How do instructional coaches prepare to effectively support early
childhood educators?
As part of an ongoing collaboration with Oregon’s Department of Early Learning & Care (DELC), colleagues at Oregon State University’s Early Learning System Initiative spent more than a year developing activities to support those coaching preschool teachers in Oregon. This month, DELC and ELSI are pleased to release a new professional development resource: Foundations in Coaching.
Participants in the Foundations course access online modules, currently available in English and Spanish, designed to build understanding of the Oregon Coaching Competencies. The Foundations course will be available in Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian by the end of 2023. These self-paced, interactive lessons provide definitions, examples, and practical applications of high-quality coaching in early learning settings. The finalized modules reflect changes made based on feedback from volunteers who completed a pilot version of the course.
The multi-lingual Foundations course is available free of charge to early learning professionals in Oregon who participate in the Oregon Registry Online, including colleagues who do not currently coach early childhood educators but may want to learn more about coaching. Once participants finish the Foundations course, they will:
- Earn eight hours of Set One professional learning credit in the Oregon Registry Online; and,
- Get connected to resources about pathways & training to a higher education degrees or certificates.
In addition, participants who currently coach early childhood educators will receive an invitation to join the Oregon Coaching Companion – a bilingual, online tool supporting Practice Based Coaching with teachers of young children, funded by DELC in partnership with Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington.