1 Welcome and introductions Indicate if you are: EC, NC Pre-K, - PDF document

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Welcome and introductions Indicate if you are: EC, NC Pre-K, Title I, Head Start, anybody we missed? Indicate if you are a preschool coordinator? EC director? Other administrators? Anybody we missed? 2

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Almost every state has developed early learning standards for prekindergarten-age children. North Carolina was one of the national leaders when they developed the first NC Foundations for Early Learning and Development in 2003. The Infant- Toddler standards were released a couple years after the first preschool standards. Both efforts were a cross-sector, collaborative effort including staff from universities, community colleges, school systems, child care, Head Start, families, and more. Since North Carolina does not have a universal early childhood system, we must play with many partners from within and without the school systems in the early childhood field. During the revision process the decision was made to combine the Infant-Toddler and Preschool Foundations into one document and to showcase the developmental continuum that occurs across the span of time from birth to 60+ months of age for each goal. The title of this document— Foundations —was selected because the Goals and Developmental Indicators described for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are critically important to their success later in school. What children learn between birth and the time they start kindergarten lays the Foundations for their learning and development for years to come. The team of state leaders that revised Foundations carefully studied North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study for what kindergarten children should know and be able to do. The team studied both the Common Core State Standards and North Carolina Essential Standards during the process of writing Foundations. An 4

overview of their cross-walk can be found on page 19 of the Foundations document. The goal was to ensure the content of Foundations aligned with the expectations for what kindergarten children learn and is appropriate for children birth through 60 months of age. This does not mean that the skills and knowledge described in Foundations are exactly the same as those included in the kindergarten standards. Rather, the focus in Foundations is on the early precursor skills that research suggests are important or lay the foundation for what children learn later. 4

The K-3 Assessment Team from the Office of Early Learning has been charged with the work of developing the entry kindergarten assessment profile, funded by the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant. They too have recognized the need to develop a formative assessment process, guided by the use of learning progressions, around critical areas of development in the five domains of learning featured in the Foundations. This process of assessment for learning and development attends to the whole child and is broader in scope than the Common Core. 5

This is a visual of how each developmental domain is organized around overarching goals and the continuum of development that happens from birth to 60 months of age. Please note the age ranges for each of the five age bands. At first glance of the developmental continuum you can see how development occurs around each goal. Please turn to page 52. This is in the domain of Social-Emotional Development and the goal is “Children demonstrate a positive sense of self-identify and self-awareness.” Please note that as infants, children show awareness of their bodies by looking at their hands, feet, mouth, etc. When they move into the next age period they may recognize themselves in the mirror and point out their body parts. As an Older Toddler they may then be able to recognize themselves in a picture. At the Younger Preschool period they may then develop a sense of self as demonstrated when they can tell you their first and last name. Finally, the Older Preschooler can tell you that they are a member of their family or a preschool class or an ethnic group. We need to point out that there are many more stages of development that occur in between these examples, and that the “grain size” of these progressions are quite large and overlapping. That is why these standards may be used to guide instruction, but cannot really be used in the assessment process. This is the current work of the K-3 Assessment Team. Based on the claims that the K-3 Assessment Think Tank developed, they are creating learning progressions around critical skills and understandings that an entering kindergarten child needs to know upon entry to school. Teachers use a formative assessment 6

process to identify where each child performs on a learning progression that begins at the 36 months level and ranges up to 72 months. 6

]. It is very important to understand the relationship between standards, curriculum and learning progressions so that we do not confuse nor use them inappropriately. We have adapted the work of Margaret Heritage and substitute some early childhood language into the next three slide. This work was seminal to the development of the NC Falcon on-line training and is guiding the work of the kindergarten entry child profile development. First, the Foundations establish the expectations for what a child should know and are organized around developmental age levels 7

The early childhood curricula should provide activities to intentionally facilitate critical areas of development and learning that can be embedded in classroom routines and developmentally appropriate play and learning activities. 8

Finally the learning progression can help to lay out more increasingly complex understandings of core concepts or skills. This information will provide great support to teachers in providing differentiated instruction and conduct more accurate observation based summative assessments. 9

The current work of the K-3 Assessment Team will assist us in building professional development around formative assessment practices using learning progressions. Based on the claims that the K-3 Assessment Think Tank developed, they are creating learning progressions around critical skills and understandings that an entering kindergarten child needs to know upon entry to school. Teachers use a formative assessment process to identify where each child performs on a learning progression that begins at the 36 months level and ranges up to 72 months. It is our plan to take this work and develop the downward extension of these progressions so that our training around formative assessment will align with the K-3 assessment process. 10

This is a visual of how you might visualize the relationship between these Foundations and the NC Essential Standards. This slide shows you the broad connection for English Language Arts under the essential standard for “Identifying ideas and details” at the high school level 11

This slide depicts the relationship for the area of Mathematics under the Essential Standard for “Arithmetic with polynomials and rational expressions” for high school. 12

This depicts the relationship for Science under the Essential Standard for “Understands cells and organisms: evolution and genetics” at the high school level. 13

This depicts the relationship for Social Studies. 14

The professional development that the Department of Public Instruction provides the field around the early learning standards will attempt to align with the work of the K-3 Assessment Team. Another Department initiative that will influence this work is that of NC Falcon. This is NC’s balanced assessment system. Formative assessment is an essential component of this system because it forms the foundation for teaching and learning. We are using critical elements of that professional development content to craft training around conducting high quality formative assessment in the classroom that will inform teaching around the Foundations. And finally, we will be aligning with a Department wide adoption of implementation science when developing training materials, sample professional development and implementation plans. The Office of Early Learning has recently been involved in the development of the Early Learning Network, which is a statewide professional development and technical assistance system housed out of Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Early Learning Network will be central to the implementation of professional development provided to the field. The Division of Childhood Development and Early Education out of DHHS was responsible for the roll-out of the NC FOUNDATIONS. They chose to contract with Child Care Resource and Referral to deliver the professional development for these standards primarily to the child care workforce. Our team has taken that training in an effort to align our content so as to be inclusive. 15

In January, 2014 a statewide FOUNDATIONS stakeholder meeting was convened to identify: What went well with the implementation of the original Foundations, Early Learning and Development Standards? What do we need more of to be successful in the implementation of the new Foundations, Early Learning and Development Standards? What should we prioritize first? 16

Stakeholders felt very strongly about embedding both child and teaching standards into existing professional development initiatives, as well as a focus on research- based practices. Of course, the K-12 leadership structure needs to understand how these standards align with the Common Core. 17