In early childhood education, the Pyramid Model is a powerful framework to foster social-emotional competence. Yet, implementing this model effectively requires more than just good intentions—it necessitates a structured, systematic approach in which educators are supported by practice-based coaching. This blog explores how practice-based coaching not only supports the Pyramid Model but also transforms its application in real-world settings, as demonstrated by two TORSH customers who have seen remarkable success.

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Table of Contents

• SEL in Early Education: Why the Pyramid Model Matters
•  How SEL Impacts Early Childhood Outcomes
• Layered SEL Support for Children and Families
• Practice-Based Coaching Is the Heart of the Pyramid Model
•  Stories From The Field: Combining Practice-Based Coaching and the Pyramid Model for Social-Emotional Development
• Ensure Coaching Supports Your Pyramid Model Implementation with TORSH

SEL in Early Education: Why the Pyramid Model Matters

Positive social-emotional development in young children relies on attentive adults supporting specific skill-building that matches a child’s developmental growth. With effective practices, educators will successfully support most students as they develop their social-emotional competencies. However, some children will still struggle with things like challenging behaviors or strong emotions, especially those impacted by trauma or other adverse childhood experiences. 

Fortunately, no matter what support a child needs to grow socially and emotionally, early childhood educators can turn to the Pyramid Model for help!

The Pyramid Model is a comprehensive framework for early educators to aid in developing core social and emotional skills in young children. It is a powerful and preventive approach that sets up little learners for long-term success.

Using the Pyramid Model for supporting social-emotional competence in children requires thoughtful program-wide implementation and a structured approach to developing educators’ effectiveness with the model’s strategies. In other words, programs need a quality professional development strategy in place. 

And the most effective strategy for adopting the Pyramid Model leans on a practice-based coaching framework.

Let’s unpack the connection between this method of professional learning and the impact it has on programs embracing the Pyramid Model for social-emotional competence.

How SEL Impacts Early Childhood Outcomes

It may be obvious to most early learning experts, but it is worth remembering why social-emotional learning (SEL) is so crucial for our littlest learners in the first place.

Between the ages of birth through 5 years old, children undergo incredible physical, emotional, and linguistic growth. They learn to recognize more than 10,000 words (Shipley & McAfee, 2015). They develop critical gross and fine motor skills that allow them to move through the world. And, they practice a huge array of capabilities that support their blossoming relationships with other people, as well as their own physical and emotional self-awareness and management. 

All of these skills—especially the social-emotional ones—are essential to their future success, from getting school-ready to “adulting” in the world beyond the classroom. Among the many positive outcomes for children associated with effective SEL are:

• Improved academic performance (Durlak et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2017)
• Lower truancy and absenteeism (Huan Wang et al., 2016; Cook et al., 2014)
• Fewer challenging behaviors and psychological distress (Reback, 2010)

Further, SEL benefits persist as young learners grow. A meta-analysis in 2017 examined the long-term impact of SEL interventions provided to children in kindergarten. Those who received this support were, on average, more likely to:

• Graduate from high school
• Complete a college degree
• Obtain stable employment in adulthood

Continuous, systemic SEL remains an important learning thread for children until they graduate from high school (Mahoney et al., 2021). And it all starts in early childhood.

But the challenge becomes how to systematically and effectively implement SEL supports for our littlest learners. This is where the Pyramid Model comes in.

Layered SEL Support for Children and Families

From nurturing positive relationships to managing challenging behavior, the Pyramid Model supports early childhood professionals and students with SEL. 

According to the National Center of Pyramid Model Intervention, the Pyramid Model of Social and Emotional Competence is “a framework of evidence-based practices for promoting young children’s healthy social and emotional development.” Though not itself a curriculum for SEL, the model creates a structure through which early childhood programs can systematically nurture core life skills in little learners. 

Image: Pyramid Model (NCPMI)

The Pyramid Model includes four layers of support (listed below from the bottom of the pyramid upward): 

• Effective Workforce
• Nurturing, Responsive Relationships & Environments
• Targeted Social-Emotional Supports
• Intensive Interventions

Those strategies at the bottom of the pyramid apply to all children and families across all programming. Moving up each layer focuses on support for more targeted populations, such as children with disabilities or special needs, and others who may benefit from intensive services such as home-based early interventions.

Research has demonstrated the power of applying the Pyramid Model for promoting social-emotional competence in children. One recent study in Australia found that among preschools that trained their educators on the Pyramid Model, children developed core social and emotional skills at a faster rate compared with children at other preschools (Swalwell & McLean, 2021). 

