Abstract:

Research has highlighted the importance of enhancing professional skills to promote children's social and emotional learning (SEL) in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. Furthermore, it is essential to invest in accessible and practical yet comprehensive and autonomous professional development (PD) programs that address the challenges faced by ECEC professionals in the prevention of children’s challenging behaviours and the promotion of SEL. However, a better understanding of the optimal design, utilisation, and impact of such PD programs and strategies is needed. To address these needs, a European consortium comprising institutions from Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, and Ireland developed an online PD program within the framework of the Erasmus+ project "Implementing Positive Behaviour Support in Early Childhood Education and Care” (PBS-ECEC). The PBS-ECEC project trained ECEC professionals in the area of children's SEL by using a Programme-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (PW-PBS) approach. The PW-PBS approach is an evidence-based method that aims to create a supportive and inclusive environment to promote social and emotional development. To achieve this goal, the PBS-ECEC project designed an online training course, the PBS-ECEC Moodle platform, which provided professionals with a diverse set of resources and support organised around five online learning modules that were developed to help professionals in the sustainable implementation of the PW-PBS approach.

This communication aims to present:
1) the design, development, and validation process of the training program involving an international team of experts and researchers,
2) the structure and contents of the five modules of the online course, and
3) the perspectives of ECEC professionals (n = 120) regarding their experiences during training and exploration of the PBS-ECEC Moodle platform.

The participants provided informed consent and the project complied with national data protection recommendations. ECEC professionals, who used the platform to train for a period of 12 weeks, completed online questionnaires to assess their experience regarding the learning contents, activities, and resources of the modules. Overall, findings showed positive impacts, namely that the participants appreciated the flexibility of asynchronous training and expressed satisfaction with the usability, content and structure, as well as the practical implications for their daily work with young learners. These findings emphasize the importance of user-friendly, comprehensive online PD programmes that effectively enhance professionals’ competences and promote innovative practices and strategies in ECEC settings. Implications for future endeavours in this area will be discussed.

Keywords:

Asynchronous online training, preschool teachers, professional development, social and emotional development.