Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary target audiences for the VLS are teachers, child and youth professionals, Training & Curriculum Specialists, family childcare providers, and new management staff in the military child development and school-age care system. This year, we also began developing a youth-professional focused track, so eventually we will also have content live on the site to support those working with 12-18-year-olds in recreation and afterschool/summer youth programs. In the best tradition of the university land-grant system, 95% of the VLS is also available for public use, allowing college students and public and private childcare workers and providers to use the site to enhance their skills as child care professionals. The VLS is included in the Administration for Children and Families' Early Educator Central and was highlighted on their recent brief, An Exploration of Online Professional Development Systems Supporting the Competencies of Infant and Toddler Teachers and Caregivers: Key Findings and Next Steps for Learning (see https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/exploration-online-professional-development-systems-supporting-competencies-infant), which links the VLS to child care professionals outside the military system. Last year, our site was accessed by over 1.23 million visitors with over 20.1 million page views, demonstrating that the content is reaching a large audience interested in evidence-based early care and education. The VLS site is active, and all audiences have begun using the site. Our newer site developments, such as our expanding Focused Topics courses, Targeted Professional Development modules, supplemental trainings, and recorded Live Leadership Webinars also help support more seasoned child care professionals. Changes/Problems:We have requested a no cost extension to utilize the remaining funds in FY25 to accomplish goals co-constructed with DoD and Service level leadership. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to the robust enhancements to the asynchronous online content documented in other parts of this report, below we outline the two main forms of live professional development we provided during FY24: Live Leadership Webinars (LLWs): We continued to offer quarterly 1-hour, live seminars via Government Zoom for CYP program leaders. The VLS team consults with DoD and Service leads to identify leadership training needs. These live sessions are recorded and saved on the VLS site so CYP professionals can access them later; see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/recorded-sessions/leadership. In the list below, we highlight some of the quantitative data gathered from the LLWs including the number of registered participants, attendees per session, and anonymous feedback highlights. 1. September 2023, Leadership's Role in Child Abuse Prevention & Awareness: This session had 689 registrations and 562 live viewers. After the training, participants who provided feedback (n=203) agreed or strongly agreed that "they could recognize the factors that may influence institutional abuse and reporting" (98%), and "they can describe strategies and tools that can help staff reflect on and practice responding to situations that involve or may involve abuse and neglect" (97%). 2. November 2023, Supporting Strong Literacy Practices in Your Program: This session had 181 registrations and 107 live viewers. After the training, participants who provided feedback (n=38) agreed or strongly agreed that they can "identify specific practices that support literacy development in child and youth programs" (95%), and they can "identify VLS tools and resources that support language and literacy rich environments and interactions" (100%). 3. February 2024, Giving Staff Voice & Choice: Leadership Strategies that Empower Staff: This session had 123 registrations and 78 live viewers. After the training, participants who provided feedback (n=37) agreed or strongly agreed that they can "recognize spaces in [their] program where [they] can engage staff in shared decision-making" (95%), and they "can identify ways to enhance the leadership capacity of staff members" (98%). 4. May 2024, Best Practices for Using the Caregiver Observation and Reflection Tool (CORT): This session had 161 registrations and 174 live viewers.[LS1] After the training, participants who provided feedback (n=37) agreed or strongly agreed that they "can explain why regular and consistent observations and feedback with CYP professionals are important" (97%), and they "can describe how the CORT can be used to have supportive coaching conversations and set goals with program professionals" (95%). In-person training sessions: In Dec 2023, April, and July 2024 we offered 3-day, 20-hour training sessions for new T&CSs and PMs that included the topics outlined below. In total, more than 240 T&Cs, PMs, or child and youth program leaders were trained as part of these sessions. These sessions involved small-group exploration and discussion, a mixture of lecture-style presentations with opportunities for self-reflection and individual engagement with the site, and many chances to practice new skills with peers. Some of the key topics in these sessions were: 1. Self-reflection: An essential component of the VLS and practice change 2. Research that informs the VLS 3. VLS Overview: DC tracks, T&CS and Management 4. Tools available to support coaching and training progression 5. VLS dashboard/Learning Management System 6. Coaching: A practice-based model using and extending the VLS 7. SELF-T (Social Emotional Learning for Teachers): Creating a culture of resiliency 8. Using the VLS to support seasoned professionals: Link to annual training 9. Unpacking the Program Manager's role: Reflective supervision 10. Challenging behavior: A case study, highlighting and extending the VLS 11. Coaching and mentoring: Another look with focus on goal setting and follow-up 12. Supporting team collaboration: Teamwork and partnerships between T&CSs and Program Managers At the end of every session, we ask attendees to complete an anonymous feedback form, which includes a set of statements in which attendees can report their agreement on a 5-point scale (1=very NOT true, 5=very true). Below we highlight aggregate quantitative feedback from the Dec and April attendees who completed the form (n=132). After the training, participants indicated they "better understood what the Virtual Lab School is" (% agree or strongly agree = 98.5%, M=4.89, SD = 0.46); felt "better prepared to support VLS implementation and training in [their] program" (% agree or strongly agree = 99.3%, M=4.80, SD = 0.42); felt "better prepared to coach staff or providers" (% agree or strongly agree = 98.4%, M=4.73, SD = 0.48); felt "better prepared to support teamwork and collaboration in [their] program" (% agree or strongly agree = 96.3%, M=4.72, SD = 0.53); "have selected a SMART goal and feel ready to work on it when [they] return" (% agree or strongly agree = 91.7%, M=4.55, SD = 0.69); and felt "better prepared to support [their] own and others' self-care" (% agree or strongly agree = 96.2%, M=4.63, SD = 0.56). In addition to these three sessions for new T&CSs and PMs, we also offered our second extended VLS training in March 2024 to 70 T&CSs. This session was developed for T&CSs who have attended VLS in-person training prior to 2020, with the goal of enhancing quality coaching practices and adult learning strategies. This two-and-a-half--day session (18 hours) addressed the following topics: 1. Refresher on evidence-based practices for quality coaching: T&CSs essential for program quality 2. Relationships as the basis for adult learning: Establishing, maintaining, growing 3. Quality observations: Strategies and practices 4. Quality feedback that leads to self-efficacy and change 5. Supports for new and more seasoned employees including T&CSs and PMs 6. Dashboard (LMS) updates and best practices 7. Enhancing well-being across the program 8. Goal selection and setting SMART goals: The basis for action planning 9. Personal leadership: Honoring your personal leadership philosophy 10. Time management: Self-regulated learning and strategies 11. Fostering strong family-program partnerships and navigating challenges 12. Pulling it together: Designing and getting feedback on your personal practice goals and action plans 13. Creating and enhancing collaboration and supporting teamwork 14. Identifying implementation goals and next steps From the anonymous feedback form given at the end of this session, we highlight the following quantitative feedback from March's attendees (n = 63). After the training, participants indicated they could "identify several strategies to support strong relationships and trust with people in [their] program." (% agree or strongly agree = 100%, M=4.89, SD = 0.32); felt "better prepared to gather quality observation notes to support [their] coaching " (% agree or strongly agree = 100%, M=4.84, SD = 0.37); felt "better prepared to plan and give quality feedback that supports providers' reflective practice" (% agree or strongly agree = 100%, M=4.79, SD = 0.41); "have new information about the VLS and new ideas about how [they] can use it in [their] program" (% agree or strongly agree = 100%, M=4.92, SD = 0.27); felt "better prepared to create quality SMART goals and action plans with staff/providers" (% agree or strongly agree = 98.4%, M=4.58, SD = 0.50); and felt they better understood their "personal leadership style/philosophy" (% agree or strongly agree = 95.3%, M=4.62, SD = 0.58); felt they "learned new ideas about supporting staff/providers' relationships with families" (% agree or strongly agree = 98.4%, M=4.78, SD = 0.46), and they had "selected a SMART goals and feel ready to work on it when [they] return to [their] program" (% agree or strongly agree = 96.8%, M=4.73, SD=0.52). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Within the military system, the DoD and the Services continue to promote the VLS to their personnel; indeed, the VLS has become the central professional development system for military-affiliated child care professionals serving children birth through age 12 and will be expanding to those serving youth as well ( i.e., to those working with up to age 18). The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) also continues to list the VLS as a key professional development asset on their Early Educator Central website, an Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)- sponsored project. Additionally, the VLS was recognized in an OPRE publication examining online, competency-based PD options for infant and toddler professionals (The Infant and Toddler Teacher and Caregiver Competencies [ITTCC], see https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/exploration-online-professional-development-systems-supporting-competencies-infant). Over the past year, VLS team members have presented the VLS model internationally at peer-reviewed accepted presentation sessions at the American Education Research Association and Society for Research in Child Development conferences. We have also presented our work nationally at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference, and more locally, for our state, at The Ohio State University's College of Education and Human Ecology Research forum. In addition, our web analytics show that our site is accessed by many public visitors in addition to our military-affiliated target audience. Over the last year, the VLS had more than 1.23 million visitors, with over 20.1 million page views and 2.23 million site sessions. This represents a 52% increase in the number of pageviews compared with FY22. When people visit the site, we saw the average number of pages viewed per session was 8.14, which is a 25% increase from FY22 traffic, and that visitors spent an average of 8.06 minutes interacting with the site when they come, which represents a 14.5% increase from FY22. In the past year we have also made our LLW publicly accessible, so all our recorded webinars are now available to the broader public in addition to the military-specific audience. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We list our main goals for FY25 relative to each focal area below: Focal Area 1: Provide all maintenance and support necessary to maintain the Virtual Lab School web presence; Priorities in this area: 1. We will be reviewing the Coaching Competency reflection, using both stakeholder feedback and the latest research on quality, practice-based coaching to refine this tool to support intentional self-reflection, goal setting, and action planning for Training & Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs). 2. The Tech team on the VLS will continue to maintain and upgrade the back-end coding and security patches to make sure the site is compliant. They will also continue to monitor feedback on our site to identify relevant upgrades and user experience enhancements, including specific attention to site navigation in FY25. Ongoing maintenance: 1. We will continue to conduct quarterly checks of weblinks embedded across the site and repair links to moved or older material. 2. We will continue to review updates from various relevant national accrediting organizations and bodies (e.g., the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and new child development, early education, and out-of-school time research and make appropriate updates. 3. We will continue to review, track, gather, and edit relevant video footage, creating new practice- or expert-informed videos or refine present videos to align with updated standards or new research. Focal Area 2: Continue the development of competencies for providers, trainers, and managers within the child, youth and family child care environments; 1. Over FY25 we will build an additional two to four Targeted Professional Development modules based on guidance from DoD and relevant Service leadership. 2. We will continue the development of the youth track by drafting six more courses toward the full set of 15 foundational courses targeted at those working with youth ages 12-18. For each of the six courses, we will develop full lesson narratives, accompanying practice-based videos, end of course assessments, and competency reflections. We will also work to revise and implement the edits from DoD and the Services for the first six courses developed in FY24. Focal Area 3: Continue technical assistance for the deployment of competencies on military installations as they are developed; 1. We will continue to refine the "professional development catalog" that we offer to T&CSs and PMs to meet their individualized goals and annual training requirements. We currently offer a hard copy version to all training attendees and will continue to reflect on ways this tool could be available on our site. 2. We will develop new pages to allow military personnel to quickly access incoming DoD messages and directives that apply to all military childcare providers and support staff. 3. We will continue to respond to VLS support requests, assisting CYP professionals with proper use of the site. Focal Area 4: Provide training to installation-level personnel, 1. In collaboration with the DoD, we are set to offer four in-person training sessions over FY25 for T&CSs and PMs, with each session supporting 90 participants. These sessions prepare T&CSs and PMs to properly implement the VLS, research, and best practices in supporting adult learners, creating collaborative work environments, engaging in continuous quality improvement, and sustaining high-quality child and youth programs. As noted in this report, one session will be an extended offering for T&CSs who attended VLS training prior to 2024. Also, of these four sessions, two will be conducted with ICF to specifically support the launch of the Family Child Care (FCC) Home Visitor Observation Tool. We will be modifying these FCC-specific trainings based on the pilot training conducted this July 2024. 2. We will continue to offer quarterly "Live Leadership Webinars" for T&CSs and/or PMs based on attendee/user feedback and Service/DoD requests. These hour-long trainings, offered via Government Zoom, focus on the latest research in child development, early care and education, and/or school-age care, and include a focus on practice-based strategies and implementation supports across the VLS. These are also recorded and archived on our site. Focal Area 5: Collect ongoing feedback from users to enhance content and incorporate system improvements. We will continue to collect feedback in the following ways to inform the elements listed above: 1. Anonymously on feedback forms at the end of each in-person training session. 2. Through brief surveys at the end of each Live Leadership Webinar. 3. During our bi-monthly virtual meetings with the VLS Working group, made up of child and youth specialists/leaders from the DoD and the Services. 4. During our quarterly virtual meetings with the VLS Youth-specific working group, to support the development of the Youth track. 5. At bi-annual virtual or in-person check-ins with key project contacts within the DoD's Office of Military Readiness Policy's Children, Youth and Families (OMFRP's CYF) division. 6. During community-based pilots of VLS materials, courses, and systems. 7. During Service/DoD leadership review of Targeted Professional Development modules and new Youth Courses. 8. During virtual conversations to gather feedback on various VLS tools and resources. 9. Through VLS support request emails, which are logged and categorized to inform user enhancements.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Focal Area 1: The Virtual Lab School (VLS) team continues to maintain and refine our main PD system which includes: 90 Foundational Courses that are specialized across six Foundational Tracks, tailored to the work of infant/toddler (IT) and preschool (PS) teachers, school-age (SA) staff members, family child care (FCC) providers, Training & Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs), and Program Managers (PMs), and 15 Focused Topics (FT) courses. We highlight below under "Focal Area 2" the new PD supports and trainings we developed in FY24, but regarding the key content and technical enhancements: Content enhancements: 1. Continuing work from FY21-23, our team finalized and deployed robust narrative, activity, and video enhancements across the final Foundational Courses on the site. In FY24 we updated 20 courses, finishing all foundational leadership-oriented courses in the T&CS and PM tracks. As part of the revisions, and in addition to the content upgrades, the activities and resources within these tracks were converted from PDFs to HTML activities, facilitating in-line completion. 2. Integrated 28 new Child Development Associate (CDA)-related activities and supports to prepare staff seeking this FCC credential from the Council for Professional Recognition. See https://www.virtuallabschool.org/cda 3. Based on user feedback from meetings held with T&CSs across the four Services, our team developed and implemented several enhancements to the Caregiver Observation and Reflection Tool (CORT) including adding more detailed school age examples, adding an additional competency under balanced and differentiated instruction, integrating attention to mentoring and modeling of new staff, and making the tool a fillable PDF with additional space for note-taking. These enhancements were deployed in spring 2024, see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/news/caregiving-observation-reflection-tool-updates 4. Continued to complete other content maintenance including integration of the new infant health and safety guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, updated physical activity standards, and updated child abuse reporting requirements within military child care, weblink maintenance, quarterly newsletters, sharing recordings and resources related to our Live Leadership Webinars (LLWs), and coordinating with the DoD on updates to the Early Learning Matters (ELM) curriculum. Technical enhancements: As stated in the previous reports, in FY22 we released an entirely new core codebase across the site. As with most major upgrades to existing applications, there were bugs introduced to the VLS site and considerable effort was made over FY23-24 to address and correct bugs as they were discovered or reported. During FY24 we made significant upgrades including: 1. Upgraded from Drupal 9 to version 10 , this involved not only significant code revisions, but several rounds of quality assurance testing to ensure we maintained proper site functioning during this upgrade. 2. Bug fixes to ensure consistent navigation to end of course assessments 3. Bug fixes to ensure T&CS and PM foundational track certificates were issued when all courses within each respective track were completed 4. Enhancements to video creation processes, from upgrading video storage, encoding and delivery of produced video content. [BD2] 5. Developed numerous updates that addressed smaller bugs or that enhanced site legibility, responsiveness, and other quality of life improvements Focal Area 2: Relative to the second focal area in FY24 we: 1. Made final revisions to a new FT course, Valuing and Building Family Child Care, based on DoD leadership and Service feedback, releasing this course in October 2023, see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/news/new-focused-topics-course-family-child-care. 2. We developed, reviewed, and deployed 2 new Targeted Professional Development (TPD) modules over FY24, aimed primarily at DC professionals as requested by Service and DoD leaders. These topics included: 1) Promoting Healthy Eating Habits, and 2) Understanding Your Role in Active Supervision. We developed fewer TPDs during this annual cycle to address the DoD's request to 1) design a series of supplemental child abuse trainings and accompanying supports, and 2) develop a track for youth serving professionals. 3. Supplemental Child Abuse Trainings and Associated Supports: Continuing the work from FY23, we completed the final supplemental training module, i.e. "Enhancing Protective Factors of Children & Families" and relevant supplemental tools to support continued conversations and follow-up about this topic and we developed, presented, and recorded a specialized LLW, "Leadership's Role in Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness" to extend this supplemental child abuse prevention, identification, and reporting suite of resources. 