Park Rapids Area High School in Minnesota is offering a new Child Development Associate (CDA) course to their juniors and seniors. These students will have the opportunity to work with RealCare Baby® infant simulators in a high school baby project as well as young children to earn a CDA credential through the class. The CDA credential is based on the knowledge of the nation’s leading scholars in early childhood care and learning.
“The RealCare Baby® experience is a wonderful addition to the CDA course. It gives the students a very realistic experience in caring for a baby,” said Deb Gilbertson, a MAHUBE-OTWA teacher working with Park Rapids students. “We need quality early childhood teachers and family childcare providers, and I hope these students go on and get jobs in infant, toddler, or preschool childcare centers or family childcare.”
The CDA is based on eight core competency standards, such as managing an effective program and observing and recording children’s behavior. It’s the only comprehensive system of its kind that recognizes the essential competencies needed by early childhood professionals. The first two trimesters of Park Rapids’ program satisfy the 120 hours of professional early childhood education required for the credential.
“I have waited for so many years to get to do something like this and I finally got to,” said one student in the course. “It was so much fun!”
Michelle Wilkowski, MAHUBE-OTWA Head Start Director, was heavily involved in developing the CDA course. Teachers from MAHUBE-OTWA, a community action partnership, are financed through a grant so the class can be offered. Deb Gilbertson is one of these teachers. In addition to teaching, she provides opportunities for these students to earn hours of experience working with young children at MAHUBE-OTWA childcare centers and area family childcare providers.
Beyond the CDA course, Park Rapids offers two additional classes: Today’s Healthy Choices and Tomorrow’s Healthy Challenges. Vicki Schroeder, a partner in the CDA class, teaches these classes. The Tomorrow’s Healthy Challenges class uses the RealCare Baby 3 Infant Simulator (Baby) in the high school baby project to give students an inside look at how to care for a child.
“Overall, I loved the experience,” said another student in the program. “I was disappointed to give [Baby] up at the end of the day.”
Baby (formerly known as Baby Think It Over® or BTIO®) is the world’s most advanced infant simulator. Educators around the world use this unique learning aid in high school baby projects to teach early childhood education, parenting, infant health lessons, and more. This smart baby adds meaning and accountability to lessons with wireless programming that tracks and reports on caregiver behaviors.
“This first experience with the RealCare Baby simulators was a rousing success. The entire school had the experience of these Babies because the students in the Healthy Challenges class took their Babies with them to all classes,” said Schroeder. “I have had several students ask me when the next class will be taught so they can take care of the Babies for the day too. The students were able to experience both the joys and difficulties of taking care of an infant.”
A substantial amount of funding for this program came from Dr. Elaine Hoffman at the North Country Vocational Cooperative Center in Bemidji, MN. With this funding, Park Rapids was able to purchase 10 Babies with various races, genders, and accessories; a training platform for teachers to implement the program; a RealCare Shaken Baby; and more for the high school baby project.
The Shaken Baby simulator and curriculum help young people understand the effects of only a few seconds of shaking on an infant’s brain and how to safely soothe a crying infant. This unique simulator illuminates its transparent head to show where brain damage occurs after someone shakes it. The included swaddling garment allows users to practice soothing the simulator, causing it to stop crying once you correctly apply the swaddling garment.
Michael Neusser and Missy Okeson, from the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, provided the necessary grant funding for the teaching salary to make this class possible. Their Childcare Department carried out this initiative to promote growth and development for childcare licensure and placement in their region.
You might wonder what’s next for these credential-earning students. Mary Thompson from Heartland Lakes Development Commission works to build connections as well as other employment opportunities for these students. Thompson’s organization also offers scholarships for students to pursue higher education in this field.
“The RealCare Baby simulators have been a huge asset for our school and Panther Tracks Pathways program… These RealCare Baby simulators impacted more than just these few classes, but the whole school,” said Krystal Murphy, Park Rapids Community Career Collaboration Coordinator. “It was fun to overhear students saying they wanted to take those courses next year because of the simulators. We know these careers are in such high demand, so we are grateful that we can now offer these courses to introduce these careers to our students and to provide hands-on learning opportunities.”
