EDUC 106 Midterm

What does early childhood education encompass?

Birth through age 8. Infancy, toddlerhood, preschool, kindergarten, and early primary grades. The settings include childcare, preschool, primary grades (kinder - 3rd), and federal programs (e.g., Head Start)

What are the changes in the early childhood profession?

Scientific Foundation: Increase in scientific knowledge about young children, development of research-based programs and curricula

Quality and Investment: Emphasis on high-quality early education and its long-term and short-term benefits. Increase in federal funding for high-quality child care

Enrollment and Workforce: Higher enrollment in early learning programs. Need for well-educated early childhood professionals

What do high quality ECE programs promote?

Affective development (language for feelings), physical development, cognitive development, language development, social development, self-care skills

What does a developmentally appropriate program include?

Age appropriate, individually appropriate (each individual child’s strengths and needs are noticed), socially and culturally appropriate (take into consideration the culture of the children, teach children about their society and bolster their culture)

Developmentally appropriate program example

A preschool class is making a holiday craft. Each 4 year old child is given a pre-cut template (like a turkey handprint) and told exactly where to glue each piece

How can you make a learning environment socially and culturally appropriate?

Be sensitive and responsive to children’s cultural and ethnic backgrounds and needs. Reflect on your interactions with all children. Include multicultural activities in your lesson plans. Work with families to incorporate a diverse curriculum

Socially and culturally appropriate environment example

Keiko eats rice for breakfast at home. During a nutrition activity in preschool, some children insist that rice is only a dinner food. How should teachers address it?

Create a lesson plan around cultural differences, emphasize there’s no right or wrong and families do things differently, give them a common theme in the middle of what makes us difference

What is the NAEYC?

The National Association for Education of Young Children. The program promotes high-quality learning for all children, birth through age 8, by connecting practice, policy, and research

What are the NAEYC professional standards and competencies for early childhood educators?

Standard 1: Child development and learning in context
Standard 2: Family-teacher partnerships and community connections
Standard 3: Child observation, documentation, and assessment
Standard 4: Developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate teaching practices
Standard 5: Knowledge, application, and integration of academic content in the early childhood curriculum
Standard 6: Professionalism as an early childhood educator

The cycle of reflective practice involves which of the following?

Thinking and planning before, during, and after teaching

Based on the ideas presented by Morrison, what is the most important disposition that all early childhood professionals should exhibit?

Caring

Why do politicians at the local and national level support early childhood education?

To provide high-quality affordable programs for families who qualify

Socioeconomic status consists of what three broad but interrelated measures?

Parents’ education levels, parents’ employment status, and family income

Achievement gaps begin early in life for children and relate most directly to which of the following?

Low performance on tests

What have been the views of children through the ages?

Miniature adults, sinful children, blank tablets, property, growing plants, and investments in the future

Return on investment - view of children as investments in the future. Supported by Head Start and child intervention programs. Supports the focus on high-quality child care, preschools, and other services. Life outcomes include taxpayer savings, less crime, better-educated children who pay higher taxes as adults

What is the cognitive development theory? Who backs this theory?

Jean Piaget. Focuses on how we learn, reason, solve problems, understand language, explain ourselves and our experiences, and form beliefs. Children play an active role in gaining knowledge of the world and thought of as “little scientists.” Assimilation and accommodation underlie how children understand, adapt, and organize their experiences

What is assimilation vs accommodation?

Assimilation: Fitting new information or experiences into existing schemas without changing them. Ex. Santiago uses his old schema of riding a three-wheeler and modifies it to fit the motor process needs of riding a bike with training wheels

Accommodation: Modifying existing schemas or creating new ones because new information does not fit what you already know. Santiago builds on his knowledge and modifies it by gaining new experience without training wheels

What is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?

Sensorimotor: Birth-2, experiencing the world through senses and actions, object permanence, stranger anxiety

Preoperational: 2-6 years, representing things with words and images, pretend play, egocentrism, language development

Concrete Operational: 7-11 years, thinking logically about concrete events and grasping concrete analogies, conservation, mathematical transformation

What is the teacher’s role in Piaget’s stages?

Sensorimotor: provide interactive toys (rattles, mobiles), promote investigation and sensory involvement, allow movement and exploration, play hide and seek games that involve looking for hidden objects, provide rich language environments (talking, singing)

Preoperational: toys and materials for pretend play, building blocks (classifying, spatial relationships, visual and motor skills), materials for arts and crafts, concrete manipulatives (puzzles and crafts), language opportunities to speak, listen, read, and write

What is the behaviorist theory? Who backs this theory?