Is it any surprise that this entire model relies on having high-quality staff implementing effective teaching practices?

Program administrators should immediately recognize that at the heart of high-quality teaching lies high-quality professional development that nurtures this effective workforce—including impactful mentoring strategies like practice-based coaching.

Practice-Based Coaching Is the Heart of the Pyramid Model

Many of us in early childhood education already know the power of having the right job-embedded professional learning for teachers. A coaching process to support classroom teachers can impact positive child outcomes in areas like early literacy development. A coaching relationship can also improve teachers’ effectiveness and accuracy by using tools like early childhood assessments. Last, coaching supports programs using the Pyramid Model for challenging behavior in young children and social-emotional growth in general. 

So what does effective professional learning and coaching look like when it comes to the Pyramid Model? 

First, coaching must be systemic. In one 2021 study, researchers supported 92 teachers with systemic PD and coaching around how to effectively implement the Pyramid Model with children in their classrooms at an elevated risk of worse social and emotional outcomes. They found that systemic support (including a practice-based coaching cycle) increased implementation fidelity among educators and improved social and behavioral outcomes among children. A 2023 study and a 2022 study both found similar results with variations on these professional learning supports. 

When given systemic, targeted, practice-based coaching, educators are better able to utilize the Pyramid Model. 

Second, coaching must be consistent. Whether it’s delivered one-on-one or through group settings, a practice-based coaching framework is more impactful when teachers receive this kind of support on a regular basis throughout a program year. That’s why one of the Head Start performance standards concentrates just on the professional learning ecosystem of a program, and the importance of developing a cyclical process of ongoing engagement between coach and mentee. 

Stories From The Field: Combining Practice-Based Coaching and the Pyramid Model for Social-Emotional Development

Educators can learn from their fellow early learning professionals who have successfully leveraged practice-based coaching to bolster their program’s Pyramid Model adoption and drive positive SEL outcomes for young children. Let’s explore how two programs in Illinois and New Mexico made pivotal shifts in their professional development approaches to embrace coaching.

The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning (ECPL)

The Center ECPL provides early learning educators throughout Illinois with free professional learning, resources, and other information. These offerings are all geared toward one purpose: helping programs implement high-quality, effective teaching practices that improve learning outcomes for young children and their families. 

The Center aids programs embracing the Pyramid Model as part of their approach to SEL  in two ways. First, the team holds ongoing webinar training opportunities centered on social-emotional competency. A recent discussion offered practical tips and strategies for developing culturally responsive social emotional supports, utilizing guidance from the Pyramid Model and another framework for cultural competence.

Second, through their ECPL Coaching Project, The Center provides teachers with virtual practice-based coaching and a professional learning communities-like model called Collaborative Learning Sessions. These offerings are provided through TORSH Talent, a secure web-based platform designed to streamline professional development and coaching practices for early education professionals. 

Thanks to the platform’s video-based coaching, time-stamped feedback capabilities, and a centralized library of resources, The Center delivers support to teachers in even the most rural or hard-to-reach areas of Illinois, helping them implement evidence-based teaching practices. 

Additionally, through TORSH Talent’s Communities feature, Collaborative Learning Sessions aid teachers across different programs to gather and discuss topics, projects, or professional development activities of interest. Among their focus areas is the effective use of the Pyramid Model and its benefits in supporting young children with development or learning disabilities. 

Cindy Berrey, Director of The Center explained, “Preschool teacher practices in the state of Illinois are improving because of our coaching model and virtual practice. And we know that a high-quality teacher positively impacts student outcomes.”

Read the full story to learn more about The Center’s success with applying modern technology to practice-based coaching for the Pyramid Model. 

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The post Practice-Based Coaching: The Key to Applying the Pyramid Model to Social-Emotional Learning appeared first on Torsh.

Watch this on-demand webinar to hear an enlightening conversation among members of the Central Region Educational Cooperative (CREC) who oversee coaching and professional learning for early childhood educators in school-based settings. During the webinar, they discuss:

• How Practice-Based Coaching is improving literacy practices, social-emotional practices, and individual student supports
• How TORSH Talent, an online learning platform, is being used by coaches and practitioners to set and track goals, ensure fidelity of practice, and support individualized coaching and self-reflection
• Lessons learned and practical advice for implementing practice-based coaching using TORSH Talent 

Whether you have been using Practice-Based Coaching for a while or are just considering the approach, this webinar will provide you and your team with insights and guidance to strengthen and streamline professional learning for your early childhood educators.

