Observing, Interacting, Participating, Volunteering:
Experiential Education in a Group Setting for Young Children

Welcome to Towson University Child Care (hereafter, 'the Center'). We hope that your time with us will be beneficial and enjoyable. In order to help us serve you in your educational endeavors, please read and carefully consider the following information.

The goal of our Center is to promote physical, cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional development in an educational environment which is caring and nurturant. We also attempt to support the development and parenting efforts of our target population: student parents.

Our developmentally oriented preschool program, serves young children ages two through five years of age. We attempt to promote each child's social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development in a caring, nurturing and educational environment. What you will witness here at the Center is programming designed exclusively for our target population...young children in group settings. Our programming is not designed or oriented toward accommodating other schedules/interests/populations.

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Information for observing or working with young children and their parents in a non classroom setting.

If a student's interest and/or class requirement is to observe, participate, interact or volunteer in an area outside of what may be considered to be conventional classroom related issues such as business writing, surveying/data collection possibilities, educational leadership, policy, advocacy, parenting, fund raising, playground architecture, assisting in the development of parental leadership, accounting, infrastructure, working with Boards, public relations etc., the student is requested to make an appointment with office manager to ascertain if/where within the Center's structure a discussion might begin..

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Information for observing or working with young children in a classroom setting.

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Working with young children requires, among other attributes, flexibility and a willingness to evaluate/reevaluate/adjust to the changing parameters of the children and their various situations. Often, our faculty make on-the-spot decisions regarding changes in previously posted typical classroom routines. For example: a Lead Teacher may decide to change the time of outdoor play or even suddenly take a walk, due to an anticipated change in weather or an unanticipated shift in the "mood" of the class. Please note: Regardless of where the class is being held observers, participators, interactors, volunteers all report to the Center's front desk first, sign in, turn in your agreement form, and pick up your ID badge into which you will insert your University ID, and then report to wherever the class is which they are scheduled to observe, interact, participate or volunteer.

On occasion, a Lead Teacher may spontaneously decide not to return directly to the center from an activity/lesson being held outside.. Do not, therefore, expect to be accommodated each time in the same fashion. If any of our faculty modifies a class schedule unexpectedly, they will make every effort to inform our front office so that office personnel might pass a timely message along, as observers arrive. However, if the office has not been informed of a teacher's decision to adjust their posted classroom routines (the decision may have been made between sites), you are certainly welcome to simply have a seat and wait for the class you are scheduled to observe to return, or begin the process of negotiating at that time for another appointment to compensate for the one you will be missing.

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`PROCEDURES for requesting access to the Center for educational purposes

1. Registering

Students can schedule an appointment only after their professor submits, via fax (43771)

a) a "preliminary" roster obtained from Inside@towson.edu

b) class syllabus

c) if there is any activity during drop/add, we request that professors resubmit the final roster.

If your professor would like you to participate in an undertaking of some nature related to your course work, we will be contacted by your professor who will inform us of names of class participants, and will also request specific days and times, in keeping w/class calendar/syllabus. The paperwork, that typically would be done here in the Center, will be sent to your professor, and dealt with by you before you arrive at the Center to participate; you must still bring your university ID to be allowed admittance. You then, typically, will move between/among classrooms participating in the activities which your professor would like you to experience among different age ranges/different challenges.

Service learning and personal learning initiatives, which tend to cast your "whole" person into a project, are a critical piece of your tenure here at Towson, and will make significant contributions to your "learning" experience. We would never knowingly interfere or undermine your efforts to discover more about your specific learning style or to explore long-term occupational interests. However, any student who is presented with a deadline, as stipulated within their syllabus, or in written suggestion from student's Advisor to the Center's Director, will be offered first priority in setting appointments for observation/participation/interaction(s)

Procedures for engaging in Observation, Participation, Interaction, Volunteering

We will not schedule an appointment for you until after your professor sends us at (childcare@towson.edu)

1. a preliminary roster (from the web "Inside @Towson") and
2. class syllabus (fax: 3771).
3. if there is any activity during drop/add, we request that the professor send us an updated copy of their roster

If your interest is in volunteering with children, we are pleased to discuss possibilities with you, within these parameters:

1. Your Advisor or the Chair of your major department must send an email to childcare@towson.edu introducing you, and explaining the purpose of your interest in volunteering.
2. We will make every attempt to accommodate, starting out slowly with a few hours allowing the number of hours to grow as the semester evolves (students who are fulfilling class obligations get first priority; when the hours committed to observers are vacated, we will then be able to offer more hours to volunteers).
3. Each semester, each of our Leads is asked to stipulate which, if any, volunteer projects they would like student volunteers to engage. Ask at the front desk for such projects.We also have an on-going "sock-puppets" project, which may take a long time to finalize as we are trying to develop sock-puppets to accompany each of the books in our Children's Library. After the puppets are made, you can, if you would like, negotiate for a time to use them to tell the book's story in our classroom(s) developing a paper from your observation of how the children responded to the story without assist of puppets, and then, in the reread, with puppets. Some students have also chosen to read to our three different classes in an effort to comment on developmental differences, if evident.
4. We have no need for "an extra adult" in any of our classrooms. If you have an idea which you would like to promote for a volunteering project, make an appointment to speak with the Director to explain and promote it.

