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
Workshop based learning
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
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
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.