Fill out the form to watch the on-demand webinar.

Webinar Presenters:

Amanda Rottman, M.Ed.
Early Childhood Instructional Coaching Coordinator, CREC

Amanda Rottman serves as the Instructional Coaching Coordinator for the Early Childhood Instructional Coaching team. Her background includes teaching experience in inclusive classrooms throughout NM. With a dedicated focus on Early Childhood Education, Amanda collaborates with stakeholders to ensure that all children have access to high-quality learning opportunities.

Ginger Towle, M.Ed.
Early Childhood Instructional Coaching Coordinator, CREC

Ginger Towle is an Early Childhood Instructional Coaching Coordinator for the Central Region Educational Cooperative, CREC. Her background includes years of teaching experience in preschool, elementary, and higher education. She currently supports coaches at the CREC in implementing Practice-Based Coaching for preschool teachers. Ginger also collaborates with stakeholders to ensure that all children have access to a high-quality education in New Mexico.

Terri Tapia, M.A.
Early Childhood Instructional Coaching Lead Coordinator, CREC

Terri Tapia is the Early Childhood/ECLIPSE Instructional Coaching Lead Coordinator with the Central Region Educational Cooperative. She is from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her master’s degree in educational leadership from New Mexico Highlands University, graduating summa cum laude. Her philosophy for early childhood education (birth through age 8) centers on ensuring that each and every young child in New Mexico’s classrooms is ready to learn by having a strong sense of self, and feeling competent and capable. She believes that Practice-Based Coaching supports early childhood and elementary teachers in enhancing their teaching practices, which in turn, creates high-quality educational experiences for young children and students.

For the past 20+ years, Terri has led several educational programs including NAEYC Accredited Preschools, Tribal Head Start Programs, New Mexico’s Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System (FOCUS on Young Children’s Learning), and the development of the Early Childhood/ECLIPSE Instructional Coaching program, supporting over 800 early childhood and elementary educators across the state.

Katrina Gallegos, M.Ed.
ECLIPSE/ECIC Coordinator, CREC

Katrina Gallegos is an ECLIPSE/ECIC Coordinator for the Central Regional Educational Cooperative. She is from Albuquerque, New Mexico with a background in Early Childhood Education and a passion for supporting children, families, educators, and communities in New Mexico.

Katrina received her bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Eastern New Mexico University. She also attended Lesley University where she obtained a master’s degree in Integrating the Arts Across the Curriculum. Katrina taught Special Education for eight years for 3–4 year olds.  During this time, she designed and taught a Learning to Learn class that supported children on the autism spectrum.

Katrina is dedicated to supporting coaches and teachers with Practice-Based Coaching (PBC) to enhance teaching practices that support all students’ learning outcomes. Her strengths are in the areas of social emotional and literacy practices.  Katrina enjoys hosting the Connections: The Heart of Early Childhood Podcast.

The post [On-Demand Webinar] The Role of Practice-Based Coaching in Transforming Early Childhood Education in New Mexico appeared first on Torsh.

But the performance standards aren’t just critical in guiding how program funds are used and what factors to consider when providing comprehensive services for children with disabilities (though these are certainly important). The National Head Start Association (NHSA) emphasizes that these performance standards are “intended to ensure that all Head Start programs provide comprehensive, high-quality individualized services that support school readiness.” 

Put another way, they give educators a roadmap for enhancing program quality and cultivating effective practice. And this roadmap paves the way to positive learning outcomes and family well-being. 

Included in the Head Start performance standards is the central requirement for programs to provide all staff with comprehensive training and professional learning, including research-based coaching. This coaching must give staff members the opportunity to build skills both by sharing targeted feedback and by modeling effective practices directly related to program goals. 

But with so many forms of coaching available, which is most effective for driving excellence in the Head Start program performance standards?

Many Head Start programs have implemented practice-based coaching (PBC), a research-backed approach to continuous improvement and professional development. It is a catalyst for improving program quality and delivering strong child outcomes. When implemented well, practice-based coaching benefits everyone in the learning community — staff, students, and families alike.

The Benefits of Practice-Based Coaching in Head Start Programs

ECLKC defines practice-based coaching as “a… strategy that uses a cyclical process… that supports teachers’ use of effective teaching practices that lead to positive outcomes for children.” This method is all about ongoing, collaborative partnerships between coaches and teaching staff, tailored to meet a teacher’s individual learning goals and drive Head Start performance standards.