We invite the opportunity to volunteer to work with our Friends of the Children's Gallery, Friends of the Children's Garden, or Friends of the Children's Library. Please email us childcare@towson.edu to express interest, or phone x42652, to make an appointment to speak with either __________/Children's Gallery, Precious Machinya/ Children's Garden, or Rebekah Snyder/Children's Library.

Registering at the Center:

You are required to register at the Center in person, presenting a Towson University ID (we will not accept phone inquiries).

If you need to cancel an appointment, PEASE call us to say so. (Our machine is on 24 hours a day, and will "pick up" if we are unavailable..) Leave a message w/your name, classroom in which you are observing, and date you are to observe, stating that you will not be keeping your appointment. We very much appreciate this as there are students waiting to observe who literally require only one more hour to finish; assuming that we have enough notice to bridge-the-gap, the hour that you were generous enough to call us about not being able to maintain, could be used to fulfill another student's requirement. We thank you in advance for your consideration of efforts involved in accessing limited resources, and acknowledging, by being conscientious enough to give us notice, the time-constraints/demands, which other students also operate under.

After canceling you will need to return to the Center w/Towson ID in hand, to reregister for a make-up date. You WILL NOT be able to accomplish this by phone, as must see your Towson ID which hangs around your neck.

I. When you enter the center to observe, please approach the front desk to ask for your observation log-in sheet(s) and plastic hang tags, hung around your neck w/ID facing out. This must be done BEFORE entering classroom.

II. After checking in at the office, proceed directly to the classroom where you are scheduled to observe. Those choices will have been worked out with you initially by our office staff. We will make every effort to serve you within the following parameters:

1. Two persons per classroom per hour;
2. Observations in AMs only, unless a specific Lead Teacher is willing to allow for deviation (office staff are aware of the specific times when each teacher has been willing to make their classroom available)
3. Use of tape recorders, camera etc. ONLY after discussion w/Director and Lead Teacher about how and why, legitimized by written description secured from professor and written permission obtained from parent(s) of child(ren) that are to be observed;
4. If you are a student with a disability and are entitled to the accommodation of using a tape recorder, we will need a memo to that effect from your professor in advance of your first observation.
5. All observations are pre scheduled; we will be asking for a phone number AND Towson* email address so that later we can make an effort to advise you if you are scheduled to come on the same day for which a trip or other event might subsequently be scheduled, thereby interfering with your observation schedule.

III. When you enter the classroom you may hang your coat and place your books in a designated place. Take a seat in an area that will not be distracting to the class, feel free to ask where that might be. If you need to speak with the Lead Teacher, approach when the Teacher is not engaged with the children. You will be advised immediately regarding time(s) when there will be opportunity to chat.

IV. The Lead Teacher will need to initial your observation log sheet each time you observe to substantiate a record of the dates and hours you have completed. If the Lead Teacher is preoccupied as you prepare to leave, please leave the observation log sheet on the Lead's Teacher's desk. That person will ensure that your documentation will be initialed and returned to the office.

V. Please return your observation log sheet and plastic identification holder to the office as you leave the center. (Observation log sheets are kept on file in the office until your last observation date.) After the last observation is finished, you may then take two copies of the three copies of our "Observation/Volunteer" form, one to deliver to your professor and one for your records.

VI. DO NOT WAIT until the week before a paper is due to arrive to schedule an observation...we served 200+ students last semester, a large number given the 5 hours/daily we have to work within over 4classrooms/2 people/per hour/per room.

Observing Young Children:

Various children will experience your presence in the classroom in different ways. Some children tend to be inquisitive and friendly with observers, others may seem shy and/or disinterested. Although your role may be to observe, not to interact (unless specifically arranged ahead of time between professor/center/center's faculty), please feel free to greet any child who may approach you. Children are naturally curious about their environment and the people they notice in it, regardless of individual learning/personality styles.

If you are required to interact with a child as part of your class assignment, (which may take the form of taping a speech sample, learning how to administer a test or speaking to a child about a subject and asking them to draw a picture for you about what you have just been speaking about, learning how to administer a testing instrument on a real, live, potentially uncooperative child etc.), please inform our front desk personnel (who will get to the Lead Teacher to which you may potentially be assigned), of your professor's requirements. We will do our best to assist you in meeting requirements. The Center's Director will be pleased to explain to your professor why we were unable to provide you with the type of experience requested, if we find we are unable to do so.

