Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 A Unifying Foundation (2015) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
8 Overview of Factors That Contribute to Quality Professional Practice
8 Overview of Factors That Contribute to Quality Professional Practice
Pages 357-364
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From page 357... ...
In addition, other systemic or contextual factors are important to support quality practice, and in many cases are influenced or controlled by stakeholders other than the professionals themselves or the systems that provide them with education and training. These factors include the practice environment, such as working conditions, staffing structures, staffto-child ratios; the availability of resources such as curricular materials and instructional tools, resources for conducting child assessments, and supplies; policies that affect professional requirements; opportunities for professional advancement; systems for evaluation and ongoing quality improvement; and the status and well-being of the professionals, encompassing, for example, incentives that attract and retain teachers, perceptions of the profession, compensation, and stressors and the availability of supportive services to help manage them.
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From page 358... ...
Furthermore, professional learning currently occurs in fragmented systems that have differing infrastructure and use differing tools and approaches. Professional learning lacks consistency and coordination across types of professional learning supports and across educators who work in different roles and age ranges within the birth through age 8 continuum -- this despite the strong rationale for providing children with consistency and continuity in learning experiences as described in Chapter 5.
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From page 359... ...
FIGURE 8-1 Factors that contribute to quality professional practice and ultimately to improving child outcomes.
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From page 360... ...
Greater consistency and commonality can result from aligning around a shared knowledge base, establishing shared expectations, using common tools where appropriate, building greater mutual understanding of language and terminology across professional roles and professional learning systems, and participating together in some aspects of professional learning. As discussed further in Part V of this report, embracing a broader and more unified concept of professional learning will facilitate a process of coming together across types of professional learning support and across settings and professional roles to arrive at improved consistency and commonality in care and education for children from birth through age 8.
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From page 361... ...
Intentionally designed sequencing is important to quality within some professional learning components that are designed to build a knowledge base and set of competencies in a sequenced manner. More broadly, however, many professionals pursue different professional learning supports in a nonlinear fashion, and it may not be necessary or feasible to represent or prescribe a single best sequence.
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From page 362... ...
• Continuing education requirements Quality Practice Professional Learning Processes Provided by Others Practitioner-Directed • Supportive/reflective • Professional learning supervision communities • Induction • Peer networks/ • Observation and feedback Communities of practice • Mentoring • Reflective practice Career Development • Coaching • Teacher research • Navigation • Technical assistance • Self-directed learning • Advising • Documentation Quality Practice Program Standards and Quality Assurance Continuous Improvement • Accreditation, quality rating systems, and other • Performance assessments standards • Evaluation systems (e.g. state, district, or program • Continuous quality improvement models systems)
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From page 363... ...
The availability of professional learning supports and the degree to which they are accessed vary greatly across professional roles (e.g., a family childcare provider receives different types and amounts of support than a kindergarten teacher) and across programs or settings (e.g., the experience of professionals in a Head Start program differs from that of professionals in an elementary school)
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From page 364... ...
Greater consistency and commonality can result from aligning around a shared knowledge base, establishing shared expecta tions, using common tools where appropriate, building greater mutual understanding of language and terminology across professional roles and professional learning systems, and participating together in some aspects of professional learning. Despite the challenges of doing so, all of the components that contribute to professional learning need to be consolidated in a more comprehensive system of learning supports that are designed, implemented, and provided or accessed in intentional sequences over time to contribute collectively to improving the quality of professional practice.
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