Hello new colleagues, my name is Carolyn and I am very
interested in the use of coaching in order to improve the quality of early childhood
programs. There are several aspects of this topic that I am interested in, but the subject
for my research during this course is, "What levels of education and expertise are
needed in order for an early childhood coach to be effective in helping adults
to improve the quality of their programs?" (Christensen, 2013). I chose this topic because, for the
past year, I have been involved with a project in my state called the Utah
Preschool Project. The goal of the project is to get low-income children off of public school district preschool classroom waiting lists and into quality
childcare programs in their area. A huge piece of the success of this project
is that all of the classrooms have coaches for support. We hope to take this
project statewide, however, there is debate about what the education level and practical
experiences of future coaches need to be in order for them to be effective. By researching this topic I can better inform the process of getting coaches
qualified, or finding qualified coaching for the project. Has anyone had any experiences
with training for coaches that they found useful? Is anyone from a state or
region where coaching is being used successfully, and if so, what tools are the
coaches using to get prepared and stay prepared?
Christensen, C. (2013). The importance of coaching for early childhood professionals. Unpublished manuscript, Walden University.
Hi Christine,
ReplyDeleteYou have a chosen an important aspect of early childhood for your topic, and its great that you are already involved in a project so you will be able to have first hand knowledge and information. I have not not had any experience with training for coaches, your whole topic is a new concept to me. I look forward to the next 7 weeks.
Hi Carolyn, I enjoyed reading your post. I actually had not heard of coaching before either before reading your post and then I came across the subject again when looking up resources for my resource topic as types of professional development. It is a very interesting concept. We do mentoring at the facility I work for, but I feel our training and professional development have much room for improvement. That is part of what my research topic focuses around. I look forward to hearing more on the subject. I agree with Kalisa also that it is great that you will have access to first hand knowledge. This is all quite an interesting process. Cindy Ferguson
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