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PA PSCECE Resources

November 9, 2023

Pennsylvania Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators (PA PSCECE) Resources

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These Pennsylvania Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators (PA PSCECE) are the general knowledge and skills that an early childhood educator needs to know and be able to demonstrate. Below is a list of resources that institutions of higher education, Early Childhood Education Professional Development Organizations (PDOs), and professional learning organizations should consider when developing coursework, professional development, and trainings for early childhood educators. While not an exhaustive list, these PA PSCECE resources include detail, seminal content specific to Pennsylvania. Instructors are encouraged to use multiple resources to teach the PA PSCECE.

Standard Area 1:

Child Development and Learning in Context

1a: Understand the developmental period of early childhood from birth through age 8 across physical, cognitive, social, and emotional, and linguistic domains, including bilingual/multilingual development.

RESOURCES:

1b: Understand and value each child as an individual with unique developmental variations, experiences, strengths, interests, abilities, challenges, and approaches to learning, and with the capacity to make choices.

RESOURCES:
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

1c: Understand the ways that child development and the learning process occur in multiple contexts, including family, culture, language, community, and early learning setting, as well as in a larger societal context that includes structural inequities.

RESOURCES:

1d Use this multidimensional knowledge—that is, knowledge about the developmental period of early childhood, about individual children, and about development and learning in cultural contexts—to make evidence-based decisions that support each child.

Standard Area 2:

Family-Teacher Partnerships and Community Connections

Standard Area 3:

Child Observation, Documentation, and Assessment

Standard Area 4:

Developmentally, Culturally, and Linguistically Appropriate Teaching Practices

4a: Understand and demonstrate positive, caring, supportive relationships and interactions as the foundation of early childhood educators’ work with young children.

4b: Understand and use teaching skills that are responsive to the learning trajectories of young children and to the needs of each child, recognizing that differentiating instruction, incorporating play as a core teaching practice, and supporting the development of executive function skills are critical for young children.

4c: Use a broad repertoire of developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically relevant, anti-bias, evidencebased teaching skills and strategies that reflect the principles of universal design for learning.

Standard Area 5:

Knowledge, Application, and Integration of Academic Content in the Early Childhood Curriculum

Standard Area 6:

Professionalism as an Early Childhood Educator

6a: Identify and involve themselves with the early childhood field and serve as informed advocates for young children, families, and the profession.

6b: Know about and uphold ethical and other early childhood professional guidelines. Early childhood educators have a compelling responsibility to know about and uphold ethical guidelines, federal and state regulatory policies, and other professional standards because young children are at a critical point in their development and learning and because children are vulnerable and cannot articulate their rights and needs.

Standard Area 7:

Health and Safety

7a: Health and Safety

According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “learning and health are interrelated’ (2014, 3). Health-promoting environments early in life are critically important for building a strong foundation for learning. Basic physical health and safety management procedures contribute to the prevention of childhood illness and communicable diseases. A safe environment prevents and reduces injuries. Early childhood programs keep children safe when their facilities, materials, and equipment are hazard-free and all staff use safety practices such as active supervision.

7b: Nutrition

Nutrition is important at every age. Young children need proper nutrients to grow and stay healthy and strong. Nutrition for children can also help establish a foundation for healthy eating habits and nutritional knowledge that can apply throughout life. Proper nutritional practices afford children with more energy, a greater interest in learning and positively influences cognitive development and academic performance.

7c: Mental Health and Wellness: Staff Mental Health

Mental health is integral to living a healthy, balanced life. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Research confirms the critical connection between the health and wellbeing of children and the adults caring for them. Because of this important link, it is essential that adults take care of themselves so that they are able to provide high quality care to the children in their lives (Devereux Foundation, 2020).

7d: Mental Health and Wellness: Child/Family Mental Health

Mental health--an essential part of children and family’s overall health--has a complex interactive relationship with physical health and the ability to succeed in school, at work and in society. These competencies assist educators in supporting the mental health of each and every child and family.