This is simply a short post to remind you of the artificial separation of developmental categories. When teaching development, we often divide cognition, language, physical, and social/emotional development. This is done to manage the amount of information; however, sometimes students fail to think about how these areas overlap. In fact, we really can’t think about one without considering the others. For example, physical development allows infants mobility, and mobility gives infants the opportunity to learn cognitive concepts related to depth, distance, and perspective. The development of language facilitates our cognitive understanding, and our cognitive understanding provides a foundation for language. Both language and cognition encourage social interaction and understanding of the perspectives of others. Therefore, as we discuss these areas of development individually by chapter in the textbook and materials, don’t hesitate to consider the relationships between them.
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, September 02, 2011
Engaging students
Three out of the five students who responded to the poll identified engaging students as the most challenging issue they expect to face as educators. I found a video of bored students on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQjIIjUhKY), and although these students appear to be in middle and secondary classrooms, the message is important. Learning is impossible without engagement. We talk a lot about student engagement. For example, it is cited as the number one strategy for avoiding behavior problems in the classroom. However, we may not understand how to always encourage it. After all, many of our college courses are teacher centered and lecture focused.
The first step in engaging students in early childhood classrooms is to understand development. You might prefer to learn about teaching strategies, and certainly that would be helpful. Teaching strategies, however, are based on what we know about young students' development (e.g., cognitive, social/emotional, physical, and language). Understanding how young children think, communicate, interact with (and understand) one another, and use their bodies to navigate their environment gives us a valuable starting point in developing strategies. For example, my nephew's kindergarten class used to write their numbers (1 to 100) at the start of each day... first thing. Writing the numbers is great practice, but this activity doesn't help with understanding magnitude or the concept of counting (a one to one correspondence between each object and a number). My nephew would always try to go and play in the centers but wasn't allowed. In another classroom where I observed for a semester, the kindergarten teacher would identify two or three different students each day to stand and say their numbers to as close to 100 as they could. The teacher never discussed the numbers in real world contexts or related the numbers to actual objects for counting or understanding magnitude.
When my daughter was in kindergarten, she also worked on writing her numbers to 100. This task was accompanied by a number of other activities, such as counting to the 100th day of school (and having a 100th day party), collecting 100 small objects, counting objects by 5's and 10's, counting field trips, etc. The emphasis wasn't on writing to 100 but on understanding what 100 means. This took some time and effort using play and multiple strategies. The teacher approached teaching from an understanding of how her students think.
I suppose one wouldn't need to understand development to use such strategies; he/she could simply follow good lesson plans developed by someone with this knowledge. However, knowledge of development is a benefit that goes beyond lesson plans and supports the day-to-day, moment-to-moment learning opportunities in early childhood classrooms. It drives the design of classroom environments, teacher-student interactions, and the spontaneous decision making required of teachers.
The first step in engaging students in early childhood classrooms is to understand development. You might prefer to learn about teaching strategies, and certainly that would be helpful. Teaching strategies, however, are based on what we know about young students' development (e.g., cognitive, social/emotional, physical, and language). Understanding how young children think, communicate, interact with (and understand) one another, and use their bodies to navigate their environment gives us a valuable starting point in developing strategies. For example, my nephew's kindergarten class used to write their numbers (1 to 100) at the start of each day... first thing. Writing the numbers is great practice, but this activity doesn't help with understanding magnitude or the concept of counting (a one to one correspondence between each object and a number). My nephew would always try to go and play in the centers but wasn't allowed. In another classroom where I observed for a semester, the kindergarten teacher would identify two or three different students each day to stand and say their numbers to as close to 100 as they could. The teacher never discussed the numbers in real world contexts or related the numbers to actual objects for counting or understanding magnitude.
When my daughter was in kindergarten, she also worked on writing her numbers to 100. This task was accompanied by a number of other activities, such as counting to the 100th day of school (and having a 100th day party), collecting 100 small objects, counting objects by 5's and 10's, counting field trips, etc. The emphasis wasn't on writing to 100 but on understanding what 100 means. This took some time and effort using play and multiple strategies. The teacher approached teaching from an understanding of how her students think.
I suppose one wouldn't need to understand development to use such strategies; he/she could simply follow good lesson plans developed by someone with this knowledge. However, knowledge of development is a benefit that goes beyond lesson plans and supports the day-to-day, moment-to-moment learning opportunities in early childhood classrooms. It drives the design of classroom environments, teacher-student interactions, and the spontaneous decision making required of teachers.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Developmentally Appropriate Education
What is developmentally appropriate education? Try to answer this question before watching the following videos. Once you've watched the videos, reflect upon your original answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-h4IHIqkcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVjoh8j2mdISunday, April 02, 2006
EDEC 5310 Question Responses-- March 20
Click here to listen to Dr. Stevens respond to questions related to our discussion of the social and emotional development of preschoolers.
Feel free to make any comments here or bring your ideas to class.
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Feel free to make any comments here or bring your ideas to class.
RSS feed to subscribe to this podcast.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Inclusion
Click here to listen to Dr. Stevens respond to a question concerning inclusion.
Feel free to make any comments here or continue the discussion in the WebCT discussion boards.
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Feel free to make any comments here or continue the discussion in the WebCT discussion boards.
RSS feed to subscribe to this podcast.
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