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Professional Growth and Development
The College and CECE administration value the professional growth and development of each member of the Fort Hill community.
The CECE offers many opportunities for teachers to engage in professional development opportunities and expects that teachers will pursue high quality professional development independently. Professional development is an integral aspect of the goal-setting and performance review process and the activity should reflect identified areas for gaining knowledge and skill.
Massachusetts EEC Regulations
The EEC regulations require full-time teachers to complete 20 hours of professional development each calendar year. One third of those hours must address diverse learners. Teachers maintain responsibility for obtaining and documenting the required professional development hours online in the EEC Professional Qualifications Registry and in the binder on the shelf above the copier in the office. Teachers must also submit documentation of their hours to the assistant director as part of their EEC personnel file.
Fort Hill annually provides a minimum of seven hours of professional development that address diverse learners.
Please read the EEC Professional Development policy for additional information on meeting the requirements for professional development.
Opportunities for Learning and Development
The College and CECE department offer a wide variety of professional opportunities, which include the activities described below. All professional activities must be approved in advance; teachers complete the documentation as described in the section below, Requesting Time-off and Funding for Professional Development.
Credit Courses
The Smith College Employee Tuition Benefit provides funding for employees to take courses at Smith and other institutions. Please contact Human Resources for details.
Conferences, Workshops, and Lectures
CECE Sponsored events
The CECE provides funding for teachers to attend conferences and workshops provided by external organizations. The department also sponsors events periodically.
smith College events
Smith College offers a wide variety of workshops and trainings. For example, please see see the ITS Technology Training site and the Human Resources Learning and Development site.
The College also sponsors many lectures and symposia each year. Please see the Smith online eDigest for listings of campus-wide events.
Collaboration and Engagement with Colleagues
visits to other schools and programs
Teachers are encouraged to arrange professional visits to other schools.
knowledge and expertise within CECE
The facility and infrastructure support collaboration among classroom teachers with full-light glass doors, connected classrooms and open central spaces. The teachers at Fort Hill are an extraordinary group of educators; the design of the facility, and the structure of the calendar and daily schedules, offer opportunities to learn from each other.
Supervising teachers share common planning time each day. The purpose of this shared time is to support and facilitate collaboration and professional dialogue. The administration strives to provide teachers with additional planning time as frequently as possible to enable them to reflect and communicate the many facets of early childhood education.
A mentoring system provides further opportunities for learning from one another.
Supervising teachers communicate curriculum through blog posts. The process of documenting, editing, and analyzing children’s thoughts and behaviors to communicate to an audience of colleagues and families promotes the growth and development of all involved.
visiting colleagues
The CECE hosts visits from local community programs as well as from throughout the United States. We offer visitors time for observation and dialogue and find these visits enhance our practice and learning, as well.
Department Professional Days
The program closes for monthly professional days and for a week of professional days in August. Supervising teachers have an additional three days during Spring Recess. Each professional days includes opportunities for formal professional activity as well as for meetings and collaboration with colleagues.
Each professional day includes a professional development training. The assistant director provides documentation to each staff member verifying attendance, the title, the number of hours, and the core competency addressed. Staff members are responsible for recording the information in their EEC Professional Qualifications Registry and in the Professional Development binder in the office, and for submitting the documentation to the assistant director to be included in her staff file.
Three days during the Spring Recess are dedicated professional days for supervising teachers to complete a long-term collaborative professional development activity, which they use in a leadership capacity to promote the growth and learning of all members of the Fort Hill community. This may be a research project to investigate a topic of child development, learning or teaching, or may to be to research and articulate a philosophical or curricular aspect of the program.
Web-based Professional Development
Moodle
The CECE director maintains a Moodle site as a platform for teachers to receive EEC professional development hours by completing online learning activities. Each module includes presentations, readings, and written exercise. To receive credit, the student must complete the two Word documents in the module.
Please talk to the director if you have suggestions for additional topics for the Moodle site.
LYnda.com
The College provides access to the online learning site, Lynda.com through the Smith College portal.
Moocs
Teachers are encouraged to explore the opportunities offered through MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) such as EdX and Coursera.
Director’s Blog
The CECE director’s blog provides resources on child child development and education or parents on the Learning and Development page.
Professional Reading
CECE professional library
The CECE director maintains a library of professional books in her office. A bibliography of the collection is available on Moodle. Lending is managed through a card catalogue system.
The director periodically purchases a book for each teacher to engage in a shared reading and discussion. This book reflects the philosophy of the program, supports professional development on a school-wide issue, or may promote discussion on a new initiative. Teachers read the book over the summer and engage in discussion related to the book during the academic-year.
Requesting Time-off and Funding for Professional Development
The director must approve professional development in advance. To request funding and time-off for professional activities, teachers access the Teacher Folder/Forms and Guidelines/Time-off and Professional Day Requests/Professional Development Request Form (please see details in the Time-Off section). Please note the form requires details of the event and the funding required. The directions on the form read:
Please submit this form to request time-off and/or funding to participate in a professional development activity. Professional development activities that align with individual professional goals and school-wide goals and philosophy will be considered for approval.
Before completing this form, please talk to the assistant director to verify that a substitute is available (if one is needed) and submit a time-off request. Please note that the time-off request approval is conditional based on the approval of this Professional Development Request Form. You will receive an e-mail letting you know if this request is approved.
Please submit this form, and confirm approval and time-off, before requesting funding or planning attendance. Once your activity has been approved, please see the office coordinator to make arrangements for payment. All registration payments must be made directly by CECE (i.e., we will not reimburse registration expenses).
Documenting Professional Development
Teachers submit documentation of their professional development activities to the assistant director and to the EEC. The Massachusetts EEC requires that documentation of professional development include:
- Name of the professional development activity
- Topic(s) covered and the core competency area(s) addressed
- Number of contact hours completed
- Date the course or training was completed
- Instructional method (lecture, distance learning, etc.)
- Name of sponsoring organization
When a teacher completes a professional development activity, s/he:
- records her professional development activities in the binder titled Professional Development, which is located on the shelf above the copier in the office.
- submits the documentation to the assistant director.
- records the professional development in her EEC Professional Qualifications Registry.