New Training to Support Infant CLASS Assessment
By Karen Darter
By now most of you have heard about the CLASS assessment tool currently being used throughout the county to assess the interactions of teachers and children.
Currently, Palm Beach County has used the PreK CLASS tool to assess PreK/VPK classrooms (3 - 4 year olds) and the Toddler CLASS tool to assess toddler classrooms (18 - 36 months).
In 2017, the county will move from using the ITERS assessment tool in infant classrooms to the Infant CLASS assessment tool (birth - 18 months). To support this change and help prepare for the assessment, the Institute of Excellence has developed a 10-hour overview training to introduce infant teachers to the Infant CLASS assessment tool. This new training will give teachers a better understanding of the Infant CLASS tool’s focus, and the types of interactions that characterize effective practices with infants.
The Infant CLASS consists of one domain: Responsive Caregiving. Within this domain there are four dimensions: Relational Climate, Teacher Sensitivity, Facilitated Exploration, and Early Language Support.
Each dimension is broken down into indicators and behavior markers, which provide teachers a better understanding of the types of interactions that will support positive child outcomes.
During the development of this training, it was discovered that the dimensions fit well with several of the Conscious Discipline rituals. Hence, Conscious Discipline rituals have been embedded into the Infant CLASS training, to provide teachers with clear examples of how these interactions should look in their classrooms.
The Overview of Infant CLASS training will be offered in the 2016 fall semester.
