Effective Classroom Interactions: Supporting Young Children’s Development

Week One – Creating Emotionally Supportive Classrooms:

We’ll take a closer look at the importance of interactions and the power that teachers have in the development of young children. This week will include an overview of the areas and dimensions of the Teaching through Interactions Framework. For this course, we’ll focus specifically on the area of Emotional Support.

Week Two – Building Positive Relationships with Children – The dimension of Positive Climate:

This week will focus on the first dimension of Emotional Support – Positive Climate. You’ll learn about the importance of Positive Climate, see examples of real teachers as they demonstrate effective Positive Climate interactions with their students, and get a chance to analyze what you’re seeing. There will also be an optional homework assignment in which you will videotape your own teaching interactions with children and then analyze what you see based on what you have learned about Positive Climate.

Week Three – Providing Individualized Support to Young Children – The dimension of Teacher Sensitivity:

This week will focus on the next dimension of Emotional Support – Teacher Sensitivity. You’ll learn about the importance of sensitive interactions with children and what sensitive interactions look like in real classrooms. You’ll have the opportunity to analyze classroom videos based on what you know about Teacher Sensitivity. Again, there will be an optional homework assignment in which you will videotape your own teaching and analyze your interactions looking specifically at the dimension of Teacher Sensitivity.

Week Four – Supporting Children’s Independence and Sense of Self – The dimension of Regard for Child Perspectives:

In the final week, you’ll learn about the last Emotional Support dimension – Regard for Child Perspectives. You’ll learn how important it is for young children to have opportunities for their voices and perspectives to be heard, as well as how to foster children’s feelings of self-efficacy and positive self-concepts through your daily interactions. In addition to opportunities to view and analyze classroom interactions based on your knowledge of Regard for Child Perspectives, you’ll have an optional homework assignment allowing you to do the same thing with videotape of your own classroom interactions. Finally, we’ll sum up all that you have learned about all of the dimensions of Emotional Support across the course.