Job/Roles in the ECE Community: National/ Federal Level

The first organization that I chose is NAEYC (National Association of the Education of Young Children). I am currently a member of this organization and attended the National Conference 4 years ago in Orlando Florida. It was then that I realized that this organization was a big part of the field of early learning. Their mission or main focus is to promote the highest level of quality learning for young children from birth -8 years of age. Their focus is to “connect early childhood practice, policy, and research.”

The second organization I chose was CDA council and this organization was something that stuck out to me when I first got involved in the field and I contemplated should I go to get the credential to give me more insight. I have recently signed up to become  a CDA PD Specialist, this means that I will bring in my mentoring skills and all Child Development knowledge to assess the candidates skills and I will assist the candidate to complete their self-reflection assessment. The CDA council promotes improved performance to the professionals in the field of ECE.

The final organization I chose is NHSA (National Head Start Association). This organization is committed to giving every child the chance to succeed in school regardless of their circumstance, social class or family background. Many successful adults can think back and remember head start being the place that they developed the foundation and passion for learning.

The first organization NAEYC has a position for Reliability Manager and this position calls for someone to support those in the accreditation process which is voluntary to improve the quality of care that is provided.

 The second organization CDA council has already approved me to qualify to become a CDA PD Specialist contingent upon me passing the test that is required. I think this position held my attention because I love to help someone that wants to help themselves become more marketable in the field.

The final organization has a position for a Family Developer Specialist and I think this job would be ideal for me because it can help me to build up the family character of families in need. With assistance this position can help families to build a bond and reconnect in some way.

Skills needed for the mentioned positions above is patients and the ability to work with others. You should know how to effectively communicate and display leadership skills. Show passion and the desire to help those in need.

References:

National Association for the Education of Young Children: (2015) Retrieved from: http://www.naeyc.org/

Council for Professional Recognition: (2015) Retrieved from: http://www.cdacouncil.org/

 National Head Start Association (2015) Retrieved from: https://www.nhsa.org/

 

One organization that I have always been interested in working for is DVAEYC (Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children) this is a local organization in the Delaware Valley that is connected to the national organization NAEYC. DVAEYC is devoted to ensure that children are getting high quality early learning experiences by providing training to the educators and helping local programs with best practice techniques.

The second Organization that I chose is Keystone STARS, this is also a local affiliate in the Delaware Valley particularly in the Philadelphia region. This organization is improving the quality of early care also through four areas of interest:

·         Standards

·         Training/Professional Development

·         Assistance

·         Resources

·         Support

This program was created through the Office of Child Development and Early Learning and the work to enhance and give recognition to programs that are providing higher quality care and they offer incentive to continue to improve the quality of services provided to children and families.

The last program I decided to reflect on is the CDA council for Professional recognition. This organization also provides services along the lines of Professional Development and assistance with helping providers obtain their CDA. The CDA promotes improved performance, this national credentialing helps to meet the need of  young children by supporting their educational needs through professional development and trainings on child development.

I was able to find one job of interest in each organization:

1.)    In DVAEYC I found a job opportunity as a Quality Improvement Specialist and this job stays within the lines of my passion and that is to assist in ways to help maintain and increase the quality of programs within city limits.

2.)    I found a job opportunity with Keystone STARS as a STAR Specialist and this position works closely with teachers and providers to help them improve their quality by engaging them in Continuous Quality Improvement project. You would work side by side with providers to help them implement appropriate plans to achieve the goals of the Keystone Stars so they can move up the STAR ladder to achieve and maintain the highest STAR level of a STAR 4.

3.)    The final job opportunity I found was with the CDA council as a CDA PD Specialist. This opportunity brings mentoring skills and knowledge of ECE to assist and assess the candidate competencies in the ECE area of knowledge. They are their to assist and complete the process of CDA designation and I think this is wonderful to help a provider achieve this goal.

 

I found this assignment very interesting and I enjoyed learning and narrowing down my interest in the field. I see now that I want to fulfill the mission of continued quality assurance and I want to help programs fulfill the mission of achieving and maintaining highest quality care.

 

Accessible

Week 2 Assignment

Week 8 - Final Farewell

To my colleagues,

I just wanted to take this time to say "THANKS" to everyone for such a wonderful experience. I have learned a great deal about effective communication in the field. We must understand how truly important it is to communicate clearly to the children and families of who we serve. We must build trusting, strong relationships with those families that we encounter and we must be the example and show them how to build strong, trusting relationships with others.

I have been supported by my colleagues in many ways but the most important is the fact that I was never judged and could speak openly and comfortably and voice my opinions without any feelings of criticism. I really appreciate everyone's support and honest feedback to help me to improve my communication efforts.

I hope that I have been as much support to you all as you have been for me. I hope that you were all able to learn one thing from me the way I have learned many things from all of you. I am truly very grateful to have had such a tremendous experience in this class and am looking forward to moving on to my specialization and hope to have some familiar faces along this next journey!

Week 6- Team Building

I found the five stages of team development to be very interesting. I think that with all the stages combined together in a positive way this makes for a creative experience. I can remember being a part of a group for a final project in my undergraduate studies. We went through many ups and downs to get the final product completed. After being a part of a group project I realize how important it is to have an effective leader that knows how to take control and delegate responsibilities in an effective manner. Our leader struggled with many of the responsibly and needed some guidance along the way but once she took control and got a grip of her job and how to perform it effectively she was able to produce an effective project. I think that the final stage which is the adjourning stage becomes difficult only when you have an effective finish product. If you are working on a project that is not effective sometimes this can make the adjourning stage a relief and you feel a sense of stress removed from you when it is over. But I really felt saddened in my group class project during the adjourning stage. I felt stressed during the storming stage of our project but we did weather the storm during this stage and we came out learning much more than we knew going in. We were really all sad to say goodbye because of our learning and growth process. We developed strong bonds and in many cases lifelong friendships because we were able to work so effectively together and learned so much at the same time.

