Children's Learning Institute: BEECH
The Children’s Learning Institute (CLI) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is the preeminent resource for learning solutions that produce tested, proven, effective results through scientific research and evidence-based interventions. Preparing children for school begins in infancy. School readiness depends on socio-emotional and cognitive development that occurs through warm, sensitive and secure relationships with caregivers. A large proportion of Texans rely on home-based childcare, but there are few initiatives aimed at ensuring quality among this important group of providers.
Researchers at CLI investigated the effectiveness of a web-based professional development program for home-based child care providers. This led to the creation of BEECH: The Beginning Education: Early Childcare At Home which was launched in the Fall of 2013. BEECH is a web-based professional development system designed to train home-based childcare providers about teacher behavior strategies that have been proven to positively impact children’s school readiness. CLI is dedicated to laying the foundation for an ongoing state focus on improving school readiness outcomes in the home-based childcare population.
Monarch Media was brought in to update and enhance the interactive and responsive re-design of the existing BEECH eLearning courses. The customized Moodle BEECH eLearning course to improve the usability and look of the English and Spanish language courses. It includes many new features to boost the learning experience. These courses are housed on CLI Engage which is the comprehensive professional development platform for public school pre-k, child care, and Head Start teachers in Texas while adhering to university and state standards for usability and accessibility.