Ivan Pavlov, J.B. Watson, B.F. Skinner. Focus on how environmental interaction influences behavior. All behavior is learned. Individuals behave based upon experiences in their immediate environment, development in reaction to rewards, punishments, stimuli, and reinforcement. No consideration of internal thoughts, feelings, society, or culture. Classical and operant conditioning.

What is Skinner’s influence on ECE?

Measurable learning, small segments (learning is facilitated in breaking tasks down into small steps), role of repetition, positive reinforcement, malleability of behavior (negative behavior is learned and can therefore be unlearned). Teachers addressing negative behavior must carefully evaluate what occurs immediately after the behavior

Key question: Is the child being rewarded unintentionally?

What is the sociocultural theory? Who backs this theory?

Lev Vygotsky. Children actively construct their knowledge through hands-on experiences. Cognitive development is continuous (not in stages).

Features of a Vygotskian classroom: diverse ability grouping, social interaction, dual discovery modes (balanced independent discovery and assisted discovery), zone of proximal development, instructional scaffolding, peer collaboration, active exploration

What is the zone of proximal development?

Area between what a child can do alone and what a child can do with assistance. Skills, ideas, and understandings just beyond the child’s reach. Social interaction with parents, caregivers, peers, and culture at large are responsible for the development of higher order functions

What is scaffolding?

Providing learning opportunities, materials, hints, and clue when a child has difficult with a task. Parent/teacher provides only as much support as the child needs; once skills are mastered, the teacher withdraws the “scaffold.”

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Humans are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving toward more advanced psychological growth. Physiological needs → safety needs → love and belonging → esteem → self-actualization

Who was Howard Gardner and what did he believe?

The types of intelligence. Teachers should be trained to present their lessons in a wide variety of ways using music, cooperative learning, art activities, role play, multimedia, field trips, inner reflection. Types of intelligences include intrapersonal, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, existential, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, spatial

Who was John Dewey and what did he believe?

Believed in progressivism. Children’s interests form the basis of curriculum. Discovery and child-centered learning. All children have a right to education that helps them grown and develop to their fullest. Every child is a unique and special individual. Child are active participants in their own education and development. Children’s ideas, preferences, learning styles, and interests are considered in planning for and in implementing instruction

Some best practices in teaching young children

Importance of sensory engagement. Firsthand experiences are best. Models are more concrete than pictures, pictures more concrete than words. Plan activities so that sensory engagement occurs early in the procedure rather than later

Many early childhood programs are incorporating outdoor activities, nature education, and gardening to involve children in a naturalistic approach. These revolutionary ideas were first introduced by which of the following historical figures?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

What are the principles of the Montessori Approach?

Respect for the child (help child do things independently, children learn through choices), the absorbent mind (children are receptive, capable, and learn unconsciously from the environment), sensitive periods (children are more susceptible to certain behaviors and can learn specific skills more easily, sequence and timing varies for each child), prepared environment (encourage independence and exploration of materials), auto-education (children are capable of teaching themselves if appropriate materials and activities are provided)

What is the teacher’s role in a Montessori approach?

Make children the center of learning, encourage children to learn, observe children, prepare the learning environment, respect each child, introduce learning materials

What are the principles of the Reggio Emilia approach?

Beliefs about children and how they learn: relationships to family, other children, teachers, school, community, and wider society. the hundred languages. Children’s own sense of time and rhythms

Adult roles: teacher = partner in learning process, atelierista = teacher trained in visual arts, parents = participants essential to program

The environment: physical space is welcoming, fosters personal encounters, communications, and relationships. Beautiful, full of children’s work. Atelier is an area or studio for creating projects

Program practices: cooperative and collaborative relationships, documentation, project approach and emergent curriculum (comes from the students’ interests)

What is the teacher’s role in a Reggio Emilia approach?

Acts as guides, facilitators, and collaborators rather than traditional instructors. Observe children, listen to their ideas, and document their learning process to understand their interest and guide their learning. Foster a collaborative environment where children, teachers, and parents work together to support the child’s learning

What is the project approach?

In-depth investigation of a topic worth learning, developed by John Dewey. Search for answers to questions of interest to the children. Learn by doing project in small or large groups. The projects can last several days to months. Integrated approach with ideas originating from experiences, curiosity, a problem to solve. Compatible with any early childhood program

What are the phases of the project approach?

Phase 1: Exploring previous experiences
Phase 2: Investigating the topic
Phase 3: Sharing the project with parents and others

What is the Waldorf method?

Emphasis on arts, nature, and imagination. Discouragement from use of technology A lot of instruction comes through story-telling. A lot of “love, caring, and reverence” in the classroom (domestic projects like washing dishes, preparing meals, knitting). Protecting innocence of child and minimizing distractions, a protective environment

What is the HighScope method?

