Transcript Developing a Collaborative Classroom

Chapter Eleven
Creating
Developmentally Appropriate
Classrooms
The Importance of Age and
Developmental Status
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Rationale for Developmentally
Appropriate Educational Practice
Definition: developmentally appropriate
practice (DAP) involves providing learning
environments, instructional content, and
pedagogical practices that are responsive to the
major attributes and salient needs and interests
of a given life period in order to facilitate
continuing developmental progress.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Rationale for Developmentally
Appropriate Educational Practice
Developmentally appropriate practices result from decisions
about the education and well-being of children based on
three important kinds of knowledge:
What is known about child development and learning
What is known about the strengths, interests, and
needs of each individual child
What is known about the social and cultural contexts in
which children live
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Economic Aims for Schooling



Education goals are increasingly related to the
demand for evidence of achievement in
schooling
According to the NAEYC, the goal of early
childhood education, helping each child be
“ready to learn” when he or she enters school,
has not been fully realized
Economic goals for schooling place pressures
on schools to teach more and more cognitive
material to younger and younger children
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Two Problems with Economic
Aims


The view that the major purpose of schooling
is to prepare students to enter the workforce
misses a number of other, equally important
aims of education
The tendency to “blame” descending levels
of schooling (and teachers) when students
do not “measure up” ultimately comes to rest
on parents, who then tend to demand
increasing levels of academic instruction at
younger and younger ages
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Early Childhood Education and
Developmentally Appropriate Practice


Early childhood education seeks to advocate
for the nurturing of young children as a
necessary means to achieve the democratic
goals of a just society
It therefore acts in some ways in opposition
to strictly economic goals for education
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Theoretical Basis for Developmentally
Appropriate Practice
Particularist theories:
Universal theories:
 Cognitive
 Constructivist theory
(Lev Vygotsky)
developmental
theory (Jean Piaget)  Cognitive development
(Jerome Bruner)
 Psychosocial
development (Erik
Erikson)
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Constructivist Thought in
Developmentally Appropriate Practice



Children of all ages are understood to be
active constructors of their own knowledge
Concepts and perceptual development is
enhanced through wide experiences with
people, materials, and events
Curriculum is expected to provide multiple
opportunities for direct and concrete
engagement
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
The Idea of Cognitive Structures


The term structure refers to the concepts,
ideas, and understandings that children
construct through transactions with their
social and physical environment
Knowledge is “made” by the knower


assimilates new experiences within knowledge
structures already present
accommodates to experiences that do not fit
neatly into those structures
con’t.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
The Idea of Cognitive Structures
Motivation to learn comes from the fact that children’s
cognitive structures are constantly challenged
The need to understand provides the impetus for
acquiring new knowledge
This need to understand is internal
The teacher’s task is to provide a match between what
the child is ready to learn and what is available to the child
to learn
con’t.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
The Idea of Cognitive Structures
The constructivist view differs from the traditional
view of readiness in that it emphasizes that cognitive
readiness is not determined simply by biological
maturation
Rather, readiness also depends on the transactional
nature of the child’s environment
At any point in time, a child is ready to learn if
learning experiences are at an optimal level of novelty
or incongruity
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Characteristics of a Developmentally
Appropriate Classroom


Constructivist ideas gained scientific support
and integrity in the 20th century through the
work of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner
Both the work of Vygotsky and that of Bruner
place greater emphasis on the social-cultural
context of children than did Piaget
con’t.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Pedagogies: Old and New

Historical antecedents:
Comenius in the 17th century
 Rousseau in the 18th century
 Pestalozzi and Parker in the 19th century
 Dewey in the 20th century

(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Child-Centered Instruction






Use of small group organization
Use of activity centers
Project-based learning
Provision for student choice
Joint teacher-student planning of learning
activities
Integration of content
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Roles: Old and New



Teachers work in collaboration with students,
other teachers, other adults
The goal is to support the learning and
development of all children
Teachers need to know as much as possible
about each child—learning styles, interests,
preferences, personality, temperament, skills
and talents, challenges and difficulties
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Place of Content Knowledge: Old and
New




Early childhood education is concerned with the
process of learning and its effect on child
development
Knowledge acquisition is seen as necessary for the
child to reconcile incongruities and solve problems;
thus students may learn different things from the
same lesson
Early literacy learning involves “playing” with
language
Deductive reasoning, basic to mathematical
understanding, is an inherent capability of young
children
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Assessment: Old and New



Screening and assessment should never be
used to close educational doors to children, but
to open them
Observation of children in natural activity
contexts is an important factor in assessment
Also important are looking at collections of
children’s work, and ongoing communication with
parents
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Perspectives on Age and
Development



School experiences profoundly influence and are
influenced by people’s development as human
beings
“Development” refers to systematic changes in
the individual that occur from birth to death
What implications does this have for schooling?
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Sensitive Periods and
Developmental Crises




Sensitive periods are points in development
when children learn readily
Childhood—sensitive periods depend, in part, on
the life history of the child and on the child’s
experiences in school
Adolescence—a period of physiological,
emotional, and cognitive change
Ego identity, or the development of one’s sense
of self, is a lifetime enterprise
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Individual Differences and
Developmental Domains


Individual differences may be related to
biological, psychological, social, and cultural
factors
The nature vs. nurture debate is ongoing and
refers to the question of whether differences
are innate or learned; they are probably both
con’t.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Individual Differences and
Developmental Domains
Developmental domains refers to aspects of
development that progress more or less at the
same time, if not at the same rate:
Motor development
Cognitive development
Language/communication development
Social/emotional development
con’t.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Individual Differences and
Developmental Domains
Milestones (e.g., first words, independent walking)
and transitions from one stage to another can be
influenced by many factors:
Gender
Geography (e.g., climate)
Genetics
Specific environment
Differential cultural values and expectations
Disabilities
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
The Importance of Developmental
Knowledge



Necessary for effective use of
developmentally appropriate practice
Necessary in order to take individual
variations into account
Especially important in inclusion classrooms
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Examples of Cultural Variations



In values, such as the notion of
independence
In ideas of what constitutes “childhood”
In expectations for the “proper” time to
acquire specific knowledge (e.g., knowledge
of sexuality)
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e
Something to Think About
Much of the story of human development must
be written in light of cultural influences in
general and of the particular persons,
practices, and paraphernalia of one’s culture.
And chief among these, of course, in any
complex culture, will be such educational
institutions as apprenticeships or formal
schools.
(c) 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cushner/McClelland/Safford, Human Diversity in Education, 5/e