For over a decade, Marshfield High School Family & Consumer Sciences (FCS) Teacher Raeann Leonhardt has made it her mission to prepare her students for the future. Leonhardt’s dual-credit courses offer hands-on environments that prepare students to earn industry-recognized credentials. Leonhardt leverages a variety of tools to achieve her goals, from in-class and overnight simulations to on-the-job experiences.
“I teach two classes: Parents and Children, which uses infant/toddler curriculum through Mid-State Technical College, and Careers with Kids, where students earn their Assistant Childcare Teacher Certification,” said Leonhardt. “My students are in high demand – childcare centers are emailing me all the time asking for kids’ names and references.”
For the last 10 years, Leonhardt has used Realityworks’ RealCare Baby® infant simulator in her Parents and Children course. A lifelike infant simulator that tracks caregiver behaviors, RealCare Baby challenges students to respond to demands for care, such as feeding and diapering, throughout the day and night – just like a real infant.
“RealCare Baby goes home; it’s a completely out-of-class simulation. With Baby, we’re looking at how you care for an infant at home as a parent,” said Leonhardt. “What’s more, the Babies are such a draw – students always want to take them home. Any time we advertise the program, the Babies are out. All the sixth graders in the district, when they tour, want to see the Babies. They’re a huge advertising gimmick for us.”
While the opportunities provided by RealCare Baby to practice basic infant care skills are ideal for her Parents and Children students, Leonhardt saw a need for more advanced, on-the-job experiences to prepare her Careers with Kids students for professional childcare roles.
“Careers with Kids is the ‘motherload’ – students learn foundations of early childhood concepts and health, safety and nutrition concepts,” said Leonhardt. “My students actually spend a minimum of 10 hours per semester in our partner childcare center, but they provide no care. They’re observing and playing, while the teachers diaper, feed and make decisions.”
To meet that need, Leonhardt recently added a new training tool to her Careers and Kids classroom: the Child Care Experience™ (CCE) Program by Realityworks. This in-class simulation uses hardware, software and tools of the trade so teachers can create “pop up childcare centers” in their classroom. As a result, students get the unique opportunity to engage in the hands-on care of multiple infants simultaneously.
“I chose the CCE program because I wanted the kids to experience that 1:4 or 2:4 ratio. I wanted them to have to figure out what they care need is,” said Leonhardt. “I remember distinctly being in childcare and my first time being alone with four babies and all four needing something right at the same time. The CCE program gives them a look at that work – they get to decide what’s going on when the baby cries, how to handle four babies that are crying at one time.”
Her students’ response to the CCE program has been overwhelmingly positive.
“They were intrigued. They were challenged by it,” said Leonhardt. “My students figured out RealCare Baby pretty quickly. There are only four care events, and they saw other students’ videos on TikTok. But the CCE Babies are more challenging.”
Looking ahead, Leonhardt plans to incorporate the CCE program as a partner project for the 25 or so students in her Careers with Kids class, giving each pair about 1 class period in the simulation, with immediate time to reflect.
“With two students in the simulation together, they have to figure out how to work together,” said Leonhardt. “As an assistant childcare teacher, you’ll be working with another person, so you have to figure out the nuance of the other person. This would give them that experience, and that’s childcare at its finest – figuring out how to work with people.”
Use of tools like RealCare Baby and the CCE program continues to be timely for Leonhard’s curriculum. Increased demand for her Parents and Children course led to the addition of a third section (and a new set of RealCare Babies) in the last year alone. Leonhardt has also doubled her Careers with Kids courses so more students can become certified and employable throughout the school year.
“We need childcare employees so badly. The childcare centers where my students work are at an advantage because the kids know the concepts already,” said Leonhardt. “It’s great to offer that extra experience with infants in Careers with Kids. If you can handle 6-8 infants and toddlers, you can handle pretty much anything in life.”
Learning tools used:
RealCare Baby 3 Infant Simulator
Educators around the world use this unique learning aid to teach early childhood, parenting, infant health lessons, and sex education.
Child Care Experience™ Program
This program is a complete simulation involving hardware, software, and curriculum that are ideal for early childhood education capstone projects as well as creating real-life childcare skills practice opportunities.