4. At DoD's request, we developed an over-arching plan and began initial development for a new VLS track for youth professionals. In FY24, we developed--and the Services reviewed--9 course outlines, and wrote full first drafts for 6 of the 15 courses, including 7 filming visits to capture relevant video footage. DoD and Service leadership will review the first 3 courses behind the VLS log-in in July-August of 2024. Focal Area 3: Regarding technical assistance, our support in this area reflects three larger accomplishments: 1. Building off the "Method Guidance" for the FCC Home Visiting Observation Tool (FCCHVOT) developed in FY22, we had 5+ meetings to plan for and develop pilot training around best coaching practices when implementing the FCCHVOT. Project Director and Associate Director will complete the first pilot training this summer, July-August 2024. 2. Our largest form of technical assistance, beyond the training described below, is the fact that our VLS learning management system (LMS) now contains and maintains the training records of more than 67,000 military-affiliated child care professionals. Over the past year, our site helped these professionals earn more than 80,500 course certificates, amassing more than 495,000 hours of certified PD hours. Since 2016, military-affiliated users have earned more than 2.7 million clock hours of PD. 3. We continue to respond to user support requests. In FY23 we received over 1,800 support requests and were able to assist users with account fixes when necessary. We also continue to maintain a robust support site to help users navigate newly released features (see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/support). Focal Area 4: During FY24, we provided four in-person training events and we continued to offer LLWs quarterly. We describe our training efforts in more detail in the "What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?" section. Focal Area 5: We continued to collect feedback in the following ways: 1. Anonymously on feedback forms at the end of each in-person training session, 2. Through brief surveys at the end of each LLW, 3. During our bimonthly virtual meetings with the VLS Working group, made up of child and youth specialists/leaders from the DoD and the Services, 4. At bi-annual virtual check-ins with key project contacts within the DoD's Office of Military Readiness Policy's Children, Youth and Families (OMFRP's CYF) division, 5. With monthly emails and bi-monthly phone calls with key contacts in the DoD's OMFRP's CYF division, 6. During Service/DoD leadership review of TPD modules, Supplemental Child Abuse Trainings and the new Youth courses, and 7. Through VLS support or training request emails, which are logged and categorized to inform user enhancements.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Tebben, E, Ryu, D., Odean, R., Knight, K. M., Tyree, J., Luckey, S. W., Fox, E. G., & Buettner, C. K. (2024). Examining the implementation of the VLS Momentum project: A hybrid approach to supporting foundational practices in early care and education. Early Childhood Education Journal.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Fox, E.G., Lang, S.N. & Tebben, E. (2024). Planning for Play in Early Childhood Classrooms. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01591-8
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Tebben, E., Fox, E. G., Hudson, A., Geraghty, C., Ryu, D., & Lang, S. N. (June, 2024). What makes for effective coaching? A qualitative investigation of coaches' perspectives in early care and education. Paper symposium at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) National Research Conference on Early Childhood (NRCEC). Within NRCEC Paper symposium title: Coaching effectiveness: Investigating implementation and benefits for early childhood classrooms.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Ryu, D., Tebben, E., Fox, E., Geraghty, C., & Lang, S. N. (April, 2024). Professional development to enhance educators KSDs in supporting childrens self and cultural understanding. Roundtable paper session at the American Educational Research Association (AREA) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Knight, K. M., Matesick, K. E. (November, 2023). Giving Staff Choice & Voice: Leadership Strategies that Empower Staff. Oral presentation given at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) annual conference, Nashville, TN.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Knight, K. M., Buettner, D., Pickett, J., Lang, S. N. (2023). Virtual Lab School Development, Enhancement, and Training Report for FY2023, October 2022 September 2023.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Buettner, C. K. Knight, K. M., Artman-Meeker, K., Buettner, D., Pickett, J., et al. (2016-2024). The Department of Defense Child Development Virtual Laboratory School. Retrieved from http://www.virtuallabschool.org/
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Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary target audiences for the VLS are caregivers/teachers, Training & Curriculum Specialists, family childcare providers, and new management staff in the military child development and school-age care system. However, in the best tradition of the university land-grant system, the VLS is also available for public use, allowing college students and public and private childcare workers and providers to use the site to enhance their skills as child care professionals. The VLS is included in the Administration for Children and Families' Early Educator Central and was highlighted on their recent brief, An Exploration of Online Professional Development Systems Supporting the Competencies of Infant and Toddler Teachers and Caregivers: Key Findings and Next Steps for Learning (see https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/exploration-online-professional-development-systems-supporting-competencies-infant), which links the VLS to child care professionals outside the military system. Last year, our site was accessed by over 1.3 million visitors with over 13.2 million page views, demonstrating that the content is reaching a large audience interested in evidence-based early care and education. The VLS site is active and all audiences have begun using the site. Our new site developments also help support more seasoned child care professionals and help track their professional development engagement and growth. Changes/Problems:Due to staff turnover and new systems and procedures within our college and university human resources office, we were unable to hire staff as quickly as we had planned. The unused funding originally targeted for these positions will be leveraged toward additional training sessions, filming visits, and personnel to support DoD requests within our grant's focal areas in FY24. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As described under "What was accomplished relative to the goals of this grant in FY23", our site, which is entirely devoted to the training and support of child and youth professionals, was significantly enhanced over this past year. In addition to these robust adjustments to the asynchronous online content, below we outline the two main forms of live professional development we provided during FY23: Live Leadership Webinars (LLWs): We continued to offer quarterly one-hour, online seminars for CYP program leaders. The VLS team works in consultation with DoD and Service leads to identify leadership training needs. The webinars are offered live via Government Zoom These live sessions are recorded and saved on the VLS site so that CYP professionals with VLS accounts can access them later; see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/recorded-sessions/leadership At the conclusion of each webinar, we invite attendees to share anonymous feedback. In the list below, we highlight some of the quantitative data gathered from the LLWs including the number of registered participants, attendees per session, and feedback highlights. September 2022, Supporting Early Mental Health and Suicide Prevention: Research & VLS Supports: This session had 314 registrations and 152 live viewers. After the training, participants (n=51) agreed or strongly agreed that they could "recognize factors that affect mental health in children and youth" (91%), "identify behavioral signs and symptoms of potential mental health challenges in children and youth" (89%), "describe strategies to build resiliency and prevent suicide" (89%), and "identify tools within the VLS that can help [them] to support the mental health and well-being of children, staff, and families" (91%). November 2022, Updates to Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Guide for Program Leaders: This session had 191 registrations and 103 live viewers. After the training, participants (n=38) agreed or strongly agreed that they "now have a better understanding of the more major changes in the most recent edition of NAEYC's Developmentally Appropriate Practice" (94%), could "identify the three core considerations for intentional teaching and decision making" (93%), could "identify new DAP resources to support staff members" (96 %) and "tools within the VLS that can align with the Developmentally Appropriate Practice updates" (94%). February 2023, Time Management & Organization in Leadership: This session had 428 registrations and 206 live viewers. After the training, participants (n=87) agreed or strongly agreed that they could "identify tools to use in order to manage [their] time efficiently and effectively" (93%), "recognize the difference between urgent and important tasks and how to prioritize [their] day" (92%), "identify the areas in program management that work best with an organizational system" (95%), and "identify VLS tools and strategies to become a more organized and productive leader" (95%). May 2023, Promoting Active Play & Physical Wellness in Children & Youth: This session had 170 registrations and 66 live viewers (with some chat messages indicating multiple professionals at one location were watching together). After the training (n=45) agreed or strongly agreed that they could "recognize the benefits of daily movement & physical activity" (100%), "identify the recommended amounts of physical activity for children and youth" (100%), "describe the ways child and youth programs can support children's physical development and healthy habits" (100%), and "identify VLS tools and strategies to engage children & youth in developmentally appropriate physical activities" (98%). 