Teaching Strategies' new teacher membership provides access to on-demand and live courses, a peer-to-peer community, expert advice; aims to cultivate high-quality, developmentally appropriate practice year-round

BETHESDA, Md., June 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Teaching Strategies, the country's leading developer of early childhood curriculum, assessment, professional learning, and family engagement solutions, today launched a first-of-its-kind membership program that will enable early childhood educators to access live and on-demand online courses, including all required training to earn key credentials; a community to exchange best practices with peers; a dashboard to personalize and track individual professional learning journeys and certificates; and expert advice.

By creating self-paced pathways to upward career mobility and providing teachers with resources along the way, the new membership aims to elevate the early childhood education profession and to combat teacher burnout and turnover, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. In a recent survey by Teaching Strategies, educators reported an average stress level of 5.3 on a scale of 1-7. The biggest drivers of this stress, they reported, were staffing issues, workload, and child behavior and attendance.

"Early childhood educators deserve intentional support to thrive and grow in their profession regardless of their experience level on the job. But professional development opportunities have not traditionally been structured to fit their demanding schedules, and to support adult learning best practices from in-person training, to live virtual, to on-demand, to micro learning," said Teaching Strategies President of Product Celia Stokes. "Now more than ever, it's important to ensure educators are provided flexible pathways to advance in their careers either to their CDA certificate or specialization in particular areas."

The membership, which is now available, includes:

• Comprehensive eLearning platform. Members will access Quorum®, a comprehensive professional development system with personalized learning journeys and real-time progress tracking with a professional development dashboard to manage certificates and badges.
• Interactive, online professional learning community. The online community invites members to engage, connect, and share experiences with other early childhood educators through moderated discussion forums, exclusive community groups, and the open sharing of ideas.
• Catalog of on-demand, self-paced eLearning courses, including required trainings. The membership offers online professional development and provides members 24/7 access to a catalog of more than 400 hours of training in English and over 130 hours in Spanish. This catalog includes all training for the CDA®—a key requirement for educators in Head Start programs—health and safety courses to meet all required annual federal training under the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), and product training for all solutions across the Teaching Strategies ecosystem.

Starting this summer, the membership will also offer:

• Exclusive access to industry experts. The membership's "Ask an Expert" feature offers a 24-hour response time and exclusive access to weekly, interactive, live sessions hosted by experts and organized by popular topics and best practices in early childhood education.
• Virtual live classes. Soon, members will have unlimited access to register for scheduled, live, virtual professional development sessions on a variety of topics.

The launch of the professional learning membership follows Teaching Strategies' acquisition of early childhood education company Quality Assist and its popular eLearning platform Quorum®. The addition of Quorum® marked a major milestone in the evolution of professional learning and support designed to improve quality in early childhood education programs as part of the Teaching Strategies connected ecosystem.

Driven by research that shows a child's first eight years form a critical foundation for success in school and in life, Teaching Strategies has been an advocate for the early education community for over 40 years. Today, Teaching Strategies connects teachers, children and families to inspired teaching and learning experiences, informative data, stronger family partnerships, and professional learning through the leading early learning platform and resources. Its products, including the most widely-used curriculum and assessment solutions The Creative Curriculum® and GOLD®, are found in over 270,000 classrooms and reach over 2 million children each year. To learn why thousands of early childhood programs and many states choose to partner with Teaching Strategies to help ensure children's success in school and in life, visit teachingstrategies.com and follow us on Twitter @TeachStrategies.

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SOURCE Teaching Strategies