Some professors have approached us about a specific type of interaction which they would like their students to experience. You, the prospective observer, should write the nature of the interaction requested by your Professor on Page 1 of our Observation/Volunteer Form (attached to this information) under the section entitled, "Observer/Participant's statement of what student hopes to witness during this experience". (What you would write, should, of course, agree with what your Professor discussed/explored with the Center's Director, when the possibility of this opportunity was being negotiated for your class.)

If your observation requires an interaction of some sort with a child, that request will have to be made in writing so that the Lead Teacher of the age child you are attempting to observe, has the time/opportunity to consider and respond. Your interaction with a young child, if approved by the Lead Teacher, will require an understanding of how a young child might respond to your requests.

To Be Considered

Young children tend to respond to relationships or connections with others (particularly adults) in a host of unpredictable ways. You are a new person to them; it is your task to establish rapport. Typically, adults engage young children in relationships through play and conversation. You will need to invest some time and energy in getting to know that child through interacting with him/her BEFORE you anticipate cooperation (BE ADVISED…even then their cooperation is not guaranteed...and, you must know in advance that we are not philosophically disposed to "force" children to cooperate, nor are we disposed as to ask children to give up their play/free time to help achieve such tasks. We feel this is unethical, not to mention, counter productive.)

Because of the curriculum requirements in our PreK/K classroom, there are no interactive opportunities in that classroom except between 7:30-8:30, 10:30-11:00, and 12:00-12:30. At the earliest part of the morning there also may not be anyone available, age-range wise, who can fulfill the requirements of your obligation. You will need to check that out at front desk, inquiring re: are any children meeting my requirements arriving by 7:30.

Some Practical Tips:

• When speaking to a child bend down to his/her level. Typically, larger people seem less intimidating at eye level.
• Depending upon what is going on in the classroom, and if the Lead Teacher endorses it (typically with a nod or grin) feel free to pull up a toy and PLAY! Children typically enjoy the company of a willing playmate.
• Talk with the child about what he/she is doing or playing. Typically, adult interest is valued by children.
• Be honest with children about what you would like them to do ie., "I want to use this tape recorder to help me learn about the sounds that children like you make; will you help me? If you talk into the tape player then we may be able to listen to what your voice sounds like on the tape afterward…"
• You will need to be responsive to a child who does not want to cooperate with your request by respecting his/her decision/right not to participate (accept it, and approach another child, beginning all over again).
• Please feel free to approach the Lead Teacher if you need assistance during your observations at our Center. The Lead Teacher is also available to you as a professional resource at a mutually agreeable time. (Teachers may not be available to you at the moment you'd prefer to talk with them. They are willing, however, to work toward arranging a more convenient time if necessary. However, please be clear, that in order to ensure the privacy of our children and families, teachers will not share personal/anecdotal information about our children.
• We respectfully request and professionally insist that you not use any child's given name or personal traits/circumstances in academic presentations/discussions beyond the classroom. The purpose for which you were requested by your professor to engage in this type of learning is to embellish your understandings.
• Please respect the sacred trust in which we engage with the families who choose to use our services. Their/our children are not objects lacking feeling. Understand, also, that your opportunity to observe only reflects a 45/50 minute snippet of time. Do not assume from such snippets that you can infer what you could have not possibly witnessed under such brief investigation.

Thank you for your collaboration in our on-going efforts to develop and refine our environment; one where we assist in the growth and development of young children and in which we hope to also support the growth of families. We look forward to being of assistance to you as you witness "life-among-young children", our work-in-progress.

Please indicate below your name/professor's name. Your signature indicates that you have read and agree to maintain your obligations to our children, the families we serve, and the Center. The parents of our children are very considerate in allowing students to access what our/their children call "school", so that the quality of your learning experience may be enhanced. All relationships, inevitably, involve obligations on both sides. Thank you for understanding why we insist that you be respectful of the privacy of our children.

The National Association for the Education of the Young Child, an organization whose values we aspire to emulate, has developed in concert with many other like organizations, a Code of Ethical Conduct. We see ourselves as relating to and with young children and their families in similar fashion, and feel that you should also read and take the time to think through what this Code implies, and thereby, what we expect that, by inference, you also agree to in theory. The NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct is accessible here.

Please note: upon submitting this form, you will be taken to another web page. You will have to print that page and bring it with you at the Student Daycare Center.

Source: "c:observers.interactors.participants.volunteers.stus.pars.fac.3.LLT.109.doc" - Revised 8.30.02