SPRING 2021 Research Notes - Effective Online Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators: An Evaluation of the Early Math Training Model

Oct 15, 2026

Research notes on effective online professional development for early childhood educators, focusing on an evaluation of the Early Math Training Model. The text highlights how workforce diversity, varying preparation, and limited access—such as time, geography, cost, and short-term formats—reduce the impact of traditional face-to-face learning. Recommendations emphasize long-term, sustained, content-focused opportunities. The notes describe Early Math Counts, a free website and an on-demand eight-course curriculum providing resources, videos, and interactive community support for early math teaching.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

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Challenges to effective professional development for the early childhood workforce

Early math counts – an online professional development model

SPRING 2021 Research Notes Effective Online Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators: An Evaluation of the Early Math Training Model Given the diversity of the current early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce and varying educational attainment and preparations, professional development has been identified as an effective way of increasing knowledge, skills, confidence, and capacities of early childhood teachers in impacting young children’s development (Sheridan, Edwards, Marvin, & Knoche, 2009) . Therefore, promoting professional development has become an important focus of early childhood program leadership in continuous quality improvement efforts. However, the opportunities and accessibility of professional development can be limited for many early educators, such as family childcare providers and professionals who work in full-year, full-day programs in under-resourced communities (Warner-Richter, Paschall, Tout, & Lowe, 2020) . CHALLENGES TO EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR THE EARLY CHILDHOOD WORKFORCE Most professional development opportunities for early childhood teachers are offered as face-to-face sessions (in various formats, including workshops, coaching, and college courses), tailored for teachers in traditional school-or centerbased child care, offered during a traditional academic year, or during summer, or on professional development days when children do not attend (Sheridan, Banzer, Pradzinski, & Wen, 2020) . These professional development sessions often involve lecturing, reflective practice, peer collaboration, and coaching/ mentoring for individual feedback. Notably, none of these models fully meet the needs of the current early childhood workforce. Early childhood educators indicate that time, location, and cost are factors limiting access to professional development opportunities. Educators often cannot easily leave their classrooms or may be geographically restricted (Olsen, Donaldson, & Hudson, 2010) . Early educators who work in non-school settings (e.g. , family child care homes or full-day, year-round child care centers) often cannot engage in traditional in-person professional development due to constraints of operating hours, limited funds, or programs that cannot afford to close to attend trainings or workshops. In addition, most professional development workshops are short-term in nature and do not provide follow-up supports that allow sustained exploration and application of the content and pedagogical instructional approaches covered in the training. Long-term models of professional development and in-person coaching are beneficial, but can be costly. Recommendations for effective professional development are that the learning opportunity be long-term, sustained, and focused on content areas, so that early educators can actively return to materials over time (e.g. , Desimone, 2011) . Online professional development has the potential to overcome some of the barriers identified through providing access, relevance, and content level specificity that early childhood educators seek. Educators can access professional development at a time and place that is convenient to them, potentially eliminating the geographic and time constraints of traditional professional development, with low or no cost (e.g. , Stone-MacDonald & Douglass, 2015) . Modularized, resource-based, well-designed online trainings are received favorably by early childhood educators (Kyzar, Chiu, Kemp, Aldersey, Turnbull, & Lindeman, 2014) . In this review, we will present one of the nation’s first online professional development models that target early math teaching and learning. EARLY MATH COUNTS – AN ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL Research indicates that early childhood teachers often lack the confidence, knowledge, or classroom practice skills to include math in their classrooms (Brenneman et al. 2019) . Thus, professional development in early math is especially importa

FAQs

Why is professional development important for early childhood educators in this research notes document?

It identifies professional development as an effective way to increase educators’ knowledge, skills, confidence, and capacities to impact young children’s development.

What challenges limit access to traditional professional development for the early childhood workforce?

Time, location, and cost can restrict educators from leaving classrooms or attending trainings, especially in non-school settings. Short-term workshops often lack follow-up supports for sustained exploration and application.

What is Early Math Counts and how does it support early math learning?

Early Math Counts is a free access website offering early math resources, including math lesson plans organized by age group and standards, short concept videos, and interactive blog features. It also connects to an on-demand eight-course online curriculum covering key math concepts.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Alex Sinclair