There is a plethora of research that validates the impact that PBC has on early childhood learning, developmental outcomes, and social and emotional well-being. One 2018 study conducted by the University of Florida found that preschool students in classrooms where teachers participated in their PBC model, BEST in CLASS, demonstrated fewer challenging behaviors throughout the school year. Another 2021 study with Vanderbilt University discovered that PBC methods could still improve the effectiveness of teachers’ practices in the classroom setting — even when coaching was delivered via text messaging. 

PBC is a powerful mechanism for unlocking effective practice. Head Start programs that invest in the effective implementation of this coaching strategy support their staff to successfully meet and exceed performance standards. This in turn means that teams provide those high-quality services that nurture early childhood development and ultimately cultivate strong child outcomes.

Technology-Driven Coaching for Excellence Against Performance Standards

These days, educators have access to many resources — including digital ones — to build a culture of continuous improvement through effective coaching. Video recordings of classroom lessons improve the quality of in-person exchanges between a coach and a teacher by providing concrete artifacts for collaborative review. Video-based coaching sessions offer additional flexibility and ample time for continued mentorship outside of live meetings and around busy schedules.

But true, lasting technology-driven change to teaching practices requires coaches to go beyond offering virtual coaching and reviewing pre-recorded lessons from the classroom setting. Programs that leverage technology must also align their implementation to program goals, learning standards, team resources, and the Head Start program performance standards — while cultivating direct, personal, and ongoing professional development for teaching staff.

In short, Head Start programs need a comprehensive digital strategy to support practice-based coaching — using robust platforms like TORSH Talent to easily manage all of its components.

3 Digital Practices That Enhance PBC and Support Head Start Performance Standards

TORSH has partnered with hundreds of early childhood organizations to support their professional development and learning programs. We know how critical it is for Head Start programs to create a culture of continuous program improvement and the power that digital tools offer toward that end. 

Across our Head Start partners, our team has observed three patterns of effective technology use in programs. In each case, these applications of technology not only help teams meet minimum requirements for programs — but also enhance their PBC efforts in ways that deliver a greater impact on child learning outcomes. 

Effective implementation of technology with PBC means that Head Start programs:

• Curate resources to align teachers and coaches to the standards themselves
• Leverage digital tools to personalize staff feedback and goal-setting under the framework of the standards
• Provide easy access to exemplars and best practices that demonstrate the standards in action

With these best practices, teams build a shared understanding of the Head Start performance standards among all staff. More crucially, they cultivate ongoing and collaborative efforts to improve teaching strategies, ultimately delivering positive child and family outcomes.

#1: Align staff knowledge of Head Start performance standards

Before staff can be expected to meet Head Start program performance standards, they need to understand them and their responsibility to uphold them. This remains true whether or not a program implements PBC as a professional development strategy for their team.

From a PBC perspective, both a teacher and their coach benefit when they are aligned on which core teaching practices and learning standards they can improve. Shared understanding means individual coaching is that much more impactful. For example, a coach can guide their mentee to match a personal teaching goal with one or more specific performance standards. As a result, the mentee can then draw direct connections between their own professional growth and their impact on Head Start performance standards and overall program quality. 

A coaching rubric is a handy tool for coaches and mentees to connect program performance standards with personalized learning goals. Digital platforms like TORSH Talent give Head Start programs flexibility and a unified place to design and distribute standard coaching rubrics for all of their staff. That way, both coachees and coaches operate under the same guidelines through personalized collaboration and coaching — all tying back into those crucial Head Start performance standards. 

Additionally, program staff can curate resources and training materials to support the development of practices aligned with the Head Start performance standards and make them available to all staff in their TORSH Talent resource library. This collective resource pool ensures everyone — from teachers and coaches to administrative staff — has information at their fingertips about the standards that are guiding their program and services to children. Teams can also access resources to help them effectively implement curricula and research-based practices to result in positive learning outcomes for children.

Having shared knowledge and coaching guidelines makes all the difference for both coaches and teachers to uphold the Head Start program performance standards. Easy-to-access digital rubrics and libraries ensure teams are aligned and armed with tools to navigate the standards successfully.

#2: Use digital tools to personalize coaching feedback connected to performance standards

The performance standards for Head Start programs create common ground for all programs to nurture children’s well-being. And yet, effective PBC also requires that coaches shape their mentorship strategies to a teacher’s individual goals to help them grow personally and professionally. How can technology support balancing a collaborative, personalized coaching relationship with alignment to performance standards?

