WK 4 Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

·         Careers at NEA, Is a Great Place to Work
National Education Association (NEA) got my interest because of their description of the careers they offer. Even though there is not a job available for me they have positions available for Interns, Professional, and Technical Supports. I found it interesting that they have position for interns and they are family oriented.
Working Mother magazine has named the National Education Association as one of its 100 best companies for family-friendly benefits. More than 58 percent of NEA's workforce of roughly 500 employees at its Washington, D.C. headquarters is female. NEA offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes a variety of paid health and dental insurance options; paid maternity and parental leave for newborns and newly adopted children; up to five days each year for parents and grandparents to participate in a student's school activities; back-up childcare; telecommuting; and flexible work schedules.

Positions at NEA include executive, managerial, professional, technical, administrative/clerical and trades/crafts. Vacancies may involve skills in communications/media relations, information technology, education policy analysis, research, lobbying/political advocacy or secretarial/office administration.

·         Department of Education (ED)
ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. ED was created in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. ED's 4,400 employees and $68 billion budget are dedicated to:

• Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.
• Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.
• Focusing national attention on key educational issues.
• Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

There is no position available for me but they have other position available for those that have a doctoral degrees or three years academic of graduate education. This site interests me because I can go and see policies that have been established and data and research being done with education. I love how they have a site for families and parent engagement along with a blog section that give helpful information for families and parents to help plan for college for their children and other helpful information to help children.

·         CoP: PMI Learning Education and Development (Lead) Community of Practice
I was interested in this Community of Practice because of what the PMI is focused on. The focus of the PMI LEAD CoP is to establish a dynamic and collaborative environment where project managers, educators and researchers can share ideas, best practices, feedback and information on the following topics, as well as connect with one another to build their personal and professional networks:

• A basic understanding of the role of project management in learning, education, development and research
• An understanding of the role of learning, education and development in the practice of project, program and portfolio management
• Established processes, tools and methodologies specific to or employed by the training and development industry
• Relationship between learning/development and project management within other industries, knowledge areas and/or interest areas
• International perspectives on the learning/development/research of project management
• Information on cutting edge teaching/instructional practices, techniques, technologies in project management
• Focus on how to manage competence development and training projects, as well as training sections of the change management and roll-out phases of projects
• Provide guidance on opportunities to apply the project management methodology to educational settings, how it may be different from other environments; collaborative projects for writing about project management in educational settings
• Professional development for all members
• How to make project management training more effective
• Sharing knowledge on how project management is used in Human Resources/Learning & Development

LEAD CoP Vision - The PMI Learning Education and Development CoP inspires its members and leaders to share their knowledge and experiences as project management practitioners and educators in a continually evolving and collaborative learning environment. The LEAD CoP is the center of excellence in educational project management and the leading source of creative and innovative techniques for teaching and communicating the value of professional project management.

LEAD CoP Mission - The PMI LEAD CoP provides services to our members and people interested in project management through networking, partnering, learning, and other activities towards the advancement of the education and training project management community.

I could not find a section of job opportunities but I did why where you can sign up and become a part of CoP PMI Learning Education and Development. They do have a Career Headquarters for Practicioners which is a place to help improve you improve your resume by cultivating your strengths and talents. They also have a career coaching services available to all memembers.

References:

https://www.nea.org

www.ed.gov

 http://lead.vc.pmi.org/Public/Home.aspx

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

Three organizations that have appealed to me for many years and some job opportunities that interests me…

Ø  The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is the world’s largest organization working on behalf of young children birth to eight years of age. They are also the voice of high-quality early childhood education for young children. I love the NAEYC because it is a place I can go and get up-to-date information on publications and professional development trainings. I also really enjoy the NAEYC for families’ sites that give families up-to-date information on children’s learning and development. Even though the main office is in Washington, DC there is an off branch for Kentucky which is Kentucky Association for Early Childhood Education

The Kentucky Association for Early Childhood Education has a position called WAYS AND MEANS which oversee KAECE fund raising activities, order Board approved items to sell, maintain KAECE display boards, set up KAECE displays at early care and education functions, oversee the Conference Silent Auction and secure members to be stationed at the Silent Auction and KAECE exhibit, maintain and update a current inventory of revenue generating materials, and attend Annual KAECE Conference and assist as needed. This position is not available but I am interested because I love creating and set up displays. I have also worked for a college professor in an early childhood department and I was responsible to oversee and maintain inventory resource materials.

Ø  First Steps is a statewide early intervention system that provides services to children with developmental disabilities from birth to age 3 and their families. First Steps is Kentucky's response to the federal Infant-Toddler Program. First Steps offers comprehensive services through a variety of community agencies and service disciplines and is administered by the Department for Public Health in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. I choice this organization because I currently work with First Steps and I see a need to promote First Steps to the community.

First Steps are always in need for service providers like Developmental Interventionist, Speech Therapist, Occupational Therapist, and Psychical Therapist. For a Developmental Interventionist our skills and experience require are a Bachelor degree along with teacher certification and a background working with young children. I provide activities for families to do with their child on a daily routine to improve their child’s developmental progress.

Ø   Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services: Division of Child Care is a division that provides leadership in building high quality, community based access to child care and early learning that enhances health, safety, permanency, well-being and self-sufficiency for Kentucky’s children and families. Division of Child Care works towards increasing quality child care that is developmentally appropriate, affordable, healthy, and safe for all children and families. Their vision is engaging families and community partners in collaborative decision making for early care and education.

