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Teaching Practices

Effective, nurturing, and responsive teaching practices and interactions are key for all learning in early childhood settings. They foster trust and emotional security; are communication and language rich; and promote critical thinking and problem-solving. They also support social, emotional, behavioral, and language development; provide supportive feedback for learning; and motivate continued effort. Teaching practices and interactions are responsive to and build on each child’s pattern of development and learning. They can be measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®) and other adult-child interaction tools. These observations may then be used to support professional development. Teaching practices also include how schedules and routines are carried out, how settings are managed, and how children’s challenging behaviors are addressed.

Scaffolding Children's Learning

In this in-service suite teachers learn ways to help children when they struggle to learn a concept or complete an activity.

Making Learning Meaningful

Find out how to make children’s learning meaningful. Also, explore how learning can be relevant in children’s everyday lives.

Using the Scientific Method

This in-service suite describes the steps of the scientific method. Teachers can discover how to use these steps in daily activities with children.

Thick and Thin Conversations

"Thick" conversations are the extended back-and-forth exchanges between a teacher and a child. This in-service suite describes teaching practices to engage children in "thick" conversations.

Asking Questions

Learn the strategies in this in-service suite for using questions to extend conversations with children.

Expansions

Expansions are ways to expand on what a child says or does during a conversation. This in-service suite describes how to use expansions to extend conversations with children to promote their language development.

Thick and Thin Conversations, Birth to Five

"Thick" conversations are the extended back-and-forth exchanges between a teacher and a child. This in-service suite describes teaching practices to engage infants, toddlers, and prescholers in "thick" conversations.