Created in 2007 by the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL), The Pennsylvania Key implements the work and supports the policies developed and managed by OCDEL. Learn More. >
Created in 2007 by the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL), The Pennsylvania Key implements the work and supports the policies developed and managed by OCDEL. Learn More. >The DERS encompasses five domains:
The DERS is composed of 60 items in three observation categories:
The DERS can be used in family, group or center-based programs. It measures quality of learning environments enrolling children ages 3-12 years. Although initially designed for Montessori programs, many of the concepts are universal and can easily be transferred to other early childhood settings.
The information gathered from a DERS assessment can be used by a program to understand the interactions between children, teachers, and the learning environment and to use that information to grow children’s executive function, linguistic and cultural fluency, and social-emotional learning skills. The information gathered can also be used to help create the program’s continuous quality improvement plan.
External DERS assessments are conducted by a reliable DERS assessor from the Program Quality Assessment (PQA) team. The DERS is a 1-hour timed observation that is conducted via an iPad app. Internal DERS assessments are conducted by the program’s internal assessment team.
Programs partner with the Quality Coach and PQA team when planning for and conducting internal assessment, and when analyzing the information collected during the internal assessment process.