Program for young children based on Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s ideas (play-based, child-centered, active). Active participation of children in choosing, organizing, and evaluating learning activities. Regular daily planning, developmentally based model. Developmentally sequenced goals and materials. Broad range of skills - problem solving, interpersonal skills, communication skills. Children’s initiative, teacher’s guidance/scaffolding

What are the components of HighScope curriculum?

Key Developmental Indicators: framework with sequenced learning goals (e.g., approaches to learning, social and emotional development, physical development and health, language, literacy, and communication, mathematics, creative arts, science and technology, social studies), developmental milestones used to plan and assess learning
Adult-Child Interaction: share control with children, encouragement rather than praise, problem solving approach to conflict
The Classroom Environment: stimulating materials in specific interest centers, arranged in consistent and accessible manner, everything is tagged with child-friendly labels
The Daily Routine: Plan-do-review

What was the High Scope Perry school project?

123 children, ages 3-4, born in poverty and at high risk of failing in school were divided into a program group that received high-quality preschool program and a comparison group who received no preschool program. At age 40, the HighScope program had fewer teen pregnancies, were more likely to have graduated from high school, were more likely to hold a job and have higher earnings, committed fewer crimes, and owner their homes and car

What are the ECE types/settings?

Family Child Care (FCC), Center-Based (community, faith-based, private, school-based, for-profit, non-profit), Friend Family and Neighbor (FFN), Home Visiting

How is ECE funded?

Federal (Child Care Development Fun (CCDF) and Head Start), State (state pre-K), Local (taxes), Tuition (primary way). Programs often rely on blending and braiding these funds

Current Context of ECE

The amount of children receiving at least 5 hours of non-parental care/week are 11 million children under age 3 (53.2%) and 10 million children aged 3 to 5 (69.3%). Families often use a mix of settings

Cost of ECE for families and providers

Families: Average cost of child care for families is $15,570/child (varies, can be $20K). Younger children’s care costs higher. The recommended is no more than 7% of family income, but average in the US is 8.9% to 16%

Providers: Providers struggle to stay open, cannot charge true cost and care and public funds don’t cover it. Workforce compensation is extremely low at $16.82/hour average, but ranges widely

What is Head Start?

Run by US Department of Health and Human Services. Early Head Start is birth to age 3 while Head Start is ages 3 to 5. To be eligible, you have to be under the federal poverty level (family unhoused, family receives certain public funds, child in foster care, child has a disability). Families pay no co-pay or tuition. Uses $12B but would need $22.8B to meet need. 41% of eligible 3- and 4-year old children attend

Head Start Services

Comprehensive Services: Child - academic, social-emotional, health (medical and dental), nutrition. Family - education (adult, parenting, heath, marriage, literacy, ESL), job training, etc.

What is IDEA?

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. A federal act providing a free and appropriate education to youth between ages 3 an d21 with disabilities in one or more of the following categories: mental retardation, hearing impairment, speech or language impairment, visual impairment, emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairment, autism, developmental delay, traumatic brain injury, other health impairment, specific learning disability. Most common categories are specific learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia), speech or language impairments, other health impairments, autism

What are the 6 pillars of IDEA?

1. Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)

2. Appropriate Evaluation

3. Individualized Education Program (IEP)

4. Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)

5. Parent & Student Participation

6. Procedural Safeguards

How does evaluation work in schools?

If a child isn’t progressing in the general education program and has learning problems, a parent can ask the school district for an evaluation. A parent can submit a written request (referral) for evaluation to the school principal or special education department. Schools can refer students for an evaluation based on date. A child can’t be evaluated unless a parent provides consent in writing

What is IFSP?

Individualized Family Service Plan. Ages 0-3. Designed to hep families reach goals for themselves and their children. Includes multidisciplinary assessment, planned services, and supporting information including child’s level of development, family centered, expected outcomes, progress monitoring, and specific intervention services
A written plan developed for eligible children and their families - family involvement

What is IEP?

Ages 4+ (usually entrance of schooling program). Ensures planning and delivery of services. Helps focus on the child’s specific needs. Clarifies what is best for children: placement, instruction, delivery. Requires annual review of the plans
A legally binding document that outlines the educational goals and special education services

What is inclusion?

Educating typically developing students in the same classroom as students who have various disabilities

How to create an inclusive classroom setting?

Accentuate the positive, use appropriate assessment, use concrete examples and materials, develop and use multisensory approaches to learning, model what children are to do, make the learning environment a pleasant and rewarding place to be. Create a dependable classroom schedule, encourage parents to volunteer at school and read to children at home, identify appropriate tasks children can accomplish on their own, use cooperative learning, develop a peer buddy system

What program is designed to ensure that students with disabilities and those who are gifted receive appropriate educational services?

Exceptional student education