Key Information
About the content
During the early childhood years children gain knowledge and skills that provide the foundation for later learning. Young children learn many of these skills through the interactions they have with their teachers. This course is intended to increase teachers’ knowledge about specific types of teacher-child interactions that promote young children’s development. The course will focus on helping teachers to offer emotionally supportive interactions to the children in their care.
Syllabus
Week One – Creating Emotionally Supportive
Classrooms:
We’ll take a closer look at the importance of interactions and the power that teachers have in the development of young children. This week will include an overview of the areas and dimensions of the Teaching through Interactions Framework. For this course, we’ll focus specifically on the area of Emotional Support.
Week Two – Building Positive Relationships
with Children – The dimension of Positive Climate:
This week will focus on the first dimension of Emotional Support – Positive Climate. You’ll learn about the importance of Positive Climate, see examples of real teachers as they demonstrate effective Positive Climate interactions with their students, and get a chance to analyze what you’re seeing. There will also be an optional homework assignment in which you will videotape your own teaching interactions with children and then analyze what you see based on what you have learned about Positive Climate.
Week Three – Providing Individualized Support
to Young Children – The dimension of Teacher Sensitivity:
This week will focus on the next dimension of Emotional Support – Teacher Sensitivity. You’ll learn about the importance of sensitive interactions with children and what sensitive interactions look like in real classrooms. You’ll have the opportunity to analyze classroom videos based on what you know about Teacher Sensitivity. Again, there will be an optional homework assignment in which you will videotape your own teaching and analyze your interactions looking specifically at the dimension of Teacher Sensitivity.
Week Four – Supporting Children’s
Independence and Sense of Self – The dimension of Regard for Child Perspectives:
In the final week, you’ll learn about the last Emotional Support dimension – Regard for Child Perspectives. You’ll learn how important it is for young children to have opportunities for their voices and perspectives to be heard, as well as how to foster children’s feelings of self-efficacy and positive self-concepts through your daily interactions. In addition to opportunities to view and analyze classroom interactions based on your knowledge of Regard for Child Perspectives, you’ll have an optional homework assignment allowing you to do the same thing with videotape of your own classroom interactions. Finally, we’ll sum up all that you have learned about all of the dimensions of Emotional Support across the course.
Instructors
- Sarah Lydic - Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL)
- Kathy Neesen - Curry School of Education
- Grace Funk - Curry School of Education
- Allison Leach - Curry School of Education
- Bridget Hamre - Curry School of Education
Content Designer
The University of Virginia (also known as UVA, UVa, Virginia) is located on the east coast of the United States in Charlottesville, Virginia. It has also been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. The university was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third American president.
The University of Virginia is a renowned public institution of higher education that belongs to the Universitas 21 network. Always ranked in the top 25 American universities, it is also part of the "Public Ivies", a network of the best public universities in the country, which are reputed to offer a level of education comparable to that of Ivy League institutions.
Platform
Coursera is a digital company offering massive open online course founded by computer teachers Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller Stanford University, located in Mountain View, California.
Coursera works with top universities and organizations to make some of their courses available online, and offers courses in many subjects, including: physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, data science, and other subjects.