At this time there are no positions available but I would be interested in Child Care Licensing Specialist. The site did not list any employment opportunity so I contacted the Director of the Division of child care and she sent me an email on what they look for when there are position available. This site was also very hard to navigate to find employment. Skills and experiences the director emailed me back includes knowledge of the child care regulations and a minimal 2 years working in a child care setting or a BA in early childhood or MA in Education or Social Services. I have always wanted to be a part of those who put children and families first to provide a healthy safe environment for children to learn and play.
 

References:

First Steps: http://chfs.ky.gov/dph/firstSteps/default.htm

Kentucky Association for Early Childhood Education: http://www.kaece.org/

Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services: http://chfs.ky.gov

Our final Class!

Hello classmates to EDUC 6990-Practical Application in the Early Childhood Field.

It’s great to see familiar faces as well as a few new faces and getting to know each and everyone.  I can’t believe this is our last class together and our final class before we all receive our MA.

I just wanted to say to everyone GOOD LUCK in our final stretch of completion!!!!

Thanks to All!

I would like to thank everyone that has posted on my discussion and blogs.  It is always great to get encouraging words or new insight from others viewpoint.  As we all continue our journey I hope to see future blogs of new information, ideas, or even advice from everyone.  I plan to continue posting blogs throughout my degree program and after I have finished my degree. Thanks too all and hope to see familiar names in the next class.

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Team Development - Adjourning

This week I read about the 5 stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.  I am considering my adjourning phase which is how we all went our separate ways when the group work was complete.  Therefore I was thinking did I have a hard time with saying good-bye to leave the group and move on.  Thinking back with all the groups I have been involved in, I can’t say any of the groups were hard to say good-bye. 

Most groups except one, I was not sad to see them go but with all my classes that we had to do group work we always had some type of end of the year celebration relating to what the group was working on.  I can think of a group of classmates that I was involved in during the last few classes to finish our Bachelor degree, that we did not say good-bye, we said see you around.  We did adjourn the group but we still meat up today for lunch or dinner to talk about old times, what is going on in everyone’s life now, and talk about all the changes that keep going on for preschool education. 

Understanding what adjourning means to a group and why it is part of team development, allowed me to understand that it is an essential stage of teamwork.  Moving on from a group and saying good-bye is a great thing because you may never want to work with those in your group again.  At the same time you may not want to say good-bye because you may in the future have to work with the same group again.  With any group that is a great group you may want to stay in contact because you built a friendship with that group and later down the road you may want to stay in touch to get new ideas for your work.  One person can come up with several ideas and every year especially a teacher wants to have new fresh ideas instead of using the same ones.  Therefore, developing a friendship out of your groups is a great way to brainstorm new ideas to teach. 

Conflict Resolution Skill...

Recently my 21 year old son has moved back into my home and we had a big disagreement over his money.  When I realized things were getting heated up and I did not want my son to feel he had to leave the house.  I told him calmly that we needed to talk about an issue that was bothering me and I only want to help; therefore, I told him after he was done running his errands we will talk.  While he was gone I evaluated the information I found out and was thinking how I was going to talk to him without yelling at him.  So when he came back I stated what the issue was, why I was upset, and how I wanted to help get him back on track.  I laid out some solutions that would help him manage his money and save some so he can get his own place to live.  We talked for an hour coming up with solutions to help him and he was willing to try one of the solutions.  The solution he decided to go with was leaving his bank card with me and I would lock it up. Then he would only keep $30 cash on him and the rest will go in the bank and he will not touch it.  He also was willing to give me his password so that I can check to make sure he was putting the money in his account. 

I thought about the NVC skills when I was decided to talk with my son about his spending habits.  I evaluated myself and how I would react to him by yelling at him for not saving money and blowing it on whatever he wanted to buy.  I also thought about my feelings on this issue and his feelings how he would take me yelling at him, which was never turned out good when he was younger either.  I try to understanding why he was not saving but was buying stuff he did not need and then realized he was buying some clothes along with other things he did not need.  Then when we talked, I clearly laid out the solutions to help him save money for his own place. 

For those that have children old enough to be on their own and are living at home with you again, can you see any other way I could have handle this issue that would help me become a better communicator.

Communication skills

After evaluating my communication, listening,  and verbal skills scale I was shocked with the scores I received.  My communication anxiety inventory test I scored a moderate level, which indicates that I feel somewhat concerned about a number of communication contexts,  but probably not all. The moderate level of communication anxiety is what they call "situational."  I know this is so true amount me, because I do have communication anxiety only during certain times and that usually is when I am in front of a group of people.   I realized that I had this issue when I took a public speaking course and during this course I learned how to calm my nerves when speaking in front of a group of people.   I still get nervous at times but when I am talking about children and their learning it is much easier.   My listening style profile showed I am a people-oriented person but never realized that this can also interfere with my relationships with family and friends.   This profile describes me as empathetic and concerned with the emotions of others.  It shows that this listening style helps me build relationships,  but can also interfere with proper judgment because I tend to be very trusting of others.   I thought this was a good trait about myself but realized that giving some judgement can help others make better decisions.   I do give some of my thoughts to others but would never say anything negative too anyone because I hated hurting others feeling.   Over the years I learned to trust but be wise when trusting other people. My verbal aggressiveness scale was the biggest shock to me because my level was significant.  I never saw myself as an argumentative person or a person that attacks someone thoughts or opinion.  I have always been that person to sit back and bite my tongue because I hate confrontation.  I know I have a lot too learn and the older I get I am getting a little bit more confident within myself to speak in public.

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