Empowering teachers to make a genuine difference
“An educator is sometimes the director, sometimes the set designer, sometimes the curtain and the backdrop, and sometimes the prompter - who is even the audience”
A high quality early learning environment cannot exist without its central actors - its educators. At Toddler’s Den, teachers’ roles are multifaceted. They respect the child’s ideas and desires and allow children to learn from their mistakes. They keenly observe children to document their progress and determine appropriate moments to intervene in the child’s learning process. As a part of their daily schedule, teachers get a lot of non-contact time. This allows them to spend time on their own growth, share experiences among themselves, organize a child’s progress document, and accordingly make future lesson plans.
Teacher as a facilitator
As facilitators, teachers encourage open-ended questioning
Teacher as a designer
As designers, teachers create immersive learning spaces and experiences
Teacher as a researcher
As researchers, teachers study and document the learning journey of each child
Teacher as a curator
As curators, teachers compile meaningful learning resources and decide which ones to bring into the classroom
Supporting teacher learning
At Toddler’s Den, we value teachers’ learning and capacity building above everything else. Our holistic approach to teacher education leads to teachers feeling empowered and responsible for their own learning. Because our teachers are provided with personalised professional development, it encourages them to deliver personalised learning experiences to children. Our teacher learning is centred around 3 pillars.
Workshop based learning
Teachers at Toddler’s Den are provided opportunities to attend workshops on a wide range of topics - from classroom management to play-based curriculum design to storytelling and integrated math teaching.
These workshops, usually conducted by thought leaders in different domains are organised throughout the year. Apart from school mandated workshops, teachers are also supported to select and attend workshops aligned to their interest areas. Once a year, our school leaders also visit progressive preschools in different parts of the world to learn from their practices.
Professional learning communities
To develop our educator capacity for learning and leadership, we have created Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for supporting their professional development.
PLCs offer frequent ongoing learning opportunities for educators; they offer personalised opportunities that address educators’ immediate needs and are developed from the data collected from their individual improvement plans. Educators also have the autonomy to define their own needs and organise PLCs around their needs.
Classroom observations
Educators at Toddler’s Den engage in conducting classroom observations of other educators - both experienced and new.
This is followed by a reflective conversation between the observer and the one being observed. This provides teachers with opportunities to provide constructive feedback and implement ideas and suggestions from others. Teachers are provided with a classroom observation criteria so that clear expectations from a classroom environment are established - observing teachers use this criteria as the basis for providing feedback.