Impacts of an Online Course Focused on Improving Interactions in Early Care: What Are We Learning?

• In Event: Improving teacher-student interactions in early education classrooms: What are we learning from adapting evidence-based strategies to use in different contexts?

Proposal

Given challenges faced by early care teachers in accessing professional development, Norris (2010) specifically advocated for online courses to better meet their needs. With federal funding, we developed a 6-month, interactive, online course for early care teachers focused on improving the quality of their interactions with young children. The intervention built off of a similar intervention for preschool teachers that showed even modest participation improved preschool teachers’ skills in noticing and implementing effective interactions with children. The purpose of this study was to develop, refine, and test an interactive, online course with coaching support for early care teachers aimed at improving the quality of their interactions with children. Specifically, we explored whether teachers assigned to the treatment group 1) engaged in and were satisfied with the course 2) improved their ability to notice and implement effective interactions and 3) children showed improved behavior as a result.
Methods
Participants
Sixty-one early care teachers were recruited and randomly assigned to the course or control condition. Participants were female and the lead teacher, with the majority either Black/African American (48.2%) or White/Caucasian (39.3%). Thirteen percent had a bachelor degree, 21% had a two- year degree, 38% had some college, 13% had a high school diploma plus technical training and 16% had just a high school diploma. Children were recruited from classrooms, and several children in each classroom were observed for their behavior.
Measures
Participation and Satisfaction. Two components comprised course participation: online content completion (total access of online content) and conference completion (maximum=6). Teachers reported their satisfaction at the course conclusion, responding to 37 items on a five-point scale, averaged to create an overall satisfaction score.
Ability to Notice and Implement Effective Interactions. The Video Assessment of Interactions and Learning (VAIL, Hamre et al., 2012) was used to measure teachers’ skill in noticing effective early care interactions. The Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Toddler (CLASS-T; La Paro, Hamre, & Pianta, 2012) and The Pyramid Infant Toddler Observation Scale (TPITOS; Hemmeter, Carta, Hunter & Strain, 2009) were used to measure implementation of effective interactions.
Children’s Engagement. The Behavior Observation of Toddlers System (BOOTS, LoCasale-Crouch et al., 2017) was used to measure how young children engaged with adults and peers in the classroom.
Results
Results showed that even modest engagement with the online training promoted improvement in teachers’ interactions and children’s engagement. Specifically, early care teachers who participated in viewing short video lessons on effective strategies and engaged in a structured analysis of their own interactions, spent more time engaging in playful activities, following children’s lead and expanding children’s participation in classroom activities through what the teacher did and said. Thus, the teachers became more aware of what young children needed and skilled in their ability to provide the environment and supports to foster development. In addition to expanding on results, I will share lessons learned from working in online learning and how it can improve what teachers do.

Authors

• Jennifer Locasale-Crouch, University of Virginia

• Francisca Romo, University of Virginia