Enhancing the Impact of Professional Development in the Context of Preschool Expansion

Abstract

Among all the factors that influence the success of preschool programs, none is more important than the quality of the teaching workforce. The design and delivery of effective approaches to professional development (PD) are central to the support of the early childhood education workforce. In this article, we provide a model outlining the PD features that help to ensure that PD is effective, as well as the program-and policy-level supports needed to implement this type of PD as a part of local, state, and federal preschool programs. Throughout the article, we summarize recent research that is refining our understanding of the characteristics of effective PD, and we draw from research as well as our own experience in working with Head Start and state preschool programs across the country to illuminate challenges and promising practices in implementing effective PD at scale.

Head Start Teachers’ Professional Development, Well‐being, Attitudes, and Practices: Understanding Changes Over Time and Predictive Associations

“…Overall, our regression models explained a small amount of the variance in teachers’ outcomes and many predictors were not statistically significantly associated with the outcomes—a finding that is consistent with some previous research on PD for ECE teachers (Hamre et al., ). Even statistically significant associations were small in magnitude.…”

Early childhood educators' knowledge about language and literacy: Associations with practice and children's learning

“…In the current study, we explicitly test these indirect associations via mediation analysis. Moreover, most available studies have been conducted within the context of the elementary grades, despite the critical importance of early childhood experiences for supporting literacy development and a growing need for a knowledgeable and effective early childhood workforce (Hamre, Partee, & Mulcahy, ).…”

Finding Rigor Within a Large-Scale Expansion of Preschool to Test Impacts of a Professional Development Program

“…For preschool programs to eliminate educational opportunity gaps, the programs must be high-quality (Barnett, 2011). Among all the factors that influence preschool quality, providing PD to improve teachers’ knowledge and practice is particularly important (Hamre et al, 2017). However, the types of PD that most preschool teachers likely receive are not focused on evidence-based teaching practices, are insufficient in terms of duration and intensity, and are not presented in a format that will support sustained changes in teaching practices.…”