Development and Preliminary Validation of the Emotional Teacher Rating Scale (EMOTERS) for Preschool Classrooms
Children aren't just learning social-emotional skills when the class is doing a social-emotional lesson. Teachers are constantly modeling, teaching, responding, and creating an environment which teaches children social-emotional skills. In conjunction with Dr. Katherine Zinsser's Social-Emotional Teaching and Learning Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago, we are conducting an IES-funded study to develop an observational measure of social-emotional teaching. The four-year study will result in a measure for use in preschool classrooms that ranks the various interactions from the least difficult to the most difficult making it clear what teachers can do to improve.
Improving Social and Emotional Teaching in Preschool
With support from the Department of Education, we are
working with a group of residents taking part in the University
of Illinois at Chicago's Alternative Licensure Program. We aim
to support teachers in their supports for (a) children's developing
emotional competence, (b) STEM learning, and (c) diverse learners.
In particular, we plan to use the EMOTERS measure in the context of
coaching and professional learning communities to assist in the
professional development of residents.
Variability in Teacher-Child Interactions
Levels of emotional, organizational, and instructional support from
teachers have been linked to the development of academic,
regulatory, and social skills of children. However, not only the
levels, but the variability that children experience in interactions
with teachers also seems to be important. We are currently working
on several manuscripts that examine how variability in emotional
support is related to the academic and social development of
children. For example, two teachers whose mean levels of emotional
support may be quite different in their variability. One might
consistently offer moderate support; the other might sometimes be
very supportive, and at other times, be very unsupportive. Our first
paper (Curby, Brock, & Hamre, 2013) found that students in
classrooms with more emotional variability had worse outcomes -
academic and social - than those children in classrooms with less
emotional variability. Other work is examining how consistency is
related to teacher-child relationships and predictors of teachers'
emotional support consistency.