Making Learning Visible: Places to Play in Rhode Island

Lead Course Instructor(s)
Bethany Carpenter, bcarpenter@provplan.org
Sue Sevegny, ssevegny@provplan.org
Ben Mardell, bmardell@lesley.edu

Alignment to R.I. Workforce Competencies
Competency:  
Teachers and Teacher Assistants 

Domain:  
Curriculum: Context, Process, Teaching and Facilitating, Context, Building Meaningful Curriculum   
Family Engagement: Engaging Families in Their Children’s Development and Learning   
Development and Learning: Child Development   
Observation and Assessment: Conducting Developmentally Appropriate Authentic Assessments, Using Assessment Information in Curriculum Planning

Dates, Times and Location of Course
Classes will meet at Ready to Learn Providence, 945 Westminster St, Providence, RI on the following Tuesdays from 6:00-8:30PM:
February 12
March 19
April 9
April 23
May 7
June 4
June 25
(Culminating celebration event date/time TBD)

Course Description
By engaging participants and their pre-school aged children in creating a guide book to places to play in our state, this seven session course focuses on creating powerful, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that support children’s early literacy and high order thinking skills. Teaching practices that promote the group as a learning environment and the use of documentation and assessment to guide curriculum will be explored. The course includes two classroom visits by a course facilitator that may include modeling of course practices, observation and feedback, and video documentation of project implementation. Teachers, children, and their families will share in a culminating celebration where the guide book will be distributed to make learning visible to the wider community.

Student Learner Outcomes 
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to: 1. Add/expand upon the practice of children giving and receiving (oral) feedback to one another as a strategy for promoting growth and learning of both the individual and the group. 2. Examine and reflect on artifacts (photos, videos, observations, work samples) both individually and in collaboration with colleagues for the purpose of authentic child assessment; use assessment information to adjust curriculum planning. 3. Support children’s growth and learning across multiple domains employing developmentally appropriate practices, with particular focus on Language Development and Communication and Early Literacy (early writing).

 **Priority will be given to teaching teams and multiple teachers from the same center/program are strongly encouraged to register together. Teachers must be in a pre-school or pre-K classroom.  Administrator participation is welcome at all sessions, and is required at the first and sixth sessions in the series.