Child Development Practicum

Course Description

Child Development Practicum is designed to provide students with a supervised internship in a selected educational program for young children.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, CHD is the Child Development and Early Childhood Education prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 6 credits, giving approximately 270 contact hours.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, CHD is the Child Development prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 6 credits with a $5.00 lab fee, requiring permission of the chairperson. ⚠ The catalog does not state the terms of offering — confirm with the programme.

⚠ How the contact hours here were derived

Daytona State publishes no contact hours for this course, and no other CHD course provides a comparable anchor — every other published CHD course is a 3-credit classroom course at 45 hours. A supervised internship is not a classroom course, and pricing it at the lecture convention would give 90 hours, which is implausibly low for a 6-credit supervised placement.

The figure of 270 hours used here is derived from the convention this repository has pinned for level I supervised fieldwork in allied health — 45 contact hours per credit (Daytona State's OTH1800 is published at 1 credit and 45 hours). Six credits at that rate gives 270, which also matches the common internship convention of roughly three hours per week per credit across a term. ⚠ This is a reasoned estimate rather than a published figure — confirm the actual required hours with the programme, since what governs is the hours the placement requires and records.

The practicum is where the programme becomes real. Everything in the classroom courses — planning, observation, guidance, family communication — is straightforward in principle and difficult with twenty actual children in an actual room. This is also, for most students, where they find out whether they want to do this work, and that is a legitimate and valuable outcome either way.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its CHD courses, but the prefix convention is consistent: every published CHD course at this institution runs at 3 credits and 45 contact hours — 15 hours per credit (CHD1220, CHD1430, CHD2320, CHD2334 and CHD2801 are all published at that rate).

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Function professionally within an early childhood setting.
• Apply programme policies, procedures, and routines.
• Plan and implement developmentally appropriate activities.
• Adapt planned activities in response to how children respond.
• Guide children's behaviour using positive strategies.
• Support children's self-regulation and social problem solving.
• Manage a group of children through routines and transitions.
• Maintain active supervision at all times.
• Apply health, safety, and sanitation practice consistently.
• Interact with children in ways that support development and self-esteem.
• Support children's language and communication.
• Observe and record children's development systematically.
• Use observation to inform planning.
• Support children with differing abilities and needs.
• Communicate professionally with families.
• Work collaboratively with teaching staff.
• Accept and act on supervision and feedback.
• Apply confidentiality and professional ethics.
• Recognise and report suspected abuse or neglect as required.
• Reflect on your practice in writing.
• Demonstrate reliability, punctuality, and professional conduct.
• Evaluate your own readiness for employment in the field.
• Apply developmentally appropriate practice to planning and interaction.
• Observe children accurately and record observations factually.
• Adapt activities for children with differing abilities and needs.
• Maintain active supervision and apply safety practice.
• Recognise indicators of abuse or neglect and report as required.
• Communicate professionally with families and colleagues.
• Apply ethical standards in work with young children.
• Reflect on your practice and identify improvements.

Optional Outcomes

• Participate in family conferences or events.
• Contribute to programme planning meetings.
• Observe an age group other than your placement's.
• Support an inclusion or intervention plan.
• Contribute to an assessment or portfolio process.
• Build professional references and begin job seeking.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Professional functioning in a setting
• Programme policies and routines
• Planning and implementing activities
• Adapting in response to children
• Positive behaviour guidance
• Supporting self-regulation
• Managing groups and transitions
• Active supervision
• Health, safety, and sanitation
• Supportive interaction
• Supporting language
• Systematic observation and recording
• Observation informing planning
• Supporting differing needs
• Family communication
• Working with staff
• Receiving supervision
• Confidentiality and ethics
• Recognising and reporting abuse
• Reflective writing
• Reliability and conduct
• Employment readiness
• Developmentally appropriate practice
• Observation and recording
• Adapting for differing needs
• Active supervision and safety
• Recognising and reporting abuse
• Communicating with families
• Professional ethics
• Reflective practice

Optional Topics

• Family conferences and events
• Programme planning meetings
• Observing other age groups
• Inclusion and intervention support
• Assessment and portfolio processes
• References and job seeking

