Observation is a key element of an observation-based ongoing child assessment system. It informs the individualization of responsive care and teaching practices, learning experiences, environments, routines, and schedules. Individualization is the process of using observation information as part of the ongoing assessment cycle to tailor the curriculum to support each child’s interests, skills, and needs.
Observation is the first step in providing the kind of individualized, responsive care for infants and toddlers that builds relationships, supports attachment, and promotes healthy brain development. Because individualization cannot happen without observation, keep in mind the following key elements of observation:
What it is
Why it is important
What to observe
How to observe and document
How to set up observation systems
Reviewing and reflecting on observation information
In the state of Kentucky there are a variety of supports available to child care providers as they work with children experiencing challenges which impact their behavior and child development.
As we have learned by participating in ECE 101, 102, and 103, there are many reasons for children’s behavior and one way we support their long-term growth is by connecting teachers and families with the resources available to them.
Child Care Aware of Kentucky: Technical Assistance and Coaching for Child Care Providers
The Technical Assistance and Coaching program is designed for Directors and Administrators, with a smaller portion of time dedicated to classroom teachers. This service supports licensing, the quality rating improvement system (Kentucky All STARS), and professional development for early care and education providers. Coaching services and resources regarding environments, teacher skill development, curriculum, interactions, business practices, and more are available free to all licensed and certified child care providers.
Child Care Health Consultants: Program Technical Assistance, Training, and Consultation
Program Technical Assistance, Training, and Consultation services are coordinated locally through regional health departments and via a statewide Technical Assistance Center where phone consultation and online resources are available. Many Local Health Departments employ a child care health consultant who is an expert in medical diagnoses and care, infectious disease, diapering, handwashing, safe sleep, and more. Child Care Health Consultants are trained in the Connect the Dots curriculum which focuses on the social emotional well-being of children and caregivers.
Early Childhood Mental Health: Program Technical Assistance, Onsite Observation, and Individualized Consultation
Technical Assistance, Onsite Observation, and Individualized Consultations available locally through the state network of Community Mental Health Centers. Early Childhood Mental Health Specialists are available to provide consultations regarding individual children, as well as observations of classroom behavior. Early Childhood Mental Health Specialists work with the child care program to develop behavior plans to address behavioral challenges. Consultation is coordinated in conjunction with child care providers and parents or guardians.
Early Intervention Services
Early Intervention Services are available statewide through the Kentucky First Steps program and via local private Occupational, Speech, and Physical Therapy practices. Child care providers are encouraged to work with parents to collaborate on ways to support therapy plans for the children in their care.
Often times, the child care provider may recognize a potential need through routine screening and assessment which leads to a discussion with parents about a recommendation for referral. The parent is responsible for arranging the therapy and granting permission to the child care provider to discuss the child’s needs with the therapist.
The child care program may have space available onsite for the therapist to work with the child during the program’s operating hours. The therapist becomes a support for both the parent and the child care provider.
Wrap Up TPTs are a way to summarize content, support higher order of thinking, and give the trainer evidence of what trainees have learned.
Instead of simply asking “Tell me what you have learned?” trainees are offered the opportunity to really think of new concepts, analyze the information, and process it with other trainees.
Many Wrap Up TPTs can be done with little materials other than paper or training handouts.
We will review three Wrap Up TPTs – Confer, Compare, Clarify; Pause, Star, Rank; and Debate Team Carousel.
Application Tips
Hover your mouse over each picture to see application tips.
Use handouts to provide spaces to make notes.
Use visual aids (Power Point, charts) to show the question for trainees to easily view.
Choose prompts that are neutral and less likely to spark a heated debate.
Use handouts to provide spaces to make notes.
Use private chat features with groups of 2. For groups of more than 2 people, use breakout rooms.
Pre-assigning pairs and groups will make moving into groups easier and keep groupings the same. Have a co-trainer/assistant who can help with moving people into groups/breakout rooms and provide technical assistance.
Instead of physically passing a paper around, use based documents (Google Drive, Dropbox, Jamboard) to provide a document that is accessible to everyone to view and edit. Many will also be available to trainees post-training.
LIMITED INFORMATION IN THE HANDOUTS, NEED MORE CONTENT FOR THIS SECTION
Note-Taking TPTs give participants an opportunity to process and interact with the new information being presented during direct instruction (e.g., lecture, video).
For the trainer, these ………………………….
Training Examples
ADD VIDEO OR WRITTEN EXAMPLE
Application Tips
Live Webinar Tips
In a live webinar break out rooms
Toolkit
list here what is needed, if anything for the toolkit
Movement TPTs are just that, TPTs that get trainees out of their seats, interacting and processing their learning together. Movement and learning are linked together and opportunities to move during training sessions allows trainees a greater chance of learning retention.
