In today’s world, there isn’t much technology can’t do. It can help you stay connected to family and friends, keep you on track to achieving your fitness goals, and can even adjust your thermostat while you’re away from home.
And now, with myTeachstone, it can promote positive child-outcomes through facilitating on-going, meaningful, and continuous improvement efforts.
myTeachstone is more than just a technology platform to facilitate improvement. It’s research-based and provides the tools, functionality, and systematic approach to focus, measure, and improve teacher-child interactions— -- a key factor proven to drive children’s academic and life-long success
Research emphasizes six key principles in effectively supporting teacher growth. myTeachstone was built on this research and provides key functionality to easily bring the six proven principles into daily practice. With a research-based platform, you can have full confidence that the practices and improvement efforts are driving real outcomes.
Effective growth happens when teachers have the opportunity to be observed, to receive ongoing coaching, to access meaningful learning experiences, and to engage with other educators. myTeachstone not only streamlines these activities into one platform, but works to ensure they’re all connected. And, with access to research-based resources, and functionality that supports building professional learning communities, you can engage teachers in ways we know drive positive outcomes.
Improvement and change happen over time. myTeachstone facilitates a systematic approach to improvement and can streamline your CLASS® implementation. With the functionality to not only collect informal and formal observation data but to also tie that data to recommended professional development and learning experiences and to have the tools to facilitate consistent, and meaningful coaching opportunities, it drives ongoing improvement.
The dysfunctional design flaw that separates systems of caregiving (childcare) from systems of education (public schools), has been laid bare during the pandemic. For instance, rather than experiencing even hybrid moments of normalcy, most children started the school year virtually, because teachers with young children took permissible and understandable leaves to care for their families. Let’s be clear, the lack of teaching staff has contributed to a deficit of meaningful interactions for this country’s children.
As a CDA with CLASS facilitator, I now recognize that CLASS also helps us think about how we can be present and responsive in supporting the curiosity, engagement, and persistence of adult learners.
I am blessed to be able to support CDA learners, many of whom are returning to formal education for the first time in many years. Some of these learners come from previous educational experiences that were not supportive, that left them feeling that they weren’t good at school or weren’t competent students. But with the right support, these learners can grow their persistence as well as their sense of competence and confidence.
Practice and feedback is the key to CLASS® success. Even the most experienced certified CLASS Observers need practice and feedback to make sure their classroom observations remain fair and accurate. The best way to provide this is to use our Calibration product. Calibration protects your investment in reliable data collection.
Online Calibrations are available for Certified CLASS observers at all 6 CLASS levels. When you purchase an individual calibration, you’ll receive a video to watch and code on your myTeachstone dashboard. After submitting your codes, you’ll get an automated score report and a prerecorded webinar discussing the master codes.
When I first learned about CLASS Group Coaching—a training for early childhood professionals about building relationships with children—I was more than a little interested. This, I thought. This is what teaching is all about. It seems to be an obvious concept, but once we dig deeper, we are able to identify the whys and hows of our interactions. CLASS Group Coaching allows us to identify the benefits of our classroom relationships with our students and helps us be intentional in our daily practices. It allows us to utilize each moment we have with our students to deepen our understanding of their perspectives and genuinely connect with them as people. It helps us see the world from their view and guide their learning in a way that is relevant to them.