coaches meet one-on-one with teachers to discuss plans of action. During observation, coaches observe teachers’ instruction remotely and provide real-time feedback via a shared document presenting visualizations of teachers’ effective dialogic strategies with each child (Figure 1). During feedback/reflection, teachers and coaches review observation recordings and discuss strengths and challenges.
EHS leaders assisted with recruiting eight EHS teachers from four EHS classrooms who expressed interest in improving their classroom dialogic practices. EHS leaders also supplied technology equipment that allowed us to allocate larger provider incentives to support centers in recovering from the pandemic.
We will evaluate program impacts by examining changes in teachers’ self-reported self-efficacy (Arthur et al., 2012) and knowledge of classroom dialogue strategies (Gardner-Neblett et al., 2021) before, during, and after the program (see Table 1), using single-subject design visual analysis, as well as changes in children’s language development, using paired t-tests (Preschool Language Scale – 5th Edition, Zimmerman et al., 2012).

Discussion & Implications

Our study establishes a RPP that addresses practical problems identified by EHS leaders. The long-term vision for this RPP is to create a coaching program that can be scaled up for EHS to disseminate across all centers. Future steps include training coaches to deliver the program. Through this long-term partnership, we aim to break the vicious cycle of teacher turnover and support teachers to create learning environments most conducive to children’s development.

Authors

• Monica Lu, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Tzu-Jung Lin, Ohio State University

• Nan XIAO, Ohio State University

• Ziye Wen

• Ye Shen, Ohio State University