Group Leader at Children's Learning Center Wins Teaching Award

Barbara J. Albert, group leader at the Children's Learning Center at Pennsylvania College of Technology, has been awarded a Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation Child Care Teacher Recognition Award for her commitment to quality child care.

The honor, which was bestowed April 4 in King of Prussia, includes a $500 grant to the Children's Learning Center for the purchase of a digital camera.

In her application to the foundation, Albert, who supervises a group of 15 children (5-year-olds) at the CLC, describes how the camera would enhance communication with parents, reinforce the value of work for the children and document their progress.

Albert described how, using a borrowed digital camera, she has posted photographs of the children's activities that parents can view after she prints them out on her computer on the same day. She also noted that her program emphasizes learning through play with real objects with few paper-and-pencil worksheets making it more difficult to document learning.

"Photos help children see their own work and build on it," Albert wrote. "I will be able to do this more frequently and less expensively with a digital camera." Children's Learning Center Director Karen Woland-Payne wrote an endorsement of Albert for the award application, saying she has "helped to shape (the center's) philosophy, its curriculum and its traditions."

"Her experience and professional expertise, as well as her warm personality and sense of humor, have been a guiding light for us all as we pursued our first NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) accreditation, expanded to include children from 18 months to 8 years of age, and worked out details of a complex and challenging role as a childcare center and lab school on a college campus," Woland-Payne wrote.

The Seventh Annual Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation Child Care Teacher Recognition Awards were presented in partnership with the Delaware Valley Association of Young Children. They honor 40 outstanding child-care teachers and 36 accredited programs in Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.

Each applicant was asked to design an enhancement project for the children in his or her classroom, illustrating its educational, social and emotional benefits. The applications were reviewed by a committee of early childhood educators and specialists.

As part of the grant award, Albert, who resides in Cogan Station, will also receive a $500 stipend as an acknowledgement of her dedication as a child-care teacher.

Since 1994, the Teri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation has presented awards honoring 76 child-care providers. The program was expanded statewide in 2000 and throughout the Mid-Atlantic region this year.

For more information about the foundation, access the Web site. Penn College also can be accessed online.