Reflecting in Communities of Practice: A Workbook for Early Childhood Educators

Enhance the quality of your teaching with collaborative, critical, and reflective thinking

Teaching young children is complex work. While you manage the day-to-day events that unfold in your classroom you also have to keep up with the demands of assessment and documentation. With all these challenges, how can you maintain the equally important tasks of encouraging children’s curiosity and supporting their joy of learning? How can you sustain your own curious mind and joyful spirit in your work? Reflecting with other teachers in a community of practice can strengthen your abilities to respond to the children in your classroom and share meaningful experiences with them.

This workbook is designed to be used with a group—a community of practice—but it can also be a self-study tool. The exercises help you to understand and practice the key elements of reflective teaching. Ten study sessions provide opportunities to engage with peers as you collaborate and connect theory and best practices in your classrooms. These experiences will help you evaluate and grow your reflective teaching skills; use the Thinking Lens™ protocol to align your daily work with your larger goals, values, and vision; gain a heightened sense of self-awareness and a stronger image of children; examine the details of your environment; and challenge yourself with new perspectives.

Deb Curtis, Debbie Lebo, Wendy C.M. Cividanes, and Margie Carter each have more than thirty years of experience teaching young children and adults. They lead professional development initiatives for child care organizations and are highly respected presenters and trainers across the country.

Deb Curtis: Deb Curtis has been in the field of early childhood education for more than thirty years in a variety of settings as a teacher of children and adults. As a co-founder of Harvest Resources, a partnership to inspire early care providers and educators to engage fully in their own learning, she consults with programs to help grow reflective practices among teachers. She has co-authored seven books with Margie Carter.

Debbie Lebo: Debbie Lebo has over thirty years of experience working with children in a variety of settings: as an infant/toddler and early childhood educator, a hospital child life specialist, and a child care director. She also helped launch a child development program serving at-risk single parent families and was a preschool teacher and curriculum coordinator for five years there. Debbie is a senior associate at Harvest Resources. She holds a master’s degree in human development and is working on her doctoral degree studying reflective teaching and learning in early childhood education.

Wendy C.M. Cividanes: Wendy Cividanes, a former preschool and school-age teacher and administrator, has over thirty years of experience working with young children and families. Wendy currently works as a training specialist and consultant for a variety of preschool and school age programs throughout the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, and is a senior associate with Harvest Resources. Wendy holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College.

Margie Carter: Margie Carter has more than thirty years of experience in early education and has been a preschool and kindergarten teacher, a child care director, and college faculty, and is the producer of a number of early childhood training videos. She has co-authored seven books with Deb Curtis and writes a training column in Child Care Exchange. Margie co-founded Harvest Resources in 1994 as a partnership to inspire early care providers and educators to engage fully in their own learning. Margie holds a master’s degree in human development.