Since 2014, KLRN has offered free, live professional development trainings for child care providers. With support from the Ewing Halsell Foundation and Aetna Foundation, KLRN has presented Little Bites, Big Steps and Super Saturday Trainings. KLRN engages teachers and supports their professional development through high quality trainings. Since 2013, 2740+ early childhood teachers, center directors, and center nutritionists have earned more than 13,000 training hours.
KLRN believes an adult who understands the importance of making healthy life choices raises young children who are healthy. KLRN presents a five session workshop series, part one, as we examine components of nutritious snacks and meals, benefits of physical activity, and healthy caregiving practices. At part two, teachers review content and we facilitate a training to engage the audience in an “implementation session;” teachers co-create lesson plans—integrating content, focusing on student’s learning strategies, and centering on lesson plan objectives and goals. Participants who attend both sessions earn 10 training hours.
KLRN advocates purposeful learning and presents high demand training topics requested by early education providers. Annually, teachers must earn 24 training hours and directors must earn 30 hours. Together, teachers explore topics like physical fitness, nutrition, time management, developmental milestones, music and movement. Participants self-select a track (infant/toddler, preschool, or director) as they engage in activities with their peers and attend a panel discussion as well. Participants who attend earn 4.5 training hours.
A component of our professional development trainings are mentor visits. KLRN’s staff perform three site visits to follow-up with implementation, healthy practices, and lessons learned. The average site visit lasts three hours where the mentor observes practices, models and shares additional resources with the teachers.
The professional development trainings are hosted in KLRN’s Ewing Halsell Learning Center (EHLC) which was designed specifically for adult learning and teacher technology training and the Robert L.B. Tobin Studio at KLRN. To learn more, call 210.208.8444 or visit www.klrn.org/learning/professional-development/.