2. In-person training sessions: In FY23 we conducted four in-person training sessions to support T&CSs and PMs. In October 2022, December 2022, and April 2023 we offered a three-day, 20-hour training session aimed at new T&CSs and PMs that included the topics outlined below. In total, more than 270 T&Cs, PMs, or child and youth program leaders were trained. Much of the training involved small-group exploration and collaboration, offering a mixture of lecture-style presentations with opportunities for self-reflection and individual engagement with the site, and many chances to practice new skills with peers. This was the main outline for these VLS trainings for new T&CSs and PMs. Self-reflection, which is essential to the VLS and changing practice Research that informs the VLS VLS Overview--Focus on the DC Tracks VLS T&C and Management Track Overview Tools Available to Support Coaching and Training Progression (Course Guides, Competency Reflections, and End of Course Assessments) VLS Dashboard/Learning Management System Coaching: A Practice-Based Model Using and Extending the VLS SELF-T (Social Emotional Learning for Teachers): Creating a Culture of Resiliency Using the VLS to Support Seasoned Professionals: Link to Annual Training Unpacking the Program Manager's Role: Reflective Supervision Challenging Behavior: A Case Study, Highlighting and Extending the VLS Coaching and Mentoring: Another Look with Focus on Goal Setting and Follow-up Supporting Team Collaboration: Teamwork and Partnerships between T&CSs and Program Managers Selecting & Sharing your SMART practice goal--Supporting your Own and your Colleagues' Next Steps Coaching: A Program Perspective At the end of every training session, we ask attendees to complete an anonymous feedback form. Below we highlight aggregate quantitative feedback from the October, December and April attendees (n=222). Please note that attendees were asked to rate on a 5-point scale (1=very NOT true, 5=very true) their agreement with the following statements about the training. After the training, participants indicated they "better understood what the Virtual Lab School is" (% agree or strongly agree = 99.2%, M=4.91, SD = 0.31); felt "better prepared to support VLS implementation and training in [their] program" (% agree or strongly agree = 97.7%, M=4.80, SD = 0.48); felt "better prepared to coach staff or providers" (% agree or strongly agree = 96.9%, M=4.73, SD = 0.53); felt "better prepared to support teamwork and collaboration in [their] program" (% agree or strongly agree = 95.5%, M=4.70, SD = 0.55); "have selected a SMART goal and feel ready to work on it when [they] return" (% agree or strongly agree = 87.4%, M=4.50, SD = 0.82); and felt "better prepared to support [their] own and others' self-care" (% agree or strongly agree = 95.5%, M=4.68, SD = 0.56). In addition to these three sessions for new T&CSs and PMs, at the request of DoD and Service leads we also developed and will offer our first "refresher" or "re-engagement" training this summer (July 2023) to 90 T&CSs. This session specifically targets T&CSs who have attended VLS in-person training prior to 2020, with the goal of enhancing quality coaching practices and adult learning strategies. This two-and-a-half--day session (18 hours) will address the following topics: Refresher on Evidence-Based Practices for Quality Coaching: T&CSs essential for program quality Relationships as the basis for adult learning: establishing, maintaining, growing Quality observations: strategies and practices Quality feedback that leads to self-efficacy and change Supports for new and more seasoned employees, including T&CSs and PMs Dashboard (LMS) updates and best practices Enhancing well-being across the program Goal selection and setting SMART goals: the basis for action planning Personal Leadership: Honoring your personal leadership philosophy Time Management: Self-regulated learning and strategies Fostering strong family-program partnerships and navigating challenges Pulling it together--designing and getting feedback on your personal practice goals and action plans Creating and enhancing collaboration and supporting teamwork Identifying implementation goals and next steps How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Within the military system, the DoD and the Services continue to promote the VLS to their personnel; indeed, the VLS has become the central professional development system for military-affiliated child care professionals serving children birth through age 12. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) also continues to list the VLS as a key professional development asset on their Early Educator Central website, an Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)-sponsored project. Additionally, the VLS was recognized in an OPRE publication examining online competency-based PD options for infant and toddler professionals (The Infant and Toddler Teacher and Caregiver Competencies (ITTCC), see https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/exploration-online-professional-development-systems-supporting-competencies-infant). Over the past year, VLS team members have presented the VLS model internationally at peer-reviewed accepted presentation sessions at the European Early Childhood Education Research Conference and the Society for Research in Child Development. We have also presented our work nationally at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference, and more locally, for our state, at The Ohio State University's College of Education and Human Ecology Research forum. In addition, our web analytics showthat our site is accessed by many public visitors in addition to our military-affiliated target audience. Over the last year, the VLS had more than 1.3 million visitors, with over 13.2 million page views and 2.2 million site sessions. This represents a 53% increase in the number of pageviews compared with FY21. When people visit the site, we saw the average number of pages viewed per session was 6.51, whichis a 95% increase from FY21 traffic, and that visitors spent an average of 7.04 minutes interacting with the site when they come, which represents a 13% increase from FY21. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We list our main goals for FY24 relative to each focal area below: Focal Area 1: Provide all maintenance and support necessary to maintain the Virtual Lab School web presence; More major goals in this area: Our VLS team will finish its review and deployment of the external subject matter experts' suggested revisions across the T&CS and Management tracks, building interactive, HTML-fillable activities for these courses as we publish them. Based on feedback gathered through meetings with T&CSs across the Services and in consultation with DoD and Service leaders, we will plan and implement updates to the Caregiver Observation and Reflection Tool (CORT). Integrate CDA supports for FCC providers. The Tech team on the VLS will help with deploying these modifications and will continue to monitor feedback on our site to identify relevant upgrades and user experience enhancements, including attention to site navigation. Ongoing maintenance: We will continue to conduct quarterly checks of weblinks embedded across the site and repair links to moved or older material. We will continue to review updates from various relevant national accrediting organizations and bodies (e.g., the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Center for Disease Control) and new child development, early education, and out of school time research and make appropriate updates. We will continue to review, track, gather and edit relevant video footage, creating new practice- or expert-informed videos or refine present videos to better align with best practices. Focal Area 2: Continue the development of competencies for providers, trainers, and managers within the child, youth and family child care environments; Over FY24 we will build an additional four to six Targeted Professional Development modules based on guidance from DoD and relevant Service leadership. We will revise the FT course aimed at Family Child Care Coordinators based on DoD and Service leader feedback and deploy this live on the site. We will begin to plan for the development of youth courses (a track devoted to those working with children age10-18) and draft the first few courses. If endorsed by the DoD/Services, we will also begin to develop the Leadership Credential program so that we can begin piloting at the end of FY24 or early FY25. Focal Area 3: Continue technical assistance for the deployment of competencies on military installations as they are developed; We will incorporate activities throughout the FCC Foundational Courses that will assist FCC candidates seeking their Child Development Associate (CDA) credential in completing the required professional portfolio elements, building upon the work completed this year for IT and PS teachers. This allows? FCC providers who wish to pursue their CDA to build the necessary components as they work through the Foundational coursework, and supports providers seeking CDA renewal as well as monitors, coordinators, administrators or T&CSs who are working with FCC providers. We will continue seeking feedback and begin to plan for a "professional development catalogue" that would support staff in selecting training that meets their individualized goals and annual training requirements. We currently offer a hard copy version to all training attendees, but we would like to identify a way for this to live on our site. Focal Area 4: Provide training to installation level personnel, In collaboration with the DoD, we are set to offer four in-person training sessions over FY24 for T&CSs and PMs, with each session supporting 90 participants. These sessions prepare T&CSs and PMs to properly implement the VLS, research, and best practices in supporting adult learners, creating collaborative work environments, engaging in continuous quality improvement, and sustaining high-quality child and youth programs. As noted in this report, some sessions will be "re-engagement" offerings for T&CSs who attended VLS training prior to 2020. At the request of the DoD, we will continue to refine plans for a credentialling program for child care leaders, leveraging the VLS training for T&CSs and PMs. At the DoD's direction, we will begin piloting this idea in late FY24 or early FY25. We will continue to offer quarterly "Live Leadership Webinars" for T&CSs and/or PMs based on attendee/user feedback and Service/DoD requests. These hour-long trainings, offered via Government Zoom, focus on the latest research in child development, early care and education, and/or school-age care, and include a focus on practice-based strategies and implementation supports across the VLS. These are also archived on our site. Focal Area 5: Collect ongoing feedback from users to enhance content and incorporate system improvements. We will continue to collect feedback in the following ways to inform the elements listed above: Anonymously on feedback forms at the end of each in-person training session. Through brief surveys at the end of each Live Leadership Webinar. During our quarterly virtual meetings with the VLS Working group, made up of child and youth specialists/leaders from the DoD and the Services. At bi-annual virtual or in-person check-ins with key project contacts within the DoD's Office of Military Readiness Policy's Children, Youth and Families (OMFRP's CYF) division. During community-based pilots of VLS materials, courses, and systems. During Service/DoD leadership review of Targeted Professional Development modules and new Focused Topics Courses. During virtual conversations to gather feedback on various VLS tools and resources. Through VLS support request emails, which are logged and categorized to inform user enhancements.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Focal Area 1: The Virtual Lab School (VLS) team continues to maintain and refine our main PD system which includes: 90 Foundational Courses that are specialized across six Foundational Tracks, tailored to the work of infant/toddler (IT) and preschool (PS) teachers, school-age (SA) staff members, family child care (FCC) providers, Training & Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs), and Program Managers (PMs), and 14 Focused Topics (FT) courses. We highlight below under "Focal Area 2" the new PD supports and trainings we developed in FY23, but regarding the key content and technical enhancements: Content enhancements: Continuing work from FY21 and 22, our team finalized and deployed robust narrative, activity, and video enhancements across the Foundational Courses on the site. In FY23 we updated 42 courses (220 lessons), finishing all foundational direct care (DC)-oriented courses in the IT, PS, SA, and FCC tracks. Integrating feedback from community pilots, we have also made significant enhancements to 15 T&CSs and PMs courses, building the HTML-affiliated activities for these courses as we revise and publish them. Integrated 50 new Child Development Associate (CDA)-related activities and supports to prepare staff seeking this IT or PS credential from the Council for Professional Recognition. See https://www.virtuallabschool.org/cda. Based on user feedback and program evaluation data from our VLS Momentum pilot project, our team completed a comprehensive revision of the 30 Foundational DC and FCC Competency Reflections, refining the practices identified on the Competency Reflections to ensure they were action-oriented, manageable in length, and included the most relevant behaviors relative to the course specified. Continued to complete other content maintenance including integration of the updated CDC milestones, providing more information on concussions, safe sleep practices, and digital literacy, weblink maintenance, quarterly newsletters, sharing recordings and resources related to our Live Leadership Webinars (LLWs), and coordinating with the DoD on updates to the Food Service menus and the Early Learning Matters (ELM) curriculum. Technical enhancements: As stated in the previous report, in FY22 we released an entirely new core codebase across the site. As with most major upgrades to existing applications, there were bugs introduced to the VLS site and considerable effort was made over FY23 to address and correct bugs as they were discovered or reported; we fixed numerous bugs including: An issue where page-caching would hide the progress tab for T&CS/PM users when viewing some DC accounts. An issue where new certificate dates were incorrectly reported as the date a certificate was started instead of when it was completed. This also fixed a related issue where the certifier appearing on some certificates was the T&CS who enrolled the DC user, not the T&CS would made the final approval. An issue where a few T&CS/PM accounts could not properly edit the installation/program assignments for some users. Several issues around indexing and finding users in the account reactivation screen. An issue where some deactivated accounts could not be reactivated without contacting support. An issue where URLs were not always rewritten properly and therefore appeared as /node/XXX instead of /Track/Course/Lesson/Endpoint. Focal Area 2: Relative to the second focal area in FY23 we: Completed the initial development and filming for a new FT course, Valuing and Building Family Child Care. This five-lesson course aimed at FCC Coordinators highlights the unique features of FCC, ways to market and recruit a strong network of FCC providers, and how to retain and support established FCC providers. This course will be reviewed by DoD/Service leadership this summer (end of FY23) and will be edited and deployed live in early FY24. 12 new observation and reflection tools for DC and T&CSs/PMs were developed and added to several of the Focused Topics courses including: Supporting Children with Challenging Behaviors, Sexual Development and Behavior in Children & Youth, Trauma-Informed Care in Child Care Settings, Social Emotional Learning for Teachers, Supporting Language Diversity (for Direct Care and Coaching), and Creating Gender Safe Spaces. We developed, reviewed, and deployed 4 new Targeted Professional Development (TPD) modules over FY23, expanding functionality and TPD offerings to support DC staff and FCC providers. These topics included: 1) Promoting Safe Sleep for Infants, 2) Universal Supports: Routines that Support All Children, 3) Collaborative Goal Setting, and 4) Fostering Relationship in School-Age Programs (will deploy in August 2023). We developed fewer TPDs during this annual cycle to address the DoD's request to design a series of supplemental child abuse trainings and accompanying supports. Supplemental Child Abuse Trainings and Associated Supports: In January 2023, at the request of the DoD, we developed a plan to support specialized, supplemental training on child abuse prevention, identification, and reporting. During FY23, we developed three supplemental training modules (like TPDs): 1) Appropriate Expectations and Responses to Behavior, 2) Child Abuse in your Program, and 3) Enhancing Protective Factors of Children & Families. We also provided several supplemental tools (e.g., guided questions and role-playing opportunities) to support continued conversations and follow-up about these topics, and we adjusted a planned LLW to provide more support to T&CSs and PMs on their role in the prevention of child abuse. This work will continue into FY24. Focal Area 3: Regarding technical assistance, our support in this area reflects three larger accomplishments: Provided "Method Guidance" for the Family Child Care Home Visiting Observation tool developed in FY22 and began planning for training to support the pilot of this new tool in FY24. Our largest form of technical assistance, beyond the training described below, is the fact that our VLS learning management system (LMS) now contains and maintains the training records of more than 57,200 military-affiliated child care professionals. Over the past year, our site helped these professionals earn more than 67,900 course certificates, amassing more than 370,000 hours of certified PD hours. Since 2016, military-affiliated users have earned more than 2.2 million clock hours of PD. We continue to respond to user support requests. In FY22 we received over 2,000 support requests and were able to assist users with account fixes when necessary. We also continue to maintain a robust support site to help users navigate newly released features (e.g., TPD enrollment and certification; see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/support). Focal Area 4: During FY23, we provided four in-person training events and we continued to offer LLWs quarterly. We describe our training efforts in more detail in the "What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?" section. Focal Area 5: We continued to collect feedback in the following ways: Anonymously on feedback forms at the end of each in-person or virtual training session, Through brief surveys at the end of each LLW, During our quarterly virtual meetings with the VLS Working group, made up of child and youth specialists/leaders from the DoD and the Services, At bi-annual virtual check-ins with key project contacts within the DoD's Office of Military Readiness Policy's Children, Youth and Families (OMFRP's CYF) division, With monthly emails and bi-monthly phone calls with key contacts in the DoD's OMFRP's CYF division, During Service/DoD leadership review of TPD modules, new FT Courses, and Supplemental Child Abuse Trainings, and Through VLS support or training request emails, which are logged and categorized to inform user enhancements.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Tebben, E., Odean, R., Ryu, D., & Buettner, C. (2023, March). Improving PFCC-Providing Program Quality through Use of Online Professional Development with Integrated Coaching Support. Flash talk presented at the Society for Research in Child Development, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. A.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Fox, E., Lang, S. N., Tebben, E., & Hudson, A. (2023, March). Examining Personal and Contextual Factors that Support Quality Coaching in Early Care and Education Programs. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Fox, E., Tebben, E., Ryu, D., Hudson, A., & Lang, S. N. (2023, February). Creating a Profile of Coaches in Early Childhood Education: A Comparative Case Study. Oral presentation given at the College of Education and Human Ecology Research Forum, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lang, S. N., & Knight, K. M. (2022, November). Leadership Practices that Attract and Maintain Strong Teams. Presented at the National Association for the Education of Young Children 2022 Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Knight, K. M., Buettner, D., Pickett, J. (2022). Virtual Lab School Development, Enhancement, and Training Report for FY 2022, October 2021 September 2022.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Buettner, C. K. Lang, S. N., Knight, K. M., Artman-Meeker, K., Buettner, D., Mouzourou, C, et al. (2016-2023). The Department of Defense Child Development Virtual Laboratory School . Retrieved from http://www.virtuallabschool.org/
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary target audiences for the VLS are caregivers/teachers, training & curriculum specialists, family childcare providers, and new management staff in the military child development and school-age care system. However, in the best tradition of the university land-grant system, the VLS is also available for public use, allowing college students, and public and private childcare workers and providers to use the site to enhance their skills as child care professionals. The VLS is included in the Administration for Children and Families' Early Educator Central which links the VLS to child care professionals outside the military system. Last year, our site was accessed by over 1.5 million visitors with over 8.8 million page views, demonstrating that the content is reaching a large audience interested in evidence-based early care and education. The VLS site is active and all audiences have begun using the site. Our new site developments also help support more seasoned child care professionals and help track their professional development engagement and growth. Changes/Problems:Although we originally had an in-person training event scheduled for April 2022, at the request of DoD this session was cancelled and moved to December 2022. We will now offer 3 in-person training sessions across FY23. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As described under "What was accomplished relative to the goals of this grant in FY22", our site, which is entirely devoted to the training and support of child and youth professionals, was significantly enhanced over this past year. In addition to these robust adjustments to the asynchronous online content, we will describe below the two main forms of live professional development we provided over FY22: Live Leadership Webinars: In the latter half of FY2021, in coordination with DoD and Service leadership, the VLS team developed a plan to offer and pilot a quarterly online seminar for CYP program leaders. This proposal emerged to help meet the need to offer smaller-dose, specialized professional development to: Address ongoing, more immediate program needs, Share the latest evidence-based information in a live, virtual format that facilitates participation, and Provide opportunities for Training & Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs), Program Managers (PMs) and other military-affiliated child care leaders to engage, or re-engage, with content and tools from across the Virtual Lab School website We proposed offering one-hour virtual training sessions on a quarterly basis. The VLS team worked in consultation with DoD and Service leads to identify leadership training needs. Based upon these identified training needs, the VLS team proposed to develop tailored, research-informed trainings and offer these live via Government Zoom. These live sessions would be recorded and saved on the VLS site so that CYP professionals with VLS accounts could access them later if they were unable to attend the live session or wanted to review the live session. The first live online seminar session was offered at the end of September 2021. Because of high interest, we exceeded the 245 live meeting spaces we originally had available on our Government Zoom contract. Thanks to the generosity of Air Force CYP, we coordinated with Air Force CYP leadership to use their Government Zoom webinar functionality for the first session, while simultaneously procuring our in-house Government Zoom webinar service for subsequent sessions. For our inaugural session, detailed below, we had over 425 registrants and more than 200 live attendees for the webinar. The session titled, "You Are a Model for Supportive Relationships: Why Relationships Are Central in CYP Programs," was a live one-hour webinar training focused on the importance of relationships in child and youth programs and the program manager's role in creating a climate that supports positive staff-child interactions, with a focus on the management (leadership) practices that help build and sustain a positive work environment. We examined research on the importance of positive relationships for children and adults, considered key skills to help model and foster strong, supportive relationships in CYP programs, and highlighted VLS tools and resources that CYP leaders could use to facilitate positive professional partnerships. At the conclusion of the session, those who completed the feedback survey (n=25) indicated that 96% agreed or strongly agreed that they better understand the factors that impact a staff member's ability to engage in responsive relationships with children," and 100% agreed or strongly agreed that they could "identify tools within the VLS that will reinvigorate critical relationships within the program (between staff, staff and leadership, and staff and children). Over FY22 we also offered 3 other sessions: Creating a Positive Staff Climate: Active, Intentional Strategies to Foster Collaboration. 579 registered attendees, 274 unique viewers Overall, attendees that completed the feedback form (N = 72), agreed that upon conclusion of the training they better understood ways they can emphasize collaboration in the hiring and onboarding process (90%), ways to intentionally communicate a commitment to collaboration (93%), their role in preventing and responding to gossip (93%), and could identify tools within the VLS that can help them manage conflict (92%). In addition, 93% of survey responders agreed or strongly agreed the training gave them ideas and tools to be a better program leader. Coaching to Enhance Practice: Successful Strategies to Support Adult Learners 331 registered attendees, 170 unique viewers Overall, attendees that completed the feedback form (N = 84), agreed that coaching is a necessary professional development strategy to help ensure strong practices in my program (95%), and after the training they could identify more ways to build and maintain quality coaching partnerships (92%), and better understood the goal-setting process including how to create, monitor and follow-up on goals (93%). Following the training, 92% agreed they were excited to analyze their own strengths and areas for growth, and 93% agreed they could identify tools within the VLS to help them implement quality coaching. Finally, 87% of survey responders agreed or strongly agreed they learned important, new ideas from this training. Leadership's Role in Supporting Staff-Family Partnerships 249 registered attendees, 110 unique viewers Overall, attendees that completed the feedback form (N = 37), agreed that they better understand how family-provider partnerships impact children, families, and caregivers (93%), and after the training they can identify ways to show families that their knowledge, preferences, and input are valued (91%), ways to support bi-directional communication in their program (86%), and tools within the VLS that can help them support strong partnerships between staff and families (91%). Finally, 86% of survey responders agreed or strongly agreed they learned important, new ideas from this training. In-person training session: In July 2022 we will offer a 3-day, 20-hour training session that includes the topics outlined below. 60 Training & Curriculum Specialist or child and youth program leaders are signed-up to attend this training. Much of the training will involve small-group exploration and collaboration, and we will leverage these small group communities of practices established during the training in an online asynchronous follow-up so that attendees will have a robust support network to support post-training implementation back in their programs. Self-reflection, which is essential to the VLS and changing practice Research that informs the VLS VLS Overview - Focus on the Direct Care Tracks VLS T&C and Management Track Overview Tools Available to Support Coaching and Training Progression (Course Guides, Competency Reflections, and End of Course Assessments) VLS Dashboard/Learning Management System Coaching: A Practice-Based Model Using and Extending the VLS SELF-T (Social Emotional Learning for Teachers): Creating a Culture of Resiliency. Using the VLS to Support Seasoned Professionals: Link to Annual Training/Continual PD Unpacking the Program Manager's Role: Reflective Supervision Challenging Behavior: A Case Study, Highlighting and Extending the VLS Coaching and Mentoring: Another Look with Focus on Goal Setting and Follow-up Supporting Team Collaboration: Teamwork and Partnerships between T&CSs and Program Managers Continuous Improvement Framework Coaching: A Program Perspective What does Implementation Look like? Preparing for Next Steps How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Within the military system, DoD and the Services continue to promote the VLS to their personnel, indeed the VLS has become the central professional development system for military-affiliated child care professionals serving children birth through age 12. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) also continues to list the VLS as a key professional development asset on their Early Educator Central website, an Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)-sponsored project. In addition, the VLS will be featured in another OPRE-sponsored project, The Infant and Toddler Teacher and Caregiver Competencies (ITTCC) initiative for our competency-based approach for infant/toddler teachers' professional development. Over the past year, VLS team members have presented the VLS model internationally at an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) invited talk, "Early Childhood Education and Care in a Digital World" and at a peer-reviewed accepted presentation session at the European Early Childhood Education Research Conference. We have also presented our work nationally at an invited session on virtual professional development for the National Research Conference on Early Childhood, and more locally, for our state, at The Ohio State University's College of Education and Human Ecology Research forum. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We list our main goals for FY23 relative to each focal area below: Focal Area 1: Provide all maintenance and support necessary to maintain the Virtual Lab School web presence; More major goals in this area: Our VLS team will finish its review and deployment of the external subject matter experts' suggested revisions across our Foundational Course content. This will include the final 35 foundational courses across the site that have not yet been deployed (within the T&CSs, Management, Family Child Care and School Age tracks). Based upon pilot data and user feedback, we be launching updates to all the Foundational Competency Reflections (30 tools) to condense and clarify the most essential practices affiliated with each Foundational Course. In addition, we will be adding a new set of similar tools, called Practice Inventories, to most Focused Topics courses to support implementation and goal setting around practices affiliated with these specialized offerings. The Tech team on the VLS will help with deploying these two modifications and will continue to monitor feedback on our newly revised site to identify relevant upgrades and user experience enhancements including attention to site navigation. Ongoing maintenance: We will continue to conduct quarterly checks of weblinks embedded across the site and repair links to moved or older material. We will continue to review updates from various relevant national accrediting organizations and bodies (e.g., the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Center for Disease Control) and new child development, early education, and out of school time research and make appropriate updates. We will continue to review, track, gather and edit relevant video footage, creating new practice- or expert-informed videos or refine present videos to better align with best practices. Focal Area 2: Continue the development of competencies for providers, trainers, and managers within the child, youth and family child care environments; Over FY22 we will build an additional 4-6 Targeted Professional Development modules based on guidance from DoD and relevant Service child care leadership. We will draft a Focused Topics course (4 to 6 lessons) for Family Child Care Coordinators. Intersecting with another funded project, we will draft a course on creating and sustaining culturally responsive and equitable child and youth programs. We will begin revising the Caregiver Observation and Reflection Tool based on user feedback to offer a refined individualized tool and a classroom level tool (this is projected to a be a two-year goal over FY23 and 24). Focal Area 3: Continue technical assistance for the deployment of competencies on military installations as they are developed; We will be incorporating activities throughout the direct care Foundational Courses that assist candidates seeking their Child Development Associate (CDA) credential in completing the required professional portfolio elements and offering resources to support assembling the full CDA portfolio. This will allow staff members who wish to pursue their CDA to build the necessary components as they work through the Foundational coursework, and support staff or providers seeking CDA renewal. We will begin conceptualizing and seeking feedback on a "professional development catalogue," that would support staff in selecting trainings that meet their individualized goals and annual training requirements. Focal Area 4: Provide training to installation level personnel, and In collaboration with DoD, we are set to offer 3 in-person training sessions for T&CSs and PMs, with each session supporting 50-90 participants. These sessions prepare T&CSs and PMs to properly implement the VLS, research and best practices in supporting adult learners, creating collaborative work environments, engaging in continuous quality improvement, and sustaining high-quality child and youth programs. At the request of DoD, we will begin exploring the possibility of creating a credentialling program for child care leaders, leveraging the VLS training for T&CSs and PMs. We will continue to offer quarterly "live leadership webinars" for T&CSs and/or PMs based on attendee/user feedback and Service/DoD requests. These hour-long trainings, offered via Government Zoom focus on the latest research in child development, early care and education, and/or school-age care, and include a focus on practice-based strategies and implementation supports across the VLS. These are also archived on our site. Focal Area 5: Collect ongoing feedback from users to enhance content and incorporate system improvements. We will continue to collect feedback in the following ways to inform the elements listed above: Anonymously on feedback forms at the end of each in-person training session Through brief surveys at the end of each Live Leadership Webinar During our bi-monthly virtual meetings with the VLS Working group, made up of child and youth specialists/leaders from DoD and the Services At bi-annual virtual or in-person check-ins with key project contacts within U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Military Readiness Policy's Children, Youth and Families (OMFRP's CYF) division During community-based pilots of VLS materials, courses, and systems During Service/DoD leadership review of Targeted Professional Development modules and new Focused Topics Courses During focus groups with T&CSs focused on the Caregiver Observation and Reflection Tool Through VLS support request emails which are logged and categorized to inform user enhancements
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Focal Area 1, The Virtual Lab School (VLS) team continues to refine our main professional development system which includes 90 Foundational Courses specialized across six tracks, tailored to the work of infant/toddler caregivers, preschool teachers, school-age staff members, family child care providers, Training & Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs), and Program Managers (PMs), and a growing set of Focused Topics courses. Our FY22 maintenance involved: Content enhancements: Based on the extensive subject matter expert reviews conducted in FY21, our internal content team finalized these suggested modifications and collaborated with the tech team to deploy these robust content enhancements across the site. Over FY22, we have updated 56 courses (i.e., within the Infant/Toddler, Preschool, School-Age, Family Child Care and Management Tracks). We also continue to complete more minor content updates including weblink maintenance (updating more than 1,120 weblinks across the site in FY22), quarterly newsletters and news releases, and coordinating with DoD on updates to the Food Service menus and the Early Learning Matters (ELM) curriculum. Technical enhancements: We released an entirely new core codebase, moving from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9.2. This was the culmination of a multi-year project to prepare for this transition and this upgrade facilitated many other improvements. Listed below are the key technical upgrades released in FY22: Defined and implemented new Support Specialist role Defined and implemented new Non-Supervisory Specialist role Defined new content type and user interfaces for new Professional Development Content type (i.e., the Targeted Professional Development modules noted below) Implemented new user interface convenience features for supervisory users including customized coaching lists (quick-roster), user search across one's roster, additional methods of course approval Implemented randomized question selection and order from test bank for Focused Topic Assessment Defined and implemented 4 assessment/certification types for Focused Topics courses Implemented customizable assessment/certification for Focused Topics courses based on course and user role Defined and implemented assessment question banks for focused topics assessments Updated content review interfaces and capabilities Implemented greater record keeping for account changes Extended point-in-time information captured during course certifications Implemented faster, on-demand loading for data-heavy pages such as rosters, progress overviews, and location overviews Focal Area 2, Relative to the second focal area in FY22 we: Completed the initial development, filming and Service Review for a new Focused Topics course, Leadership Essentials: Getting Started as a Program Manager. This course was developed to orient PMs to the organizational and relational skills necessary to be successful leaders, with a particular focus on the key knowledge and skills needed during the first 90-days of becoming a program administrator. We developed an entirely new form of online training: Targeted Professional Development (TPD). This new content type incorporates brief, comprehensive training modules that can meet a variety of requirements including DoDI 6060.02 annual training requirements, specialized professional development, and supplemental training needs, and also introduces several new interactive elements to provide immediate self-assessment and reflection on the materials as users progress through the content. Thus far, five total TPD modules were developed: 1) Supportive Partnerships: Communication & Collaboration with T&CSs, 2) Developing a Strong Team: Best Practices for Hiring & Onboarding New Staff, 3) Staff Supervision: Conducting Performance Reviews to Support Program Quality, 4) Navigating Difficult Conversations with Staff or Families, and 5) The Manager's Role in Program Observations. Finalized and deployed a new Program Management lesson devoted to program staffing. The lesson highlights the essential elements to consider when developing staffing schedules including attending to ratio, ensuring coverage for professional development and planning, team building, continuity of care, and short- and long-term planning. Focal Area 3, Regarding technical assistance, our support in this area reflects three larger accomplishments: The VLS content team developed a comprehensive observation tool to assist Family Child Care (FCC) administrators in their completion of monthly observations at the request of DoD and Service leadership. The FCC Program Quality Observation Tool was designed to reflect the critical elements that make up high quality FCC environments and interactions and is aligned with OSD FCC Inspection Criteria. This scale-based assessment also provides the FCC administrator/monitor with guidance regarding the kinds of knowledge and the levels of skill a FCC provider would likely display as they are emerging, developing, or mastered within the identified practical competencies. The development of this tool involved multiple rounds of feedback with DoD and Service Leadership. Our largest form of technical assistance beyond the training described below, is the fact that our VLS learning management system (LMS) now contains and maintains the training records of more than 51,500 military-affiliated child care professionals. Over the past year, our site helped professionals earn more than 67,900 course certificates, amassing more than 408,000 hours of certified professional development hours. Since the launch of the LMS portion of the project (in 2016), military-affiliated users have earned more than 1.9 million clock hours of professional development and our system maintains these records, making it easy for training and curriculum specialists to track direct care staff members' or family child care providers' progress, and for all learners to download their certificates of completion. In addition to these, we continue to maintain fast response times to user support requests. In FY21 we received over 850 legitimate (i.e., non-spam) support requests and were able to assist users with account fixes when necessary. We also continue to maintain a robust support site to help users navigate newly released features (e.g., Focused Topics course enrollment and certification; see https://www.virtuallabschool.org/support). Focal Area 4: During FY22, we ended our final 8-week virtual training session for T&CSs and PMs and began offering in-person sessions again for the first time. At the request of DoD, our first in-person offering originally scheduled for April 2022 was re-scheduled for December 2022, but we will offer our first 3-day, in-person training in July 2022. We also began offering Live Leadership Webinars during FY22. We describe all our training efforts in more detail in the "What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?" section of the REEport below. Focal Area 5, We continued to collect feedback in all the following ways: Anonymously on feedback forms at the end of each in-person or virtual training session Through brief surveys at the end of each Live Leadership Webinar During our bi-monthly virtual meetings with the VLS Working group, made up of child and youth specialists/leaders from DoD and the Services At annual virtual check-ins with key project contacts within U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Military Readiness Policy's Children, Youth and Families (OMFRP's CYF) division With monthly emails and bi-monthly phone calls with key contacts in DoD's OMFRP's CYF division During Service/DoD leadership review of TPD modules and new Focused Topics Courses (there were 5 TPD and 1 Focused Topics Course reviewed in FY22) Through VLS support request emails which are logged and categorized to inform user enhancements
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Tebben, E., Knight, K., Buettner, C. K. (2022, August). How is play represented in Child Development Associate (CDA) Candidates Learning Experiences? Presentation based on VLS research to be given at the annual European Early Childhood Education Research Conference, Glasgow, Scotland.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Tebben, E., Knight, K. (2022, June). Virtual Lab School and VLS Momentum: Project overviews & lessons learned. Invited presentation to be given at the National Research Conference on Early Childhood session, Competency-Focused Virtual Professional Development and Lessons Learned from COVID-19. Hosted Online at Virtual Conference, Washington, D.C.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Lang, S.N. (2022, April). The Virtual Lab School project: Hybrid, competency-based professional development for in-field professionals. Invited talk at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) meeting, Workforce development (II): Continuous professional development for promoting safe, developmentally appropriate, and effective uses of digital technology in ECEC. Hosted Online out of Paris, France.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Lang, S.N., Knight, K. (2021, November). Coaching to enhance practice: Successful strategies to support adult learners. Presented at the annual National Association for the Education of Young Children Conference. Hosted online at virtual conference.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Odean, R., Tebben, E., & Knight, K. (2021, September). What program and individual factors predict teachers' engagement in foundational, coaching-focused, professional development? Presented at the annual European Early Childhood Education Research Conference. Hosted Online via Virtual Festival, COVID-19.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Luckey, S, Odean, R., & Lang, S.N. (2021, September). The Impact of evidence-based pd and coaching on ece teachers perceptions of supporting children with challenging behavior. Poster presented at the annual European Early Childhood Education Research Conference. Hosted Online via Virtual Festival, COVID-19.
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary target audiences for the VLS are caregivers/teachers, training & curriculum specialists, family childcare providers, and new management staff in the military child development and school-age care system. However, in the best tradition of the university land-grant system, the VLS is also available for public use, allowing college students, public and private childcare workers and providers to use the site to enhance their skills as child care professionals. The VLS is included in the Administration for Children and Families' Early Educator Central which links the VLS to child care professionals outside the military system. The VLS site is active and all audiences have begun using the site. Our new site developments also help support more seasoned child care professionals and help track their professional development engagement and growth. Changes/Problems:With Covid19 limiting some originally planned events, we consulted with our Department of Defense stakeholders on modifications that best met the larger goals of the project in the face of the unusual conditions presented by the pandemic. With that input, we prioritized activities that were funded under a previous NIFA/DOD VLS grant and moved some of the planned activities for this grant to the 2021-2022 year. This had an impact on personnel and other expenses charged against this project in the 2020-2021 reporting period. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As noted under goals accomplished, during FY21, we published 3 new Focused Topics courses: Child Abuse Prevention for Support Staff, Child Abuse Identification & Reporting for Support Staff, and Using the VLS: Coaching to Enhance practice. This brings our total course offerings across the site to 102 Foundational and Focused Topics courses. As noted previously, this has allowed our military-affiliated users to amass more than 1.5 million clock hours of professional development across the life of the project thus far. We have been conducting a community pilot of the VLS system to examine its efficacy and identify further areas for system improvements. The user feedback from this pilot (n=23) was extremely high, with 95.7% of participants indicating the training helped them better understand child development, and 100% indicating that they will return to some of the Apply and Learn resources to help themselves in the future, and that they shared the information they were learning with coworkers and families. Regarding the two, 8-week virtual training sessions for DoD employed personnel offered thus far in FY21, we have trained approximately 125 Training & Curriculum Specialists (TC&Ss) and Program Managers (PMs). Though some participants noted they are anxious to return to an in-person training format, most reported that they found the trainings helpful and felt better prepared to support their staff after attending. For example, in the most recent virtual training, we found the vast majority of attendees (n=51) indicated the training helped them feel better prepared "to support VLS training in [their] program" (88% indicated true or very true), "to support teamwork and continuous improvement in [their] program[s]" (90% indicated true or very true), "to coach staff or providers, and support the adult learners in [their] program" (84% indicated true or very true), and "to support [their] own and others self-care" (84% indicated true or very true). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Within the military system, DoD and the Services continue to promote the VLS to their personnel, indeed the VLS has become the central professional development system for military-affiliated child care professionals serving children birth through age 12. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) also continues to list the VLS as a key professional development asset on their Early Educator Central website. Over the past year presentations on the VLS have been made at the Society for Research in Child Development Biennial meeting; the Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium; to state extension professionals in Ohio, and local (Columbus) meetings. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In terms of goals for the upcoming year (FY22), we will be implementing several content and technical upgrades. First, a key technical update will be the ability to enroll and earn certificates in all VLS Focused Topics (FT) courses utilizing our new End of Course Assessment system. In preparation for this goal, we have been working (1) with expert partners at Ohio State to develop high-quality, robust test banks, and (2) with our Drupal contractors to ensure a high-quality experience when this functionality is rolled out for all users across all FT courses. Second, we will be releasing a new content type (tentatively titled Targeted Professional Development [PD]), that will help military-affiliated child care leaders meet annual training requirements and support emerging professional development needs. In support of this goal, over the past year we have collaborated with our Department of Defense (DoD) partners to establish how this new area of the VLS site will function and identify the first Targeted PD topics to be written, reviewed, and deployed. This new area of the VLS system will provide more seasoned military child care professionals with the ability to engage with smaller-dose, specialized PD offerings that can be easily documented in the VLS system, and for our team to more quickly develop and deploy PD offerings that meet emerging needs and priorities as identified by DoD and child care leadership across the Services. Over time, we hope to amass a variety of topics, so that users can select what is most relevant to their current program needs or individualized PD goals. Third, over the past year all VLS Foundational Content (90 courses in total) have been reviewed by external experts; we have begun the internal review of the edits and modifications suggested by these external reviews and will be deploying these content-relevant updates over the FY22 period. Fourth, we will begin offering brief (hour long) live virtual training sessions, once quarter, that will be recorded and maintained on our VLS site. With our DoD and Service stakeholders we have already identified the first two training topics and look forward to hosting these live session for 300 Training and Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs) and Program Managers (PMs) across military-affiliated programs. Fifth, we will continue to train T&CSs and PMs, with the plan to support 250 professionals in these leadership roles over FY22, providing 20 hours of instructor-led guidance to support the implementation and full use of the VLS PD system and quality-coaching practices. We will offer a final, fully virtual VLS training session in the fall of 2021 (i.e., 8-week session on-line), and two, 3-day in-person events with follow-up virtual support in 2022, testing out some new hybrid approaches to offer more individualized support and coaching to program leadership. Sixth, we will continue to ensure content and technical site maintenance across all VLS assets and hosted partner content, including updates to the Early Learning Matters (ELM) curriculum materials and the DoD Standardized Food menus as items are revised.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The Virtual Laboratory School (VLS) now consists of 15 Foundational Courses and supporting video for each of six professional tracks (Infant/Toddler, Preschool, School Age, Training and Curriculum Specialists, Management, and Family Child Care Providers; a total of 90 Foundational Courses), and 12 Focused Topics courses providing specialized content and resources. During the 20-21 year we reviewed and released the latest three Focused Topics courses: (1) Child Abuse Prevention for Support Staff, (2) Child Abuse Identification and Reporting for Support Staff, and (3) Using the VLS: Coaching to Enhance Practice. These courses went through Service and DoD review, and based upon this feedback, were edited by our content team prior to publication on the VLS site. In addition, we began the early development stages for two new Focused Topics courses on program leadership: (1) the onboarding essentials for new program managers (directors), and (2) a guide to continuous quality improvement in child care programs. In conjunction with this content development, we also implemented and have been piloting a new End of Course Assessment (EoCA) system for a small suite of our Focused Topics Courses (i.e., Supporting Children with Challenging Behavior, Trauma-Informed Care in Child Care Settings, and Sexual Development & Behavior in Children and Youth). This ongoing pilot will allow DoD and Service leadership to track certification in this suite of courses, while also allowing our team to test this new system functionality on a smaller scale. This summer (2021) we are analyzing user data from this new EoCA system to inform system improvements and implementation for the full set of Focused Topics courses (planned for FY22). Regarding general content maintenance of the site, we continued to update content to reflect current standards and recently released research; in FY21 this included external expert reviews of all our of Foundational Content, and special news items supporting programs in navigating Covid19 and creating more equitable and inclusive programs. In addition, we have scanned and replaced more than 1600 links across the VLS site to ensure users can quickly access up-to-date, relevant, and evidence-based resources. In addition, through our partnership with DoD and in consultation with Purdue, we uploaded the final portions of the Early Learning Matters (ELM), birth to 5 curriculum, refined this part of the VLS website to include all ELM materials, and continue to maintain these resources based on updates released by Purdue. In FY 21 alone, the VLS site provided more than 480,000 certified clock hours of professional development, had approximately 8.3 million page views, and around 1 million visitors (including military-affiliated logged-in users and public visitors). The reach and impact of the learning materials on the Virtual Lab School continues to grow quickly influencing and educating childcare professionals and the children in their care. In total, we have over 40,000 registered, military- affiliated users who have earned over 260,000 course certificates and 10,500 track certificates. Regarding the learning management system of the VLS, over the past year we have released a number of advances to the user interface of the site to facilitate ease of use; the most notable in FY21 was the development and implementation of HTML activities across all direct care tracks that allows users to fill out activities online and save or print them for later use. In terms of training, over FY21 and due to Covid19, we conducted two, 8-week online training sessions to support VLS implementation and military child care program excellence; training approximately 125 Training and Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs) and Program Managers (PMs). In addition, we also provided 2.5 hours of training on quality observations to over 100 program inspectors and CYP leadership, and as part of this effort, provided detailed reports and supports to improve inter-rater reliability among inspectors within each Service. We continue to collect user feedback during all these training sessions and through the VLS website. We continue to analyze and respond to this feedback to continually improve the content, tools and resources available on the VLS. The feedback collected continues to be overwhelming positive.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Jeon, L., Sproat, E. B., Brothers, B. E., & Buettner, C. K. (2020). Social Emotional Learning for Teachers (SELF-T): A Short-term, Online Intervention to Increase Early Childhood Educators Resilience. Early Education and Development, 31(7), 1112-1132. doi:10.1080/10409289.2020.1749820
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Luckey, S. [& Lang, S.N. as faculty advisor] (2021, April). ECE Teachers Perceptions of Evidence-Based PD and Intensive Coaching. Poster presented at the 35th Annual OSU Hayes Graduate Research Forum. Hosted Online, Covid19.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Odean, R., Tebben, E., Buettner, C. K. (2021, April). VLS Momentum: Pairing Online PD with Coaching to Prepare Teachers for their CDA. Presented at the Virtual Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Hosted Online, Covid19.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Tarullo, L., Lang, S. N., Odean, R., Monahan, S., & Taylor, J. (2020, July). Supporting Infant-Toddler Teachers with Technology. Presented at the Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium, Washington, D.C. [Offered Virtually, via Zoom].
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Lang, S. N., Odean, R., Tebben, E., & Knight, K. (2021, September). What program and individual factors predict teachers' engagement in foundational, coaching-focused, professional development? To be presented at the annual European Early Childhood Education Research Conference. Hosted Online via Virtual Festival, Covid19.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Luckey, S, Odean, R., & Lang, S.N. (2021, September). The Impact of Evidence-Based PD and Coaching on ECE Teachers Perceptions of Supporting Children with Challenging Behavior. Poster to be presented at the annual European Early Childhood Education Research Conference. Hosted Online via Virtual Festival, Covid19.
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