Creating Environments that Promote Positive Social and Emotional Development (with a focus on Trauma)

Utilizing PLN’s Four Lenses of Learning, participants develop an understanding of the importance of the social and emotional development and school readiness needs of young children birth through age 5. Participants gain an understanding of how to weave The Four Lenses of Learning into the early childhood classroom with a strong focus on the social lens of learning. They also gain strategies to build intentional relationships to build upon young children’s prior experiences to ensure optimal learning for all children including those who learn differently and children who have experienced trauma. Assignments include ongoing journals, readings and a final project. Participants need to purchase the course text “Me You, Us: Social Emotional Learning in Preschool” by Dr. Ann S. Epstein.

Coursework includes on the job learning competencies focused on the implementation of active learning for young children. The PLN frameworks, The Five Early Reading, Writing and Talking Processes and The Four Lenses of Learning, are integrated into these learning experiences. Participants also gather evidence-based artifacts of student learning that are generated from lesson try-outs based on course content. Online Schoology class sessions are part of the required coursework in addition to face-to-face sessions.