The Role of Curriculum in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs

This workshop session offered an overview of research on why the early acquisition of broad content knowledge is crucial to young children’s later academic success, and provides a guide so that the design, choice, and use of teacher training materials is improved by careful focus on content suitable for three and four year olds. The presenters discussed these findings and what they mean for the improvement of professional development programs for early childhood educators, and offered examples from four new research-based teacher training modules in the content domains of oral language development, early literacy, mathematics, and science.

Full session title: Creating A Well-prepared Teaching Force: The Role of Curriculum Content in Effective Training Programs for Early Childhood Educators

Speakers:

(From left to right)

Barbara Bowman, Erikson 
Institute and Chicago Public Schools.

Sue Bredekamp, Early Childhood 
Education Consultant.

Eugenia Kemble, Albert Shanker 
Institute.

Susan Neuman, University of Michigan (not shown).