For the trainer, these are great because they can create a break in lecture and provide opportunities for the trainee to move around.
We will review two Movement TPTs – Appointment Agendas and Bounce Cards.
Movement Application Tips
Hover your mouse over each picture to see application tips.
Appointment Agenda TPT typically works better in a longer training where there are several opportunities for interactive conversations.
Instead of times on the agenda use number slots. When it is time to pair up ask trainees to pair up with their #1, #2, etc. appointment
Use visual aids (Power Point, charts) to show the question for trainees to easily view.
Trainees can use the private chat feature to talk in groups of two.
For groups of more than 2 people use breakout rooms to move trainees into rooms where they can chat. Pre-assigning pairs and groups will make moving into groups easier.
Have a co-trainer/assistant who can help with moving people into groups/breakout rooms and provide technical assistance.
Use the chat feature with the whole group as a way to “see” responses from groups.
Instead of having trainees “move around” do random assignments for appointment agendas.
Hold-UP TPTs are interaction-based activities that use response cards. In these activities, participants interactively reflect on a question or prompt and hold up a card, paper, or whiteboard in response. There are many types of hold ups, but they all work in the same way. After reflection, trainees are asked to “hold up” their response.
Hold Up TPTs support higher order thinking by providing chances for trainees to explain their thought process, listen to opposing views, and to change their minds. The goal is to think past looking for the correct answer. In many situations the “wrong” answer can be an excellent teachable moment.
For the trainer, these are great because they work well in basically all trainings. They are most helpful in gauging what participants know or what they are thinking about, especially when you have a large group of trainees.
We will review three Hold Up TPTs – True, Not True; Multiple Choice; and Yes, No, Maybe.
Hold Up Application Tips
Hover your mouse over each picture to see application tips.
Provide response cards to trainees at the beginning of (or prior to) the training session.
Use colored index cards (or paper) to represent responses.
Use visual aids (Power Point, charts) to show the question for trainees to easily view.
Use private chat features with groups of 2. For groups of more than 2 people, use breakout rooms.
Pre-assigning pairs and groups will make moving into groups easier and keep groupings the same.
Have a co-trainer/assistant who can help with moving people into groups/breakout rooms and provide technical assistance.
Trainees can use response cards and show on camera.
Have you been in the middle of a training session and wondered – “Is anyone really understanding what I am talking about?”
Instead of moving forward with your content, trainers should do a check-in to gauge understanding and comprehension of the content. On-the-Spot TPTsare the perfect opportunity to do that check in.
On the Spot TPTs support higher order thinking when prompts provided require trainees to think beyond meaning and to make connections between content and real life application.
Most on the spot activities can be done with little or no preparation and can be inserted at the last minute.
We will review two On the Spot TPTs – Think, Pair, Share and Chalkboard Splash.
On The Spot Application Tips
Hover your mouse over each picture to see application tips.
Use visual aids (Power Point, charts) to show instructions and questions to be discussed.
Templates can be made and used as a visual aid or for trainees to take notes on when in groups.
Use private chat features with groups of 2. For groups of more than 2 people, use breakout rooms.
Pre-assigning pairs and groups will make moving into groups easier and keep groupings the same.
Have a co-trainer/assistant who can help with moving people into groups/breakout rooms and provide technical assistance.
Cloud-based documents (Google Drive, Dropbox, Jamboard) can provide a document that is accessible to everyone to view and edit. Many will also be available to trainees post-training.
The basic idea of brain-based teaching is that trainers will select teaching strategies and design training using what we know about how the brain learns.
One of the things brain-science tells us is that learners need to be active participants. Learners need time to pause and process what they are learning BEFORE they move onto new content.
So, how can we do this? Through the use of Total Participation Techniques (TPTs).
TPTs: 1) get all participants responding to questions and engaged in discussions; and 2) use prompts that require higher-ordered thinking so that participants aren’t just having fun, they are also thinking deeply.
Handouts
Please download or print a copy of the course handout. PDF is in editable form, if you choose to download to enable you to take notes.
Throughout the course you will review TPT activities with detailed information and tips for implementation. Each activity will also include ideas for a TPT toolkit. The TPT toolkit is something you can create to have easy access to materials necessary to implement TPTs into your training session.
Important Note!
Credit is not automatically awarded after completion of the lessons and course evaluation. In order to receive credit, you must submit your final assignment, which will be reviewed and graded. Upon successful completion of your final assignment, credit will be awarded. No certificate will be mailed to you, and credit will be entered into ECE-TRIS within 10 calendar days.
Want to learn more about Total Participation Techniques?
