Exploring Roles on the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

There are so many associations and limiting to three was a challenge.  The three associations that I chose are:

Utah Association for the Education of Young Children (UAEYC), UAEYC promotes the use of best practices in early childhood education through supporting the Utah Early Childhood Conference, publishing a quarterly newsletter, providing scholarships to national conferences, promoting professional development opportunities in local communities, advocacy, and facilitating national accreditation of early care and education programs in Utah.  UAEYC is the Utah state affiliate of the National Association of Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

I chose the UAEYC because they are an affiliate of NAEYC.  I have personal relationship with many of the members and leaders in these organizations.  They provide great resources and I feel that they support professionals in the field through their trainings and expertise.

Together we unite if there is an issue that needs to be solved and we look for solution to make the early childhood field a success for the children and families in our local communities and state.

The Professional Family Child Care Association of Utah (PFCCA) has a mission that is dedicated to inspire children to reach their full potential; through supporting our family child care providers by increasing quality improvement, raising awareness and encouraging professionalism.

Being a member and collaborating with this organization will support my issue in accepting children into quality childcare.

Salt Lake Head Start Collaboration Group is a new local group that was started for teachers to come together and share ideas about curriculum and issues concerning children and their challenges.  Sharing information can open your eyes to different strategies and bring up issues that need to be solved to accept all children and be able to meet their needs.

As I scroll through different web sites for jobs in this state there is not a lot of opportunities.  I love where I am teaching now for Head Start.  I would like to be a Director of Early Childhood Center or even be an owner operator again.  I feel that I have the qualifications through my many years of experience and education.   I have a great interest in empowering adults to take on their lives to the fullest and to excel in their profession as early childhood educators. 

The skills that are involved in most of these jobs would require the education that I am pursuing and great organizational skills.  Having knowledge of state and local issues that are going on is essential, as this would effect the profession.

To conclude I feel that I will keep on looking and the right job will be there for me when I am ready.  In the mean time I will continue to excel and grow and be the best teacher and leader I can be where I am now.

PFCCA Of Utah, Herriman Day Care , PFCCA Of Utah, Herriman child care, Day Care   PFCCA Of Utah, Herriman UT | Infant Care - PFCCA Professional Family Child      Care Asssociation of Utah. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://pfcca.org

UAEYC - Home. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.uaeyc.org

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/7225164/Ealry_Childhood_Education

Here are great words of inspiration which, drives me to make a difference in the  world and my community. I am looking forward to seeing what my passion is and other people's passion and seeing how we can challenge ourselves to make that difference.

Thank you to all my Colleagues in my class!

I just want to say that this has been an awesome class.  With myself working with people and wanting to be personable I always need to work on my communication skills. I have learned much about myself.

I know and learned that I need to gain my confidence back to apply all the knowledge that I have learned and that will make me the affective communicator that I want to be.  This will include passion, commission, empathy, culture and individualization.

I want to take this time to thank each one of you in my class.  I have learned so much from all of you about communicating in an affective and positive manner. I especially enjoyed all the information on collaboration.  I will take all this information from this class and continue on using the skills.  I will also continue to be aware of my communication skills so that I can be part of the solution and create win/win situations for my families professionally and personally.

Good luck to everyone in his or her professional journeys!

Here is my information if you choose to keep in touch

Tracy Halverson

801-824-0098

spacyh@msn.com

I also have a Facebook page

Adjourning

This week I read about the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Being part of a group, project, or organizations is an amazing experience to be part of.  There is much learning and growing that in is involved with any of these activities.  Learning form the different readings this week have enabled me to look at where I stand as a leader and make me aware of the certain steps and procedures to be able to lead in a more professional way.

I have been part of many groups, Lets look at the adjourning phase for several of the groups in which you I have been involved.

There are many aspects when a group finishes a project or their goal has been accomplished.  How do you say good-bye and why is it so hard?  I have to admit some groups are easier to leave than others. 

I feel that the groups that were the hardest to detach from were the high performing groups that were organized, there was trust among each other and we valued each other’s opinion even if we did not agree. We created continuity and met the goal and vision of the project.

One group that I participated in that was hardest to leave was one of planning a conference. I have planned many conferences and they are with different groups of people, this particular year was amazing.  The leader followed the five steps and everyone felt valued and there was great trust among this group.

The closing or the adjourning of this group was that we were all invited to the canyon.  We were all assigned a food dish to bring and we went to the canyon and cooked hamburgers and had different things to eat. We all socialized and then we sat in a circle and discussed what worked and what didn’t work.  The leader gave us a yellow flower at the end.  It felt as though we were complete, we felt valued for what we had done.

Going to school on line has been an experience.  I have though several times of how I will adjourn from Walden University. I have learned so much from different colleagues and I really want to meet everyone in person. What I think would be a great thing is that we all walk together.  I am not sure that this is not realistic however.  I know that it will be hard for me.  I have learned so much from everyone. I would like just to gather to talk about goals and meet the person that we have been communicating with. 

Adjourning a group is an essential part of any product.  It gives each person a sense of closure and value.  It will validate your performance and enable you to move on to the next step or for the next leadership role that you challenge to take on.  It also creates a life long relationship with the members that you worked with.

Communication with Others

This week think about the similarities and differences between how you evaluated yourself as a communicator and how others evaluated you.

This exercise was a very interesting activity.  I was a bit nervous because of course it is always scary to see what others have to say about you. However, I feel that it has inspired me to take action on some different techniques to be a more affective communicator. 

What is the one thing that surprised you the most? Why?

The one thing that surprised me the most was that my colleague and personal friend scored almost identical to what I scored.  I think that I am not giving myself enough credit of how I communicate.  I think that I must prejudge myself and really haven’t seen how I communicate until I really took these tests.

What other insights about communication did you gain this week?

There were many insights that I gained this week.  One is that I am a people oriented person.  I have been told that several times in my life.  This is a great way to communicate, however, there has to be a balance.  I know that I take thing very personal and internalize much that is communicated to me.  I am then very hard on myself f whether I have communicated appropriately to the other person.

I also experienced that I should be more consistent in the way that I communicate.  It seems that I am a situational communicator.  I am going to listen to myself and make sure that I am not prejudging and that I can be more consistent in the way that I communicate.

Overall this was an excellent exercise.  There are many things I need to work on for my personal and professional ways of communication.