Resources & Tools

• NAEYC (naeyc.org) — the National Association for the Education of Young Children; the position statement on developmentally appropriate practice is the field's foundational document and much of it is free.
• Florida Department of Children and Families — Child Care (myflfamilies.com) — free; the authority on screening, training, ratios, and licensing requirements in Florida.
• Florida Abuse Hotline — 1-800-96-ABUSE — know this number.
• Council for Professional Recognition (cdacouncil.org) — the CDA credential, its requirements, and its portfolio process.
• Florida Early Learning and Developmental Standards — free; what children are expected to know and do by age, and the basis for planning.
• Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework — free and widely used well beyond Head Start programmes.
• Zero to Three (zerotothree.org) — free resources on infant and toddler development, and unusually good on the science.
• Your placement centre and its teachers — the most valuable resource in the programme. Watch how experienced teachers manage a room; almost none of it is written down.
• A notebook for observations — the habit of writing down what you actually saw, before interpreting it, is the foundation of the whole discipline.

Career Pathways

• Preschool teacher — SOC 25-2011.
• Childcare worker — SOC 39-9011.
• Preschool and childcare centre director — SOC 11-9031; the usual progression, and it requires additional credentials.
• Teacher assistant / paraprofessional — SOC 25-9045, including in public school pre-kindergarten.
• Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) programmes — a large state-funded sector with its own credential requirements.
• Head Start and Early Head Start.
• Family child care home operation — self-employment with its own licensing requirements.
• Early intervention and inclusion support.
• Infant and toddler specialisation — distinct skills and persistently short-staffed.
• Transfer to a bachelor's in early childhood or elementary education — ⚠ teaching in a public school classroom requires state certification and a bachelor's degree; confirm which of these courses transfer as major credit.
• ⚠ Pay in early childhood is low relative to the responsibility and the training required. That is a real and well-documented feature of the field, and it is worth knowing before committing — as is the fact that credentials, age-group specialisation, and moving into public school or director roles are the routes that improve it.

Special Information

⚠ Behaviour guidance — what actually works, and what makes it worse

• Most challenging behaviour in young children is communication — of a need, a frustration, or an inability to do what is being asked. Asking what the behaviour is achieving is more useful than asking how to stop it.
• Prevention does most of the work. A predictable routine, realistic expectations, enough to do, and warning before transitions eliminate a large share of incidents before they start.
• State what to do, not what to stop. "Walking feet" works; "don't run" requires the child to work out the alternative while excited.
• Get down to their level, use their name, and be brief. Long explanations to an upset child are noise.
• Acknowledge the feeling before addressing the behaviour. "You're really angry he took it" is not agreeing with hitting; it is the step that makes the child able to hear the next sentence.
• Offer limited real choices — two options you can live with.
• ⚠ Never shame, isolate punitively, or use physical discipline. These are prohibited, they damage children, and they do not work.
• Be consistent, and consistent with your colleagues. Children test inconsistency because it is worth testing.
• Some behaviour needs more than classroom strategies. Persistent or extreme behaviour warrants a conversation with your supervisor and possibly a referral — escalating appropriately is competence, not failure.
• Look after yourself. A tired, frustrated adult manages a room badly, and recognising that in yourself is a professional skill.

⚠ Getting the most from a placement

• Arrive early and ready. Reliability is what placement supervisors report on, and it matters more than technique at this stage.
• Ask what would be helpful rather than waiting to be assigned, and do the unglamorous jobs willingly.
• Watch how the experienced teacher does it. How they position themselves in the room, how they head off trouble before it starts, how they speak to a parent at the door — almost none of this is written down anywhere.
• Ask questions after the moment, not during it.
• Take correction without defending yourself. How you receive feedback is explicitly assessed.
• Keep your reflective journal honestly, including what went badly. Reflection that only records successes teaches nothing and reads as evasive.
• Ask to try things — leading a small group, running a transition, planning an activity — rather than only observing.
• Protect confidentiality absolutely, including in your written work; use no identifying details.
• Secure references before you leave, while people remember you clearly.

⚠ Developmentally appropriate practice is the organising idea — and it is more demanding than it sounds

• An activity is appropriate when it fits what the child can do now and stretches them a little — not when it fits their age on paper.
• Three things determine appropriateness: what is typical for the age, what is true of this child, and what is meaningful in their family and culture. All three, together.
• Children of the same age differ enormously, and a group of four-year-olds will span a wide developmental range. Planning for the average serves few of them.
• Play is how young children learn, and it is not a break from learning. An adult who converts every activity into instruction removes the mechanism.
• Process over product. What the child did and discovered matters more than whether the result looks like the example — and twenty identical craft outcomes is a sign the adults did the work.
• Observe before you plan. Good planning follows from watching what children are actually interested in and capable of.
• Scaffold rather than rescue. Offer the smallest help that lets the child continue, and withdraw it as they manage.
• Adapt for children with differing needs as a normal part of planning, not as an exception.
• Expectations that are too high produce frustration; too low produce boredom, and both look like behaviour problems.

