Summer is winding down, and every teacher has plans in the works as they look forward to the new school year. Whether you work in a public school, private school, or a child care facility, it’s time to make some plans to get your classrooms ready!

We’ve all had kids in the classroom who push limits, can’t manage their feelings, constantly demand attention. Believe it or not, they are sending you a message. When kids misbehave, they are operating based on mistaken learning. With time, patience, and planning you can help them relearn! If you reframe your thinking about children’s behavior and recognize that misbehavior is usually based on mistaken learning, you are well on your way to helping your kids.

In this vlog, you'll hear an overview of Teacher Sensitivity and Facilitated Exploration at the Infant level. Mary-Margaret introduces Responsive Caregiving and how to improve interactions by looking at an infant's cues that the child may be trying to communicate a need as well as ways to support an infant's exploration. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve interacted with teachers, coaches, and administrators as the “new” year begins for the adults and children in their care. What I am hearing has a common theme—frustration, disappointment, hope. What is going on?  Well, maybe we can use the CLASS to think this through.

So, you're already a pro at conducting a CLASS Observation Training, but providing reliability support to trainees during the testing period can be challenging. Watch the video to learn about group reports, individual reports, and interpreting the score report on the CLASS Affiliate Trainer panel. 

Mary Margaret-Gardiner and Sarah Hadden discuss Student Expression from the Pre-K dimension Regard for Student Perspectives. You'll learn how to recognize Student Expression in a classroom, the importance of looking at dimensions as a whole when you're coding, and more.

We’ve all heard at some time or another: “I’ve done hundreds of observations; I don’t need my manual!”

In a recent training, one of my participants asked if using the manual was necessary if you’ve done many observations throughout the years. My answer was a resounding “YES!!!” It may be tempting to skip the steps necessary to code reliably, but it's not a good idea. No matter how objective we think we might be while coding a classroom, our bias can sneak up on us and cause us to assign codes that don’t fit with the evidence we've collected. 

When training on the Infant and Toddler CLASS, the importance of cue detection can’t be stressed enough to your participants. Infants and toddlers depend on a sensitive and responsive adult to recognize the messages or cues that they are sending. These "bids for attention" are the way then that children communicate, essentially asking adults to respond in a way that meets each child’s individual needs. And whether we are coding or caregiving, starting with cues is the way to go!

Dear Master Coders,

I recently heard about risk competency and big body play at a local teaching conference. I have spent time considering this in relation to our Head Start program. One of the questions I have been asking myself is how some play that might be considered "roughhousing" will impact CLASS scores in Behavior Management. Behaviors that typically appear aggressive (pushing, hitting, building a "sword" out of markers and then using it to inadvertently hit another child) lower the score in this dimension. Do I change the way I view this interaction in terms of CLASS? Does this put me at risk for no longer being reliable? What advice do you have regarding this? 

Thanks!

If anyone has ever spent any time in one of the Observation trainings (or TTT programs) that I facilitate, it becomes quite obvious early on that behavioral markers aren’t my go to for helping learners understand coding. You’ll even see me encouraging learners to cover them up when they are considering ranges on their face pages! That being said, they do have their purpose… but before we get to that, here’s why I’m a bit resistant to rely on behavioral markers during training. Markers are great as an introduction to the tool, but not so great for coding! Here’s why.