The past year we have been working hard behind the scenes with the goal of redesigning the Texas Early Childhood Career Pathway to include more roles and pathways outside of what currently existed for early childhood educators. On August 10, 2023 we updated the Find My Career Pathway Tool for Practitioners. The core purpose of the Practitioner Pathway is to design a space of upward professional mobility for those who work directly with children – beginning with those entering the field with a high school diploma or CDA, to those working in the field with advanced graduate degrees or accredited certifications.
Those that work in early childhood classrooms can now login to their TECPDS account and find their new Career Pathway level. We will continue to roll out more resources in the coming months, so watch out for more information coming soon.
Instructions:
Step
1
Just log into your TECPDS account and select the Find My Career Pathway tab.
Step
2
Select the pathway you would like to explore. At this time, we have pathways designed for Practitioners (those working in classrooms) and Trainers. The Administrator and Coach pathways are in progress, and we will notify you when they are ready for use. If you would like to find your Practitioner pathway level, select the Practitioner Pathway tab.
Step
3
Navigate through the data entry pages to complete your professional development profile. If you have entered data before, it will be present when you go through these pages. The pages have been redesigned so that you can more easily move through the pages at your own pace.
How to take the Texas Core Competencies for Early Childhood Practitioners Courses and Get a Micro-Credential Badge
To obtain level two on the career pathway, you are required to take the Texas Core Competencies for Practitioners courses and receive a Micro-Credential Badge. To do this, follow these steps:
Do Not Have a CLI Engage Account?
- Sign up for public access to CLI Engage
- If you do not already have a TECPDS account you may Opt-in to a TECPDS account so your badges will be automatically transferred. Do not do this step if you already have a TECPDS account. Go to the section called Already Have a CLI Engage Account.
- From your dashboard, navigate to the Online Learning and Professional Development section and enroll in all of the Texas Core Competencies Practitioner Trainings. Once you complete the course and pass the exam, you will be awarded the badges to your TECPDS account. After completing all 9 courses you will receive a Micro-Credential for these courses. Your level on TECPDS will move up after getting the Micro-Credential. See the below images of what this will look like on TECPDS.
Already Have a CLI Engage Account
If you already have a CLI Engage account you are well on your way in the process. You will want to make sure that your TECPDS and Engage account are connected. To do this, log into TECPDS and look at the top of your dashboard. Does it show an Engage ID? If not, please turn in a help ticket to have your TECPDS and Engage account connected. Next, just follow the same steps as above.
Step
4
After completing your profile, go to the end of the pages and you will generate your Career Pathway Report. The report includes your new level and display information for how you achieved that level. Want to know how to move to the next level? Just hover your mouse over the other numbers displayed.
Step
5
The Career Profile section allows you to view what is required for the next level.
Step
6
The report can be emailed to you and provides you with additional information about the following:
- Highest level of education achieved
- Any education you are working towards
- Number of years’ experience
- Your verified and self-reported levels. A self-reported career pathway level is based on information you entered into the Find My Career Pathway on TECPDS. A validated level is provided if your information entered into TECPDS has been validated by an official records validator.
- Information on why pathway levels are important
- The Texas Core Competency Level of Practice
- Summary of Professional Development entered
- Summary of Early Childhood Specializations
This document was last modified on: November 29, 2023