THE HEAD-START TEACHING CENTER - AN EVALUATION OF AN EXPERIENTIAL, COLLABORATIVE TRAINING MODEL FOR HEAD-START TEACHERS AND PARENT VOLUNTEERS

Forty-eight Head Start teachers and 48 parent volunteers from 24 class rooms were randomly assigned to either the Collaborative Training (CT) or Workshop Training (WT) approach. CT teachers and parents were invo lved conjointly in experiential training which included receiving guid ed practice and feedback from exemplary peers. WT consisted of a serie s of workshops conducted by outside trainers for separate groups of pa rents and teachers. Training methods were compared with respect to (a) teacher and parent reports of their level of involvement in training and satisfaction with the training experience, (b) teacher and parent reports of parent classroom activity, and (c) observation of adult-chi ld classroom interactions. CT teachers and parents reported significan tly greater levels of active involvement in and satisfaction with the training, as well as significantly greater levels of parent classroom activity than WT participants. With respect to adult-child classroom i nteractions, CT teachers demonstrated significantly more positive init iations and praise than WT teachers. Parent reports of their perceived role in the classroom as well as parent levels of initiation with chi ldren did not differ between training groups. Implications of these fi ndings for further research were discussed.