Tuesday, August 24, 2010

How Much I Have Missed You! Upcoming Early Childhood Topics to Ponder

Changes in my personal (and professional life) prevailed since last post! However, I am looking forward to recommitting some even better posts to nurture some deep (and possibly heated) discussions about what is new in the Early Childhood field.


While I am looking forward to bringing new life to EC Smart, I just wanted to give you a "sneak preview" of what we have in store for all of you this fall.


Here are some things I am working on:


-The Pressure to Measure - Reflections on the training I recently attended at Teaching Strategies for the new Teaching Strategies GOLD assessment system and what's new for The Creative Curriculum


- Nurturing the Most Important (and Least Measurable) Skills - Can you quantify a child's progression of their social and emotional skills? We talk about how some groups make an attempt at this and just graze the topic of how we are stuck in a hyperfocus on quantifying skill development in general



-Nurturing Our Coaches to Ensure Program Success - Who is monitoring the administrators of the EC programs where you work or send your children to school? Many times the education and work experience of these individuals can vary. We talk about how funding and support can't ignore the administrators and their need to be EC Smart!

Monday, February 15, 2010

EC Smart On Hold!

As many of you have already noticed, I haven't submitted a new post for some time. For this I apologize and want to stress that I haven't forgotten about my blog friends who have been such a great support to me.

However, I'm going to formally put EC Smart on hold as of today and look forward to returning with a brand new set of topics more specific to the ECE field. This time, I'm going to focus more on the assessment, evaluation and monitoring going on in the field and the policy that dictates this. Also, I'd like to spend more time discussing a larger topic--do you think Early Childhood Education should fall under the state and federal Departments of Education or Health and Human Services?

Ah, some thoughts to brew upon as I leave you for some time......

Take care,
Michelle