Professional Development

The LIL&M Professional Development Project serves early childhood caregivers, educators and families of young children living in the city of Madison and/or county of Dane in Wisconsin.  The primary goals for the LIL&M Collaborative Project are to create support for implementation of best practices in early literacy and early math in the early childhood care and education community and to disseminate information about theory and strategies for supporting early literacy and early math to families.  For the past seven years, this team has worked together to design and implement a series of professional development opportunities for family childcare providers, early childhood care and education staff, kindergarten teachers, directors and administrators.  The impressive achievements of this community-wide collaborative effort rest on the team’s success in building trust and relationships, and in their capacity to reflect on and develop a shared understanding of best practices in teaching and learning for adults and for young children.   

Broad representation has been a hallmark of the team from its inception.  The team includes a core of members that have been involved since its inception, as well as members who have joined the group over the years.  The result is a remarkably stable and dynamic group that builds on its successes and embraces new ideas and possibilities.  The group shares leadership for planning new directions and implementing plans at the practical level. Another unique element of this collaborative is the ability of members of the team to bring with them the support and resources of the agencies that they represent.  Significant funding for these activities is provided by the Madison school district, City of Madison, United Way of Dane County, and 4-C. 

The team has regular monthly meetings and many, many hours of working together in small groups to hire nationally recognized keynote speakers, high-quality local presenters for breakout sessions, and to thoughtfully plan the location, food, door prizes and vendors that help to make the institute days fun, interesting, and conducive to adult learning and collegiality.  The team has also developed college credit courses as an option for participants, provides Registry CEU credits and school district continuing education credits, and provided professional books on early literacy and early math, as well as children’s books, all free of charge.   

Over 450 participants attend one or more of the institute days.  The committee has an ongoing “outreach” committee to encourage caregivers and educators from diverse ethnic and racial groups to attend.  Interpretation for Spanish-speakers is provided with use of simultaneous translation equipment.  At the last sessions, several Hmong family childcare providers were also able to attend these sessions through scholarship assistance. 

Breakout sessions incorporate best practices in teaching and learning for all children birth through age five.  Specific sessions also provide opportunities for participants to learn about supporting diverse populations of children: African-American, English Language Learners, and children with special educational needs.  A “Leadership and Training” track provides an opportunity for directors and administrators to share and learn together strategies for supporting their staff through ongoing staff development. This track also includes a focus on “training of trainers,” with the dual goals of expanding the base of skilled presenters at future institutes and providing speakers for other community events on the topic of early literacy and early math. 

Many of the sessions are videotaped and broadcast on the school district’s cable television channel.  This provides another opportunity for participants who were unable to attend the institute days, for families of young children in the community, and for the general public. 

Many participants attend all three session offered annually and have returned every year for the Launching into Literacy and Math series.  In some programs, the staff has chosen to commit the majority of their in-service training funds to the Launching training, so that whole center teams can support each other in implementing what they’ve learned. This speaks to the quality of the training and the practical application of the knowledge gained by the participants. They can immediately apply the core early literacy and math concepts that they have learned into their early childhood settings.  Our participants have learned from each other about the many early childhood settings that children in our communities experience and have made connections with school district staff. This strengthens the transition between preschool and kindergarten.

For more information on Launching into Literacy and Math implementation, please contact:
Rita Kehl or Judy Ballweg.