FINAL PROJECT Essays - Educational Psychology, Educators, Teaching

FINAL PROJECT Essays - Educational Psychology, Educators, Teaching FINAL PROJECT Crystal Burgess July 29, 2011 HRDV 5610 Describe the problem I currently work for a child development center in Knoxville, Tennessee. The center serves ages six weeks to five years. The center is a three-star program (Star Quality) and licensed by the State of Tennessee. The preschool follows the Creative Curriculum and also provides enrichment classes such as music, dance and gymnastics. Star-Quality recognizes child care providers who meet a higher standard of quality. Once qualified for this program, a provider can receive one, two, or three stars to place on its license and display in its center or home. Each star shows that the provider meets increasingly higher standards. In other words, the more stars a program has, the better the quality of care it offers to children. One factor is the Program Assessment. Highly trained assessors go to the child care facility and observe it. During the observation, one or more Assessors will look at the centers indoor and outdoor spaces, activities, materials and the interactions among children and between children and adults. They will observe these things for each classroom being assessed. Assessors will keep a low profile and try to remain unnoticeable while in the classroom. They do this so the adults and children can interact naturally. Before the Star evaluation, during, and awaiting the results can be very stressful. Starting the job, you are placed in a class to train under a seasoned teacher. This teacher trains the new employee and demonstrates why the center is a three-star center and uses shows the employee how to correct serve the students at the optimal level of child care. Many of the teachers, however, use shortcuts to the proper technique and cause the new employees to be uncertain of what is the best standard based on the Star Quality. The problem I will be exploring in this paper is how to proper train new employees on the excellent care for the center at the three-star level. Analyze needs To determine the strengths and weaknesses of the new employee, a task analysis would have to be conducted. The new teachers must have specific levels of knowledge, skill, and ability to demonstrate during the STARS evaluations. An observation of the employee's teaching could help identify the areas of need. The observation would be a mock trial of STARS evaluation. The assessor would look to be sure each teacher masters the objectives set. A person analysis would also need to ensure the employees and potential employees have the readiness for training. It would be used to determine if they have the personal characteristics (ability, attitudes, beliefs, and motivation) required to learn the complex STARS program content and apply it on the job and to ensure that the classroom will facilitate learning and safety. In addition to the task and person analysis, an organizational analysis should be given. Because the child care facility strives for three-stars, we need to identify whether the training in place supports the company's strategic direction and follows the STAR program requirement. We also need to determine whether the managers and employees support training activities and what training resources are available. The director of the center must develop and present training aligned with the mission, vision and goals of the STARS program. This is crucial for the ultimate success of the training as the managers are directed to make it a priority to support and incorporate the training results into their areas of the child development center. Human Resources must have a through understanding of the type of training and identify who needs it before task analysis can begin. Current knowledge and skill levels must be determined first. This also an important step to determine job description requirements for future staffing needs. Learning Objectives/Training Method The main learning objective is to successfully train new employees about the protection of health and safety. Another objective is to build relationships with children, parents, extended family, and community and to provide students opportunities for stimulation and learning from experience. If all objectives are mastered, the child care center will be about to reach the maximum level of stars. To train the new employees, I would first inform the training teachers how important proper training would be for the new employees as well as the for the center's accreditation. The training teachers should demonstrate all learning objectives. Each trainer might have a different way of doing things. Their practices can be seen in the kinds of activities children do, in the way that children and adults talk to each other, in the kinds