I feel that high-performing groups are very hard to leave because we develop a rhythm or a flow that becomes comforting to the group and allows us a sense of belonging and accomplishment, this becomes hard to let go of. It is not always easy to find a group that is highly productive and everyone works well together, where personalities can mix well and things get done easily. I think that forming a group is an extremely challenging task, and to form a highly effective group sometimes seems impossible. So when this is done of course it is hard to leave that sense of security in knowing that things will get done the right way.

I found the group in my undergraduate days of college a highly effective group and once our project had ended I felt really saddened that we would not have the convenience of meeting together all at one time showing off our collaboration skills. Giving positive feedback on researched and established information. And a few of us from that group I still have not heard from after college and I really miss that time that we spent effectively. We learned some valuable time management skills that I really enjoyed while we were part of the group and I have never really been able to regain even after trying on numerous occasions. Once our group experience had ended we all kept in touch for a little while after that but many of the team members fell off and we never stayed in contact but a few of us are still friends today and we try to meet frequently. But after the project was completed we had a little celebration among us to celebrate our success in the class because of our team efforts.

I think that many of the people that I have meant along the way of this master’s degree program will be great contacts in the future to help me stay informed and growing in the field of early learning. I think that adjourning from this group may be difficult because we have established such great bonds in many cases. I have learned so much from so many colleagues in my classes and have been inspired even more by the professors that I have encountered. The end of this journey will be a bitter sweet experience and as I get closer to this point I am beginning to get excited. We still have a little ways to go and I'm looking forward to the remainder of this ride.

 

 

Conflict Resolution

Again this is another trial run, I posted this assignment last night on my new blog page www.kerebaenglish.blogspot.com due to some computer issues while attempting to post this assignment

Week 5 - Blog Assignment

I very rarely run into situation that require conflict resolution due to the fact I am easy going and go with the flow and find ways to navigate situations even when they are not very favorable for me. But in the rare ocurance I run into a conflict I like to address it right away and try to find a reasonable way to resolve it before it escalate

I recently had a disagreement with my husband about my son. My son is 6 years old and has recently started kindergarten. He goes to school in our new neighborhood and he is only going to school for half a day kindergarten, therefore his hours are from 12:30 to 3:20. I think this is such a drag and a waste of time. We both work an hour away from where we live and we are stuck to get him back and forth to school around our work schedules. My husbands schedule changes everyday so this makes the job even more challenging. I insisted to my husband that we take my son out of that school because it does not make much sense the way we are needing to travel and inconvenience ourselves to take him to and from school. I asked my husband to allow me to home school my son which I can do from work and keep him with me another year and allow him the one on one training and guidance through me and my instruction. My husband argues with me each time I bring this up and it truly makes me so angry. He thinks that my son is losing more social skills by being taught another year by me but I totally disagree. I think he is getting another year of vital one on one teaching instruction.

The conflict resolution strategies that I decided to use with my husband are "Consider Options and Alternatives, which " (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pg 240) I think I gave him some other choices such as finding a school for my son that is closer to my job so I can easily pick him up rather than traveling over an hour to pick him up from school and then needing to go back to work in the evening to close. We both weighed our options and with the few choices that we have we are still in the waiting process to find out which plan works better. We have also decided to compromise "to give up a little to gain a little" (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012, pg. 241) We are both willing to compromise with each other once we get feedback from all the other schools we have applied for and we are also looking into the home school element this way we will have all resources handy to try to decide on an option.

Similarities and Differences in Communication

This is just a test, I had a problem sending my assignment on 9/27/14 therefore I created a new blog page www.kerebaenglish.blogspot.com and my assignment was sent to that page, but now that my original blog is working again I will continue to use this account in sending all future assignments

 

 

I really enjoyed this communication assignment and learned a lot about myself and my communication style. I always thought that I was an effective communicator and very timid and calm when communicating my thoughts to others. I am an introvert and it sometimes causes me to be harder to gage and figure out. The Listening Style Profile determined that I am people orientated and I am empathetic to the emotional concern of others which is very encouraging to hear. The survey stated that my learning style helps me to build relationships with others but it sometimes can get in the way because I am very trusting of those whom I am communicating with and they could possibly be trying to get over, I can be easily persuaded. I was surprised to hear that responds because I never thought of myself in that light. If you are treated this way for so long it may cause you to eventually turn verbally aggressive which was another survey that was done to help us evaluate our communication. The evaluation stated that I am significantly verbally aggressive which I never saw myself as being that way, but this is why this is such a wonderful assignment to find out something new about your personality and to attempt to change it for the better.

I was also evaluated by my mother and my colleague at the workplace as my alternatives for this assignment. I was really amazed at the way both parties evaluated me and also scored me pretty high on the aggressiveness scale. This is all new to me but it allows me to learn my aggressive tendencies and challenges me to come up with ways that will allow me to fix them. I also learned about my levels of anxiety which were pretty low and this helped to reassure me that I am confident and secure in my position. My mother rated my anxiety levels as high as she stated I am very nervous and second guess my actions at times.

I have learned that I am an effective listener which is detrimental in the field of early learning because you need to be able to listen and learn from your students and their families and then you can successfully engage them and allow them to grow into the best learner possible. I must also learn to tune down my aggressiveness because this is a great turn off to others whom have to interact with you. When you communicate in an aggressive manner people that are listening tend to shut down and tune you out especially if they feel insulted in anyway.