First, coaches can build off of standard coaching rubrics to set specific and targeted goals with their mentees. Though these goals will tie back to the standards, it’s important that they also reflect the teacher’s current strengths, opportunities for improvement, and personal vision for their own effective practice. TORSH Talent provides the perfect sandbox in which coaches and coachees can create, revise, and track their goals. After all, a well-crafted personalized goal is a critical anchor for coaching and professional growth. 

Second, coaches can integrate technology into their delivery of feedback and mentorship. Video-based coaching is commonly used among Head Start programs as it offers additional flexibility in the coach-teacher relationship. It increases the frequency in which coaches can meet with teachers, and in turn, gives coaches greater access to observe teachers’ practices in action. Feedback is no longer limited to coaches visiting a teacher’s classroom a few times a year. Instead, a teacher can simply record a lesson or activity, then share it virtually through TORSH Talent with their coach at any time. Their coach can watch this video at their convenience to ensure ample time to carefully reflect on the practices recorded. 

However, PBC is more successful when coaches provide targeted, ongoing feedback to their mentees aligned with their specific goals. This is why TORSH Talent allows coaches to provide time-stamped feedback on videos uploaded by teachers that they mentor. This level of precision helps coaches pinpoint exact moments during a recorded lesson in which the teacher demonstrates meeting or even exceeding Head Start performance standards. With this level of targeted feedback, coaches can also highlight evidence of teachers’ successfully engaged in practices that align with their personal goals. 

The more precise the goals and feedback, the higher quality the coaching relationship can be — and the greater the opportunity becomes for a teacher to shift their practices.

#3: Ensure easy access to teaching best practices within and beyond your program

Thanks to technology, teachers have many resources beyond their coaches that can help them improve teaching practices, deliver high-quality services, and ultimately exceed the Head Start program performance standards. Digital resource libraries again come into play here, as they help program teams curate information about the standards themselves as well as exemplars of standards-in-action for teachers. In fact, TORSH encourages program teams to fill their TORSH Talent resource library with model teaching videos, online courses, lesson plans, and other materials that both coaches and teachers can access to support professional learning. 

For example, let’s imagine a Head Start teacher who wants to improve their classroom management technique. Their coach points them to videos in their TORSH Talent library that demonstrate effective practices and concrete methods in this area that meet program standards. The teacher then incorporates these practices into their own classroom, recording a lesson and uploading it into the platform. From there, the teacher’s coach watches the lesson and provides feedback on what went well. They also offer prompts for the teacher to reconsider different approaches to areas that may still need improvement. When they meet next, the coach and teacher can review an exemplar video alongside the teacher’s video to discuss how the modeled techniques could be used.  

But coaches aren’t the only ones who provide valuable feedback and guidance to Head Start staff! TORSH often sees programs combine video-based coaching and curated libraries with professional learning communities on the platform. 

PLCs are a powerful mechanism for improving teaching strategies, whether they represent a small group of teachers from a local program or a state-wide community forum. These communities offer spaces in which staff can share input, inspiration, or innovation with fellow educators — including one’s own video-recorded exemplars of comprehensive services and teaching practices in action. By leveraging the power of PLCs, both virtual and in-person, teachers gain additional coaching and learning opportunities to tie back into their teaching goals and drive excellence in meeting Head Start performance standards.

Practice-Based Coaching Benefits the Entire Head Start Program

Intentional, personalized, and aligned approaches to practice-based coaching are game-changers for Head Start programs. Educators can take advantage of many resources like technology to enable collaborative learning partnerships among their teaching staff and coaches that exceed core requirements for programs. 

At the end of the day, though, digital coaching and professional learning tools are just that — tools. It’s up to individual programs to chart their own path to supporting the  professional growth of their team and positive learning outcomes for families and children. By using the Head Start performance standards as an anchor for practice-based coaching, everyone is better positioned to drive continuous program improvement and overall excellence for their staff, students, and families!

Exceed Head Start Performance Standards with TORSH Talent

Triumph Inc. in Massachusetts relies on TORSH Talent to improve teacher practice and student outcomes in their Early Head Start and Head Start programs. From new teacher orientation and ongoing coaching and professional learning aligned to the Head Start program standards, to providing parent education, Triumph Inc. takes full advantage of the easy-to-use and secure tools built into TORSH Talent, including tools for:  

• Video-based observation
• Providing targeted, specific feedback to teachers on their interactions with children and families
• Synchronous and asynchronous collaboration
• Individualized coaching 
• Insights to guide professional learning and training

Take a look at how your Head Start or early education program can leverage TORSH Talent to implement practice-based coaching and so much more.

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