This training only includes a small sample of the many great Total Participation Techniques that can be incorporated in a training session. Check out this resource to learn more about TPTs and to get more examples and samples for your trainings.
Please note that this resource was designed for elementary school teachers. The activities, and information, however, are useful for all age learners.
New to LearnDash or need a refresher on how to move through the course?
This course is divided into multiple lessons and some lessons may have sub-topics. To move through lessons and topics you will need to click “mark complete” at the bottom of the page. To access quizzes or assignments you may need to click “start quiz” to access quiz content.
Before we get started, let’s update your training information. Training credit for this course will be entered within 10 days of course completion. Questions? Use the Contact Us button at the bottom of this page.
There are also two state funded organizations here to help.
Child Care Aware of Kentucky
The statewide regional network for Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) services supporting access to safe, affordable, quality child care for families and professional development for child care providers and trainers.
After reviewing content that you have already seen during the course of your orientation training, now we’re going to move on to health and safety requirements of COVID-19. These enhanced requirements are in place right now, as we monitor the rate of decrease of the virus throughout the state of Kentucky.
New Group Sizes
One of the newest changes for child care programs is a maximum group size of 15 children for all programs. This means still children plus one to two adults will be present in a classroom at one time.
Adult to child ratios will remain in place for children under the age of 24 months.
So for infant rooms and toddler rooms under the age of 24 months, that would mean that if all 10 children are present, two adults will also have to be present.
Another change will be that children should remain in the same group all day long. Some centers may have utilized the ability to combine smaller group sizes at the beginning of the day and the end of the day before all children arrive or as children begin leaving.
In order to reduce the spread of the virus from child to child, we need to keep the same group of children together all day long without introducing any additional children to the group.
Program Visitors
There will also be a specific group of visitors that are allowed in the center during this time period. We will be eliminating a lot of visitors like readers from the public library or supplemental curriculum programs that visit the school.
Those approved to enter the child care program:
Facility staff
Persons with legal authority to be there, such as
emergency responders,
Department for Community-Based Services,
Division of Regulated Child Care and
staff contracted through the Cabinet like Child Care Aware, and Child Care Health Consultants.
Necessary utility workers, plumbers or electricians there to do work on the building.
Professionals providing medical or therapeutic services to children with special needs, like a medical professional that may be there to administer an insulin shot or an ABA therapist working with a child with autism.
Children enrolled in the facility are allowed to be on site.
Parents or legal guardians of children enrolled.
And in family child care homes, the family members who live in the home of the approved child care provider will also be allowed to be there.
Notice that this list does not include siblings of children enrolled in the facility. In order to make sure that visitors are limited and the virus does not continue to spread, this list needs to be followed during this time period.
Consistent Teachers
The Division of Child Care is asking that consistent teachers are used in the program in order to reduce the spread of the virus. Programs need to make their best effort to reduce unwanted changes in teachers.
We understand teachers need lunch breaks, and that some teachers will have vacation time or be off. However, we want to make sure that primary teachers work with the same classroom every day, and that floating teachers work consistently with a small number of classrooms in order to reduce exposure.
One floating teacher should not provide breaks to every classroom in the school. Instead, one floating teacher should work with two to three classrooms at the most in order to avoid spreading the virus. Please avoid all unnecessary switching of staff members during this time period.
Cleaning and Sanitizing
Cleaning and sanitizing will be an essential part of daily life in the child care program right now. All programs should create an enhanced cleaning and sanitizing plan that follows the CDC guidelines, and that this plan be posted in a central location of the facility. Since every child care program is different, this plan will look a little different for every program. Whether you have hard floors or carpet, whether there are multiple classrooms on different floors or whether the child care program is small. This plan should also include plans for cleaning surfaces that aren’t usually cleaned every day, doorknobs, computer keyboards, and different items like that.
Child Care Aware staff are available to assist all of our facilities with creating this plan.
Screening for Illness
Screening for illness is also essential. Adults and children will need to be screened upon arrival each day. This does not just mean staff members that are employed at the facility but also utility workers or anyone else entering the building also needs to be screened for fever and contagious symptoms. And remember that a fever is considered 100.4 or higher.
Child care staff members with symptoms of COVID-19 must be tested for the illness. However, this does not mean that every staff member in the building regardless of symptoms need to be tested. Test should be saved for those who do show contagious symptoms.
A child with contagious symptoms must be removed from the classroom immediately. The child’s family must be contacted and the child must be picked up from the program within one hour from contacting the family.
If an adult or a child does test positive for COVID-19, then the enrolled families and staff must be notified that someone in the facility has tested positive for COVID-19. However, privacy must be preserved.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Personal Protective Equipment will be utilized in all child care programs:
Adults must wear face masks at all times.
