Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:There are two target audiences for this project. The primary target is Department of Defense Early Childhood Professionals. The Early Learning Matters (ELM) teamcreated tthe ELM website to provide background information, lesson plans, and assessment materials in a format that is readily assessible. Purdue maintains this site at Purdue and updates the site to incorporate current reserch findings. A major aspect of ELM activiities is to aprovides expert consultation to administrative and supervisory staff and to providein-person and vitual introductory and advanced training to DoD professionals. An additional audience is civilian early childhood professionals that have either adopted the ELM curriculum or are considering using ELM. Changes/Problems:Major changes have not been required. Some changes were required becuase books that were incorporated into the lesson plans became our of print. This required us to select new books and rewrite lesson plans. This has been accomplished. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two training sessions (February 5-6 and February 7-8) were held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. The enrollment for both trainings was approximately 50 attendees plus additional DoD supervisory staff. Based on feedback from OSD staff, we revised our agenda and sessions for the introduction trainings. We included a "meet and greet" for the Services at the beginning of the session, time for Service-specific meetings at the end of each day, and new sessions on inclusion and evidence-based practices. A tour of the Miller Child Development Lab School (a demonstration site for ELM) located on the Purdue University's campus was provided for service leads and OSD staff on February 9, 2024. The purpose of this visit was to demonstrate the possibility that some future training sessions could incorporate observations at the lab school. All of the service leads and OSD staff that were present agreed that the ELM team should include a visit to the laboratory school in future refresher training programs. Two refresher training sessions were conducted in May 2024 (May 6-7 and May 8-9). Purdue developed an interactive refresher training for current uses of ELM that have attended a prior Purdue training. The sessions focused on: 1) coaching, 2) adaptation and inclusion, 3) evidence-based practices, and 4) observation and assessment. These topics were chosen in collaboration with OSD and the service leads. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The ELM Curriculum Team made presentations at national and state conferences and one presentation is forthcoming. National Head Start Association Conference: May 2024 Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children (INAEYC) Conference: April 2024 Technical assistance to multiple State Departments of Education was provided during the current grant period. This year, the ELM Curriculum has been approved by the Indiana Department of Education and the North Carolina Department of Education for early childhood programs, and other State Departments of Education are considering approving the ELM Curriculum. In addition, several early childhood centers in multiple states are using ELM (e.g., Oklahoma, Maryland). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During this next period, ELM will present at national meetings and continue our outreach to State Departments of Education. We will also continue to offer civilian training sessions as requested. Purdue will also continue to present ELM at the National Early Childhood Conferences. For example, the following presentation has been accepted and others are pending. Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Child Conference, September 17-20, 2024 Purdue will continue to work with potential stakeholders. Efforts include developing detailed mapping that specifies how ELM meets State early learning standards. Currently underway and continuing into the renewal period are consultations with Indiana, North Carolina. Oklahoma, and Oregon. Purdue will complete the development of an alignment crosswalk resource that maps the ELM Curriculum onto the Head Start-Early Learning Outcomes. This will include identifying and pairing the Framework domains, sub-domains, and goals with ELM areas of development, foundation skills, specific examples of activity plans, teaching strategies, and additional learning supports within ELM. Several individual schools and school districts are considering ELM andPurdue will continue to consult with these agencies and conduct allignment analyses that document how ELM meets state and school disctirct standards. Purdue will continue to hold twice monthly consulttations with DoD aon issue pertaining to implementaiton of ELM. Purdue will hold five trainings. Two of these are scheduled to be held with Navy to address their specific needs.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. The website has been completed and feeback was obtained from key personnel in the Department of Defense. It is curently being reviewed by poential users with the plan for this to go live in September, 2024.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The project focused on two audiences: Department of Defense Office of Military Family Readiness Policy and Civilian stakeholders (e.g., Head Start, State Departments of Education, individual providers) potentially interested in adopting ELM Changes/Problems:We do not anticipate making changes. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We conducted three two-day training courses. The first two training sessions (April 3-4 and April 4-5) were held in the Big Ten Conference Facility located close to O'Hare Airport in the Chicago area. The third training was conducted in Indianapolis (May 22-23). There were approximately 60 attendees plus additional DoD supervisory staff at each training session. These training sessions were revised based on feedback from prior attendees.In particular, the presenters made more extensive use of video than they had previously In addition to the trainings, technical assistancepertaining to the implementation of ELM on military sites wasaccomplished through threemethods. First, we conducted monthly implementation telephone meetings with the leaders of DoD Early Childhood programs (i.e., Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Defense Logistics Agency, and Child Development Program leadership in the DoD Office of Military Family Readiness Policy. These sessions focused on issues pertaining to the use of ELM in military sites and methods to overcome challenges that have arisen. Past topics have included: book availability; ELM resources for supporting individual program efforts to secure professional accreditation; support of FCC implementation; use of ELM in part day programs; best practices for conducting assessment and observations; and collaborting with families. Second, individual consultation was provided through the e-mail help desk and telephone meetings. Third, a detailed training resource was developed that maps the full range of ELM Curriculum goals, content, and methods to theaccreditation standards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). All programs in the DoD Child Development Program are required to achieve professional accreditation. The NAEYC accreditation standards are highly detailed and address all aspects of curriculum implementation, including assessment and observation of children's developmental progress. The ELM resource for supporting accreditation, informally labelled "crosswalk," provides specific examples of how the ELM Curriculum is aligned with and responsive to each accreditation standard. This new resource was distributed to child development programs on military installations through Service leadership. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? A major focus of this grant has been to disseminate ELM to potential civilian agencies that may potentially adopt ELM. Below is a list of accomplishments. Multiple outreach accomplishments were successfully undertaken during this grant period. These include presenting ELM to civilian audiences and assisting civilian agencies considering adopting ELM. In addition, technical assistance to State Departments of Education wasprovided.The ELM Curriculum has been approved by the Virginia Department of Education for use in Virginia early childhood programs, and other State Departments of Education are considering approval of ELM Curriculum. The ELM Curriculum Team made made four presentations atnational and state conferences. National Coalition for Campus Children's Centers N4C Conference March 2023 Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children INAEYC Conference: May 5-6, 2023 National Head Start Association Conference: May 8-11, 2023 National Association for the Education of Young Children NAEYC PLI: June 4-7, 2023. In addition, a delegation from the State of Oklahoma visited Purdue for two days to observe the curriculum in action and consult with the Laboratory School Teachers and the ELM staff. The State of Oklahoma is in the process of approving ELM and training teachers throughout the stateto implement the curriculum. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the sections below, we detail our plans to further accomplish the goals of this project. 1. ELM Website Development We will complete the website and make this fully operational by the end of this grant period. With the website completion, we will focus on making continued modifications in part based on user reactions. We will continue to serve as the host site for the ELM Curriculum website and ensure its accessibility. 2. DoD Training Sessions We will continue to hold two-day training sessions for training DoD early childhood professionals. The number of training events will increase from three to five. Parameters of training will be revised based on DoD needs. We are discussing the possibility of gearing one or more of these trainings foradvanced users. We are also considering the possibility of holding an event for the Navy at their San Diego facility. Purdue will continue to cover the costs for meeting space, breakfast and lunch, and travel expenses for the Purdue team. 3. Dissemination of ELM to Communities of Interest During this next period, ELM will present at national meetings and continue our outreach to State Departments of Education. We are in discussions with the States of Oklahoma and Indiana to add ELM to their list of approved curriculums. We are reaching out to Head Start and encouraging them to consider adopting ELM. A major component of these efforts will be to map ELM onto the goals and objectives of Head Start. This is similar to the work that we did mapping ELM onto the National Association for the Education of Young Children curriculum objectives. Purdue will also continue to present ELM at the National Early Childhood Conferences. The following presentations have been either accepted or in process. Zero to Three Learn Conference Sept 19-20, 2023 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Annual Conference Nov 15-18, 2023 Division for Early Childhood (DEC)Annual International Conference Nov 28-Dec 1, 2023 INAEYC Conference April 2024 National Head Start Association Conference: May 2024 4. Consultation and specialized Training Pertaining to ELM for DoD Early Childhood Professionals We will continue to meet twice monthly with DoD professional staff on issues pertaining to ELM and its implementation in DoD Early Childhood Centers. We are also considering providing specialized training sessions as requested. For example, recently a team from the Marine Corps traveled to Purdue to view the implementation of ELM in the Purdue Ben and Maxine Miller Child Development Laboratory School. 5. Update ELM and Provide Access to This Through the Purdue ELM Website Updates to ELM will continue to be provided during this next grant period. Two changes are particularly important. First, updates to ELM were necessitated by the lack of availability of some books. ELM relies on commercially produced children's books that occasionally become out of print. Some activity plans for children's experiences in the ELM Curriculum were revised in response to publishers' decisions to limit or discontinue the availability of some books used in the ELM Curriculum. Second, the new ELM resource that maps the ELM Curriculum on to NAEYC accreditation standards (see section C) was deployed as part of efforts to expand the use of the ELM Curriculum. This activity included engagement with State Departments of Education, as described in section E. We will continue to make updates to ELM as required to accommodate needed changes (e.g., book availability), user feedback, DoD desires, and changes in accreditation and best practice standards. With the dissemination of the ELM website, we expect to receive extensive feedback from users of ELM, and we will make changes as desirable. With the website completion, we will focus on making continued modifications in part based on user reactions. We will continue to serve as the host site for the ELM Curriculum website and ensure its accessibility.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
A preliminary version of the website was developed and provided to DoD leadership, including Service leadership, for providing systematic feedback guided by an ELM-developed tool that covered all aspects of the website. The feedback informed some significant revisions of the preliminary version. The website developers (the Dearing Group) have sucessfully worked with an independent firm (UsableNet) to resolve issues of accessibility. Currently underway is theconversion of 4,678 PDF pages of lesson plans into web enabled and searchable content. By December,2023, this will be accomplished and the website will be fully operational.
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience: During this period, our team worked with external consulatants to develop the Early Learning Matters Web site. The preliminary version of the web site is now complete and we are ready to share this with DoD for their reviewl. Once we ontain their comments, we will revise the website. Changes/Problems:We are following the steps outlined in our intial plan and consequently no modifcation is required.It has taken us longer than we expected to develop the intial website but with this finished, we are moving along nicely. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The website will eventually be very useful for training and professional development but because this is not yet finished, we have nothing at this point to report. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?There has been no dissemination to date. When the site is fullly tested, theproduct will be widely distributed both within DoD and civilian early chilhood programs. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We have completed the initial version of the web site and within the next two weeks we will submit this to DoD for their review. 2. Once we hear back from DoD, we and our external website developer (Dearning Company)will make requested changes. 3. Once these changes have been made, the next step is to turn this over to UsableNet.This is an external vendor responsible for ensuring that our site meets 508 accessibility requirements. We anticipate that some changes will be required. 4. Once all 508 modifications have been completed, we will conduct a Beta test whereby users of the curriculum will be given access to the website and they will use it for several weeks. We will solicit their feedback. 5. We will make modifications as required from this Beta testing. 6. Once all modifications are completed and DoD signs off on completion, the site will go live.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We are making steady progress completing this project, but there have been a fews hiccups caused by the delay in funding receipt and issues pertaining to contracting our external consultants/vendors. But we are now moving forward steadily. 1. We have completed the initial version of the web site and within the next two weeks we will submit this to DoD for their review. 2. Once we hear back from DoD, we and our external website developer (Dearning Company)will make requested changes. 3. When these changes have been made, the next step is to turn this over to UsableNet.This is an external vendor responsible for ensuring that our site meets 508 accessibility requirements.We anticipate that some changes will be required. 4. Once all 508 modifications have been completed, we will conduct a Beta test whereby DoD users of the curriculum will be given access to the website and they will use it for several weeks. We will solicit their feedback. 5. We will make modifications as required from this Beta testing. 6. Once all modifications are completed and DoD signs off on completion, the site will go live.
Publications
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