The eCIRCLE Professional Development Program includes 16 courses (73.5 hours) for teachers and administrators serving children three to six years of age. These courses include extensive video-based demonstrations of effective instructional practices, as well as application-based assignments and activities. eCIRCLE is well-aligned to the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines, covering topics in classroom management, language and literacy, social and emotional development, science, and mathematics. This program can be self-paced or facilitated in a group setting.
TO ACCESS eCIRCLE:
- eCIRCLE is available for all users! Follow instructions after clicking “Sign Up” at the top right to create your account.
- After logging in, you will see the CLI Engage Dashboard. Scroll down until you see the purple bar for “Online Learning & Professional Development.”
- Click the “Full Course Catalog” and then click “eCIRCLE Professional Development Series: Self-Instructional.” Enroll in whichever courses you’d like!
FOUNDATIONAL TOPICS
Classroom
Management
This course focuses on designing, creating, and managing classrooms that combine meaningful structure with a warm spirit. In such classroom environments, children begin to love learning, manage their own behavior, and work and play independently.
Prekindergarten Response to Intervention
This course focuses on an initiative that aims to meet the needs of all children through a tiered instruction and assessment framework. This framework requires targeted and intentional instruction to meet the needs of all students.
English Language Learners: Culture, Language, Instruction
This course addresses the impact of culture on learning and language development, introduces the stages of language development and second language acquisition, and highlights evidence-based strategies that teachers can use to support ELLs.
LANGUAGE & LITERACY TOPICS
Setting the Stage for Children's Talk
This course focuses on key elements of encouraging children's talk: responsiveness, rich content and stimulation, and emotional support.
Building Children's Vocabulary
This course focuses on developing and enhancing theme-based vocabulary instruction for pre-kindergarten children.
Letter Knowledge
This course focuses on strategies for introducing pre-K children to letter and language concepts while exposing them to the letters themselves.
Phonological Awareness
Discover a critical piece in literacy development: Phonological Awareness. This course features four-year-olds engaged in playful activities with a purpose. The teachers focus on exposing the children repeatedly to the sounds of spoken words.
Read Alouds
This course focuses on planning and leading effective read alouds. It includes research-based techniques for extending the benefits of read alouds throughout the day and week and presents read alouds as a cornerstone of children's literacy.
Written Expression
This course focuses on planning, implementing, and reflecting on written expression instruction in pre-K classrooms, including modeling, encouraging, and scaffolding writing across the school day and throughout the school year.
ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Social and Emotional Learning
This course focuses on the key elements of encouraging and scaffolding children's talk in pre-K classrooms: responsiveness, rich content and stimulation, and emotional support.
Early Childhood Mathematics
This course presents strategies and rationale for supporting mathematics development in early childhood classrooms. A new module on the developmental progression of math is coming soon!
Discovering Early Childhood Science
This course presents research-based methods and tools to help teachers plan for, teach, and assess children's understanding of developmentally appropriate pre-K science experiences.
Effective Mentoring Strategies
This course introduces the key components of mentoring, as well as tools and effective strategies to help mentors support early childhood teachers in their work with children.