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Consultation & Professional Development for Early Childhood and Elementary Education
     
  Best practices in professional development
Judy Harris Helm, Ed.D., President


  • Incorporating best practices in professional development

  • Research based

  • Needs assessment and goal setting

  • Professional development not just inservice training

  • Support for change

  • Time to reflect and collaborate

  • Connected to child achievement


More information on Dr. Helm is at the bottom of this page.





What's new at Best Practices?

Places to see Dr. Helm this spring

National School Board Association, March 29, What Brain Research and Neuroscience Tell Us About Educational Facilities and School Design  Set against a backdrop of the world economy and the skills necessary for success in the 21st century, this presentation highlights our current understanding of the burgeoning realm of neuroscience and its implications for school facilities. Photos and design plans show practical applications. Leave with a checklist for evaluating your own facilities based on research implications.  with Steven Turckes, Perkins+Will

National School Board Association, March 30, Beyond Test Scores: Build Positive Relationships Between Your School and the Community -- Show Them How Students Are Learning! Student work has the power to supplement or counteract the impact of test scores on your community's beliefs about the effectiveness of your schools. Learn from professional communicators how to incorporate evidence of student learning in newsletters, notices, press releases, websites, and both school and community displays. A checklist enables school board members to evaluate their district's capacity for effective strategic communication and create communicator/educators who know how to share student achievement. with Amanda Helm, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Open Door, April 11, A Day to Reflect, Organize and Implement, See project work in action, an outstanding environment for learning, and participate in seminars with staff. Dr. Helm's seminar  is Implications from Brain Research for Early Childhood Environments.

South Dakota State Early Childhood Conference, April 24   South Dakota Association for the Education of Young Children & the South Dakota Head Start Association Annual Conference,  Keynote Address: Contegrity: Continuity and Integrity in Education, We face many challenges in our schools and centers today- demands for greater quality of care and standards in our schools. At the same time that brain research challenges us to integrate and focus on meaningful learning experiences, some parents demand back to basics. Are we doing what is best for children? This keynote is about continuity and integrity. What it is, where it is, and what we need to do to get it and keep it. It is a humorous look at what we do with children all day but at the same time a hard hitting confrontation about what we ought to be doing and maybe aren't.


Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, April 25, Keynote Address: Keynote Address: Contegrity: Continuity and Integrity in Education

New Edition Windows on Learning: Documenting Young Children's Work
This new book combines an expansion of Windows on Learning along with a new revised version of Teacher Materials for Documenting Children's WorkClick here on Windows on Learning: Documenting Young Children's Work to preorder this book

 

Read Lilian Katz's new Foreword for the second edition of Windows on Learning.



Additional New Publications

by Judy Harris Helm


Energize Your Professional Development by Connecting with a Purpose:  Building Communities of Practice  in the June issue of Young Children the journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  pages 12 - 16. Read an excerpt from the article here.

 

 Coming soon:  Breaking new ground: The evolution of the community school concept in one city. Helm, J., and Clark, D. In M. Cornish (Ed.), Promising practices for partnering with families in the early years: Family, school, community partnership monograph series. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. (In press).

Documentation of Children's Spiritual Development in a Preschool Program: What Teachers, Parents and the Congretation Learned. Christian Education Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, Fall, 2007.





Free Documentation Display Templates Online
Free templates for Microsoft Publisher to be used to create displays that show how real authentic learning is occuringin your classrooms are available by clicking here. Directions for using the templates are located in Building Support for Your School. Click here to order Building Support for Your School: How to Use Children's Work to Show Learning.



About the Company

Best Practices is a consulting and training company for early childhood and elementary schools (preschool, prekindergarten, kindergarten and primary grades)begun by Dr. Judy Harris Helm. Services include onsite observations; guided self-assessment of active, engaged learning; training in specific skills such as play intervention or project approach; designing preschool activities, early literacy, and implementation of authentic assessment systems. Workshops, keynote speeches and awareness presentations are also available.Click here to go directly to workshops and keynotes.

Click here to go directly to resources and materials selected by Judy Harris Helm

Exhibit Now at Gratz College, Melrose Park PA

The Power of Documentation: Children's Learning Revealed is a dynamic thought-provoking window into the lives of children and teachers in early education environments. This traveling exhibit may be coming to your community soon. Contact Chicago Children's Museum.
What are you looking for?

Click a topic to find workshops,keynotes or training on these topics

General Topics on Assessment: Preschool, Kindergarten, Primary Grades

Assessment System Training including Work Sampling System and Focused Portfolios

Supporting Children and Families During Trama and Crises

Understanding and Applying Brain Research and What We Know About Brain Development

Integrated Teaching and Incorporating Standards

The Project Approach

Documenting Children's Learning

For and About Parents and Parenting

Supporting Language and Literacy Development in Preschool, Kindergarten and Primary Grades

Inspirations from Schools of Reggio Emilia





About Judy Harris Helm

Judy Harris Helm, Ed.D., began her career teaching first grade then taught 4 year olds, directed, and designed early childhood programs and taught in teacher training programs. She served on the Task Force for the design of the Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Education Center eventually becoming Professional Development Coordinator for the school. For ten years she has been assisting early childhood and elementary schools in integrating research and new methods through her consulting and training company, Best Practices, Inc. Dr. Helm completed her graduate studies for both her M.A.T and Ed.D. at West Virginia University, College of Human Resources and Education .

Teachers College Press, Columbia University, publishes her writing. She is co-author of Windows on Learning: Documenting Young Children?s Work and Teacher Materials for Documenting Children?s Work; co-author with Lilian Katz of Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years; co-editor of The Power of Projects: Meeting Contemporary Challenges in Early Childhood Classrooms, co-author of Teaching Your Child To Love Learning: A Guide to Projects at Home and the recently released Teaching Parents to Do Projects at Home: A Tool Kit for Parent Educators. Dr. Helm served as the primary design consultant for The Power of Documentation: Children?s Learning Revealed Exhibit at Chicago Children?s Museum which was funded by the McCormick Tribune Foundation. Her work has been translated into five languages and she provides consultation and training throughout the country and internationally.

Dr. Helm is past state President of the Illinois Association for the Education of Young Children. Awards recently received include the Outstanding Service to Young Children Award from the Chicago Association for the Education of Young Children and the Peoria Woman in Leadership in Arts and Education Award from the Peoria YWCA. Dr. Helm serves on Illinois Director's Commission for the state of Illinois and the Quality Enhancement Committee for the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies
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Best Practices Recommended
Books and Resources


CLICK HERE to go straight to Amazon.com


Click a topic below to see resources, books, videos and websites
recommended by Best Practices


Books and videos by Judy Harris Helm

Brain development and early childhood education

The Project Approach

Documenting children's learning

The preschools of Reggio Emilia

The general topic of early childhood education

Children and Families in Crisis

Early or emergent literacy resources

Resources on standards in early childhood

Assessment systems

Resources for working with toddlers



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