Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Updates from Assessor Training w/ Authors' reps.

Home your summer is going well. We have also updated the Pitfalls a bit. We hand them out at our QC Workshops.

ALL SCALES:
- Ample space is “a challenge in Florida”, due to licensing standards for 20/35 sq. feet and no group size limits.

- The children should be “bathed in language” throughout the day (during play and routine care, small group and whole group, etc). Teachers should use a variety of descriptive words, about a variety of topics, including what the children are currently doing and asking questions about / discussing what the families did at home, over the weekend, etc.

- Group activities are when teachers “strongly encourage the children”, verbally or with placement of furniture, the children to participate in the same activity at the same time in the same location (place restrictions on free choice, such as circle, story, standing in line, eating meals, restroom down the hall, teacher-directed, formal group activity, etc.)

Activities where the teacher is doing something enticing and the children gravitate over to it and stay are typically not considered whole group activities, if they are taking place during free play time, indoors or outdoors. This would be an example of an informal group activity.

If the children are completely free to leave an activity (come and go as they wish) and have a choice of at least 2 alternative activities, then time spent in a group activity would probably not be counted toward the total group time observed.

When children choose to join an activity during free play, it is not counted as group time UNLESS the staff discourages the children from leaving the activity, if they so choose, OR they are restricted physically in some way (such as unable to remove themselves from the chair).

Whole group activities such as story, circle time, waiting times, meal times, teacher-directed activities ARE whole group times.

ECERS: After the observation has ended, the times the children spent restricted to whole group activities are added together. Then this number is divided by the total observation time, to calculate the percentage of time children spent restricted to whole group activities during an observation. The aim is for the children to spend less than 50%, or half of the observation, restricted to whole group activities.

ITERS: If any child is restricted to whole group activities for 20 minutes or more (total combined during a 3+ hour observation) credit will not be received.


Much Of the Day appears in 11 Items. Each Item is considered individually, so credit could be given in one item but not in others.

If even ONE child has limited access to enough of an item (some materials have amounts required), then credit will not be received. Also, if ANY child is denied access to an item for 20 minutes or more (total combined during a 3+ hour observation) credit will not be received. If any child is restricted to whole group activities for 20 minutes or more (total combined during a 3+ hour observation) credit will not be received.

Item 2-5.2, 7.2 Child-sized chairs are easily used/moved by the children. Child-sized tables fit the children and the chairs.

Item 5-5.2 At least 2 items on display MUST be fully 3-D to receive credit (move in space, have height, width and depth).

Item 9-1.3 Remind caregivers to remove the soiled gloves, use wipes on teacher’s and child’s hands BEFORE touching the clean diaper.


ECERS:
To give credit, outdoor time/access to gross motor space and outdoor equipment must total AT LEAST 60 minutes per day, weather permitting. Time spent standing in line to come inside, etc., as observed, does not count toward this 60 minutes of access. (ECERS 7, 8, 34, 35).

Item 16-3.3 and 28-3.3: We are hearing “Ooo wah, ooo wah shoot the arrow” again (a verse in the song “Ten Little Indians”).This phrase is an example of “stereotyping and bias”.

Item 18-5.1 Informal conversations are not didactic / for learning content. They are more for social interaction.
5.3 “Expanding” means restating what the child said and then adding more information.

Item 20-7.3 Art activities over several days means that the project has several stages (like drying over night and then additional steps….)

Item 30-3.1 Children who close the bathroom door are not being adequately supervised.

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