Lecture Notes for Week 5
Lecture Notes for Week 5
This week, you will be preparing for the Verification Visit. Be sure to read over Chapter 6 to familiarize yourself with what will take place. Applications for the CDA credential arenow accepted on a rolling basis, which means there are no longer any quarterly deadlines for submitting them. Once the Application Form and accompanying documentation are received and accepted as complete by the Council, you can expect a call to schedule your Verification Visit by a Council Representative within 90 days.
Part of your preparation involves taking a practice test to be ready for the Early Childhood Studies Review. The questions cover best practices with young children of all ages. Because of your experience working with young children and the training you have just completed, this exam will not be overly difficult, but should not be taken lightly either. Invest the time it takes to complete the practice test and review the items you did not answer correctly.
The second part of your preparation will be to practice responding to scenarios that are similar to those you will receive during the Oral Interview. The four scenarios are located in Chapter 7 of The CDA Prep Guide, and will be specific to your endorsement.
At the Oral Interview, the Council Representative will have you respond to ten scenarios. For extra practice, you may want to read over and practice responding to the scenarios that are provided for the other endorsements, some of which may be applicable to yours, as well.
After the Verification Visit, the CDA Representative will score your Professional Resource File, the Competency Goal Statements, Autobiography, and the Oral Interview responses. Copies of these and your Early Childhood Studies Review answer sheet and the Assessment Observation Instrument from your Advisor will be sent to the Council for final review. The decision about your credential award is made on the basis of all of these parts of the process. If all goes well (which it does in the majority of cases!), you will receive your credential certificate in the mail within a few weeks.
Once you receive your credential, remember it will need to be renewed after three years. You worked hard and accomplished much during this process and if your credential lapses because you did not renew, you will need to start all over again. Don’t let this happen!
As an early childhood professional, you should see a CDA as just part of your commitment to lifelong learning, and not the end of the road. Research in early childhood is discovering many new things about how young children grow and develop, even as you are reading this. In order to do our best for the children in our care, we cannot afford to be out of date or uninformed. Plan to make new goals for yourself that include continuing your education.
Teaching young children is an awesome responsibility. We are involved during the most critical years of a child’s life and are privy to his world of wonder, curiosity, and discovery. This work is truly a labor of love. Enjoy the final video clip, “The First Five Years,”that is included in the Week 5 Documents as you finish up your assignments for this course.
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