⚠⚠ Supervision and safety — the failures that actually happen

• Active supervision means you can see and hear every child, all the time. Being in the room is not supervision, and this is the single most common contributor to serious incidents.
• ⚠ Transitions are when children are lost. Moving between rooms, going outside, coming back in, arrival and departure — count the children, by name, at every transition and at regular intervals.
• Never leave a child unattended, including in a vehicle, a bathroom, or asleep out of sight.
• Know your ratios and maintain them, including when a colleague steps out.
• Allergies can be fatal. Know every child's allergies, know where the medication is, know how to use it, and treat food brought from home as a hazard requiring a plan.
• Choking is a leading cause of death in young children. Know which foods are high-risk for which ages, supervise eating, and hold current paediatric first aid and CPR.
• Safe sleep practice for infants — on the back, on a firm surface, nothing else in the crib — and it applies every time, including for naps.
• Check playgrounds and equipment before use, and know the surfacing and fall-height requirements.
• Handwashing and illness exclusion policies are how outbreaks are prevented in a setting where they spread very fast.
• Release only to authorised adults, and check identification when you do not know the person — however awkward it feels.
• Report incidents and near misses honestly, including your own errors.

⚠⚠ In Florida, everyone is a mandatory reporter of child abuse — including you

• Florida law requires any person who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is abused, abandoned, or neglected to report it. Unlike many states, Florida's duty is not limited to designated professions — it applies to everyone.
• The report goes to the Florida Abuse Hotline: 1-800-96-ABUSE (1-800-962-2873), available at all times, and also by web and fax.
• ⚠ You report suspicion, not proof. It is not your job to investigate, to confirm, or to decide whether the threshold is met — and attempting to investigate can compromise a later inquiry and put a child at greater risk.
• Report directly. Telling a supervisor may be your centre's procedure, but it does not discharge your personal legal duty — if you have the suspicion, the obligation is yours.
• Failure to report is an offence, and knowingly making a false report is also an offence.
• Good-faith reporters are afforded legal protection, and reports can be made without the reporter's name in most circumstances — though giving your name assists the investigation.
• Document what you observed, factually and immediately — what you saw or heard, in plain description, with the date and time. Not conclusions, and not what you inferred.
• Know the indicators — physical, behavioural, and developmental — and know that a single indicator rarely means anything while a pattern may mean a great deal.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Reporting duties, thresholds, and procedures are statutory and can change. Verify current requirements and follow your employer's procedure alongside your personal duty.

⚠⚠ Working with young children in Florida requires screening and specific training

• Child care personnel in Florida are subject to Level 2 background screening — fingerprint-based state and federal criminal history checks — before working with children, and rescreening on a cycle.
• ⚠ Certain offences are permanently disqualifying. If you have any criminal history at all, establish your eligibility before investing in this programme — raise it early and privately with the programme, because finding out at placement is far worse.
• The Department of Children and Families sets mandatory training requirements for child care personnel, including introductory training that must be completed within a defined period of employment, plus ongoing in-service hours.
• ⚠ Coursework and DCF training are not automatically the same thing. Some college coursework may substitute for some DCF requirements and some may not — confirm with the programme and with DCF what your courses will and will not satisfy.
• The Child Development Associate (CDA) credential is separately awarded and widely required or preferred; it involves documented experience, training hours, a portfolio, an observation, and an examination.
• The Florida Staff Credential and related credentials have their own requirements and are frequently what an employer actually asks for.
• Ratios and supervision requirements are set by rule and are inspected; they differ by age group and by setting.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Screening, training, ratio, and credential requirements change. Verify with DCF and with your programme rather than relying on this guide.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

CHD2440 is 6 credits and approximately 270 contact hours at Daytona State.

⚠ Level 2 background screening is required before working with children in Florida, and certain offences are permanently disqualifying — establish your eligibility before investing in this pathway.