Children age 2 and under should not wear face masks due to risk of suffocation and strangulation.
Children who are 3 years old up to first grade may wear a face mask if the parent/guardian and the child care provider sign the permission form provided by the state*.
*Providers may not mandate children 3 years old up to first grade to wear a mask.
Children in the first grade and older shall wear face masks.
Children may not wear lanyards with their mask.
Children may not wear masks while sleeping.
Children may remove masks when:
Participating in vigorous play
Outdoors and six feet apart
Eating or drinking
Gloves need to be utilized for feeding diaper changes and feeding bottles to infants. Gloves must be changed between each feeding, diaper change, etc.
Child care programs must make sure that they have gloves, latex, non-latex and food handling gloves, as well as masks available to all employees.
Prior to reopening Child Care Aware staff will make sure that each program has PPE and cleaning supplies on hand.
Temporary Walls
Temporary walls may be used in a child care program if the following are maintained.
The new walls must be at least six feet tall.
They cannot be made of furniture rearranged in the middle of the space.
They must be stable so that children are not able to pull them down.
When a wall is put in the middle of the classroom to divide two groups of children, there must still be 35 square feet of space per child once the room is divided.
Divided classrooms are still allowed to share a bathroom as long as enhanced cleaning guidelines are in place.
The new traffic pattern, with the inclusion of the temporary wall, would still need to follow the guidelines for opening centers during a medical state of emergency.
Business Practices
Digital communication should be used as often as possible to avoid passing paper back and forth. This goes for center staff as well as communication with families.
Staff in the office need to avoid using the same phones, same computers, and same guest supplies whenever it is possible.
Use digital billing whenever it is allowed and possible.
Social Distancing
Other social distancing principles involved child care programs staggering
playground time between classrooms.
No field trips will be allowed during this time period
and no group transportation will be allowed during this time period.
?️ Key Takeaways
New group maximum is 15
Limitations are in place for program visitors
Consistent teachers are encouraged
Enhanced cleaning and sanitizing plan should be in place
Child care centers re-opened on Monday, June 15th. All child care providers employed in a child care program, family child care homes and center-based homes are required to complete this mandatory training course on health, safety and mandatory reporting of child abuse.
As a reminder, we want all programs to be aware of the COVID-19 virus symptoms so that if an adult or a child in the program is showing these symptoms, they know that they need to be checked for the virus.
COVID-19 symptoms include
fever or chills,
shortness of breath,
cough,
fatigue,
muscle pain,
sore throat,
loss of taste or smell, or
gastric symptoms like nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.
?️ Key Takeaway
This training is mandatory for all providers prior to reopening
All of these materials, available as no-cost downloads from www.downsyndromepregnancy.org, offer compassionate, practical, and up-to-date information and have been reviewed by leading medical and Down syndrome experts. Please share a link to downsyndromepregnancy.org so that others can access these resources, but do not upload the books to your own website.
Welcoming a Newborn with Down Syndrome
A New Parent’s Guide to the First Month
This book offers support and accurate, reliable information to the new parents of a baby with Down syndrome. The book covers topics like breastfeeding, adjusting to a diagnosis, preparing siblings, understanding medical issues, preparing for the future, and, most importantly, it shares diverse stories about the daily lives of families whose children have Down syndrome at different ages.
“La bienvenida a un bebé con síndrome de Down: Una guía para nuevos padres” escrito por Stephanie Meredith y Nancy Iannone ya está disponible en español gracias a un otorgamiento de La fundación Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Este libro ofrece apoyo e información precisa y fiable a los nuevos padres de un bebé con síndrome de Down. El libro abarca temas como la lactancia materna, ajustándose a un diagnóstico, preparación de los hermanos, la comprensión de los problemas médicos, la preparación para el futuro, y lo más importante, que comparte diversas historias sobre las familias cuyos hijos tienen síndrome de Down en las diferentes edades.
Your Loved One is Having a Baby with Down Syndrome
When you learn that someone you love is expecting a baby with Down syndrome, you naturally have concerns, and wonder what to say and do. This book will help you through your initial, normal reactions of sadness, shock, and worry, and give you the information and perspective you need to welcome a baby with Down syndrome.
If you are a new or expectant parent, you will find everything you need to know to successfully breastfeed your baby with Down syndrome, including dozens of mothers’ stories to help reassure you that babies with Down syndrome CAN breastfeed.
If you are a medical professional, you will appreciate the Pro Tips designed specifically to guide you in helping your patients overcome any challenges they may face. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field using the latest evidenced-based research.
Throughout the course you will review TPT activities with detailed information and tips for implementation. Each activity will also include ideas for a TPT toolkit. The TPT toolkit is something you can create to have easy access to materials necessary to implement TPTs into your training session. 
