Effective Classroom Interactions: Supporting Young Children’s Development

Week One – Creating Emotionally SupportiveClassrooms:

We’ll take a closer look at the importance of interactions and thepower that teachers have in the development of young children. This week willinclude an overview of the areas and dimensions of the Teaching throughInteractions Framework. For this course, we’ll focus specifically on the areaof Emotional Support.

Week Two – Building Positive Relationshipswith Children – The dimension of Positive Climate:

This week will focus on thefirst dimension of Emotional Support – Positive Climate. You’ll learn about theimportance of Positive Climate, see examples of real teachers as theydemonstrate effective Positive Climate interactions with their students, and geta chance to analyze what you’re seeing. There will also be an optional homeworkassignment in which you will videotape your own teaching interactions withchildren and then analyze what you see based on what you have learned aboutPositive Climate.

Week Three – Providing Individualized Supportto Young Children – The dimension of Teacher Sensitivity:

This week will focus on the nextdimension of Emotional Support – Teacher Sensitivity. You’ll learn about theimportance of sensitive interactions with children and what sensitiveinteractions look like in real classrooms. You’ll have the opportunity toanalyze classroom videos based on what you know about Teacher Sensitivity.Again, there will be an optional homework assignment in which you willvideotape your own teaching and analyze your interactions looking specificallyat the dimension of Teacher Sensitivity.

Week Four – Supporting Children’sIndependence 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 youngchildren to have opportunities for their voices and perspectives to be heard,as well as how to foster children’s feelings of self-efficacy and positiveself-concepts through your daily interactions. In addition to opportunities toview and analyze classroom interactions based on your knowledge of Regard forChild Perspectives, you’ll have an optional homework assignment allowing you to dothe 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 EmotionalSupport across the course.