Crimson and Gold Connection; Dr. Amber Tankersley

Welcome to Crimson & Gold Connection, keeping you connected to the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. Thanks for joining us for Crimson & Gold Connection. This is Trent Johnson. Today our guest is Dr. Amber Tankersley, Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Pittsburgh State University. Thanks so much for taking your time to join us today. What's your position at Pittsburgh State University and how long have you been here? I started here at the University in 2008. I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences and I teach courses in early childhood development. You are here today to visit with us about the Little Gorilla Preschool. Tell us a little bit about that, what kind of its services, who can enroll and just general information like that. The Little Gorilla Preschool started functioning in about 1964. We just had our 50th anniversary this past fall. There's been a preschool program on and off since then in the Department of Family and

Consumer Sciences. What our main focus is not only providing the preschool services for young children, but it's a lab school for our majors in early childhood related courses. We have children between the ages of three and five that attend. There are a mix of faculty, staff, alumni, and students' children and we have a session in the morning and an afternoon session as well and we operate Monday through Thursday. Pretty much the same schedule as the university in regards to fall and spring semesters. You did mention that it is a lab class for these students in early childhood development classes. What benefits does it offer these students who get the chance to be around this real world situation? It's nice that it does give that real world application for them. They read about certain things in textbooks or they hear lectures about certain concepts related to working with young children, but it makes so much more sense when you have the hands-on, have a living, breathing child in front of me that I get to either observe

or try out some different techniques with. It's wonderful that our college students get the benefit of actually seeing theory into practice and then our young children benefit by having so many fresh new faces and such a fresh outlook on the world from our college students. How has feedback been from outside sources or potential employers that your students have this real world experience on campus? I think most employers are happy to see graduates who have an experience working with a particular age group. So our early childhood majors, whether they're early childhood development or early childhood unified majors, going out to show that they actually have several semesters worth of working with three to five year old children is for sure beneficial. What are the requirements or prerequisites before students get the opportunity to work directly with the children in the preschool? Our students that are in the preschool are in there as part of their course requirements. So we have a course called interacting with children that has a practicum component

in the preschool. We have a course that's developmental planning that also has a component in the preschool and then several majors do an early childhood student teaching experience within the preschool. So our only employees of the preschool would be myself as director and then our lead preschool teacher. What gives you the most satisfaction with the preschool? Oh gosh, seeing the excitement of our little kids and the excitement of our college students when our young preschool children learn something new or discover something that is fantastic because it's something that's going to help them progress through their development. But when our college students see things that we've talked about and see it in real life and it makes that connection for them, that's the best. For the college students come in, what goals do you try to set for them to be accomplished? First and foremost, for them to be comfortable, for them to feel comfortable with young children, for them to make sure that this really is the projected path for them that they

really do want to work with young children. We want them to learn as much as possible and to try as many experiences. We usually tell our college students that this is their time to mess up. This is their time to try things out and have it not work and try something different because it's a safe environment for them to try things in. Looking ahead to the future, is there any further goals or accomplishments that you would like to see happen at the Little Gorilla's preschool? Right now, I think if we maintain what is happening now, I would be very happy. We have a good solid stream of early childhood majors that are filling the different roles in the preschool. As long as we have youngsters coming in and filling the role that they need to fill for our college students, that would be fabulous. In regards to the preschool students, why is it so important to start them in a structured learning environment so early and why is that? You hear a lot of people say that's the most important stage of development and learning, so just tell us a little bit of why that is.

Preschool age children between three and five, they are very impressionable. They need to have a lot of experiences and a wide variety of contexts that they learn as much as possible. Having a more structured environment like our preschool prepares them for their future schooling, so prepares them to go into kindergarten with having different time periods during the day devoted to certain activities. They have the experience working with other children and other adults, so they get the social interaction that's necessary for school success. What kind of teaching strategies or teaching methods do you try and instill in your Pittsburgh State University students to use when they do get the chance to work with the children in the preschool? Our college students follow a developmentally appropriate curriculum, so what they are looking at, they're looking at activities and interactions with children that are appropriate to the child's age, appropriate to the individual child and appropriate, culturally and socially for those children.

And then beyond that, our college students work to target the different learning domains for the children, so they work to target language, cognitive skills, physical and social skills and aesthetic skills. Pass that pretty much anything's open game for our college students. Again, it's a good time for them to try out techniques, so they have a lot of freedom in figuring out how they can help build these skills for young children in a variety of different ways. The Little Gorilla's preschool is N-A-E-Y-C accredited. Tell us just what that means and what advantages that gives. It's a national association for the education of young children. Only gosh, fewer than 10% of early childhood programs in the United States are N-A-Y-C accredited. It means that we go beyond the basic requirements for licensing that we go beyond to hit certain quality benchmarks to show that we are a high quality center in terms of staffing and experiences in the program that we provide for young children. Our guest today has been Dr. Amber Tankersley, Associate Professor in the Department of Family

and Consumer Sciences at Pittsburgh State University. For K-R-P-S and Crimson and Gold Connection, this is Trent Johnson. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection, Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.