Introduction A top priority for early childhood educators is to provide children with developmentally and culturally appropriate; stimulating environments and experiences in order to support children’s learning in their early years.
Developmentally Appropriate Practices
Developmentally appropriate is defined as meaningful practices or curriculum that you deliver, that is suitable for the age and stage of development of your group of children. However, one must take into consideration the individual differences of children, as each child is unique and they develop at different pace. For example, in a class one child may have attained his developmental milestones way ahead of his peers and there are some who are where they should be at and others who are slower in terms of their developmental milestones. Therefore, it is your role as a teacher to plan activities or a curriculum that caters to the needs of your children depending on where they are at developmentally. If used properly,
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And that is important, as according to Vygotsky, learning in children is shaped by activities that take place in the social and cultural contexts in which we grow up. For example, the methods (e.g. through instructions) you use to deliver your lessons may be suitable for one child but not the other. For instance, you presume all the children in your class knows what a durian is since it is commonly known as the ‘kings of fruits’ in Singapore however, a child from England that has been placed in your class may not know it. Therefore, being developmentally and culturally appropriate means that the curriculum addresses the needs of both the individual child and the group to which the child belongs. By doing so, the content becomes relevant and comprehensible, thereby empowering all
To be brief, culturally relevant teaching "is a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Ladson-Billings, 2009, pp. 20)." The emphasis of culturally relevant teaching is to understand that children have different needs and in order to deal with them in the best way possible is equitably. The inability to recognize these differences causes teachers to limit their ability to meet the student's educational needs and prevents them from being culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 2009, pp.37). Contrary to culturally relevant teaching, assimilationist teaching is a style that disregards a student's particular cultural characteristics. This teaching method follows a hierarchical model. According to the assimilationist perspective, the teacher's role is to ensure that students fit into society (Ladson-Billings, 2009, pp. 24). The book is full of amazing teaching strategies, teaching styles, and methods that would help benefit educators working with children of any grade
The article talks about how teachers need to have cultural compatibility. While it might be difficult for some teacher to grasp and understand the different cultures behaviors and beliefs. For those teacher that can are more likely to provide a learning environment that is enriching and responsive to the children’s different cultures. Teacher should have “meaningful interactions with members of other cultures and promote cultural disequilibrium (Colombo, 2005, p. 2).” Activities that have this are more likely to increase cultural competence.
The first section of the Code specifically addresses our responsibilities to young children. Its twelve ideals emphasize the importance of basing program practices on knowledge of child development and remind early childhood educators that they are responsible for creating programs that meet the developmental needs of all children in ways that respect their culture, language, ethnicity and family structure. The twelve principles in this section of the Code describe practices that are required, permitted, or prohibited as we work with young children. It is this section of the Code that I find the most challenging.
Using examples involving human service workers, discuss how interprofessional practice is defined. Discuss the barriers to interprofessional practice and how these might be addressed.
Cultural competence in health care provision refers to the capacity of health care systems to offer good care to patients and accommodate employees, who have diverse beliefs, behaviors, and values to meet their cultural, linguistic, and social needs. It comprises of policies, attitudes, and behaviors that integrate to form a system that can operate efficiently in cross cultural conditions. Healthcare organizations look at cultural competence from two major viewpoints. Firstly, it is a tool to enhance patient care from all backgrounds, social groups, languages, religions, and beliefs. Secondly, it is a tool that strategically attracts potential clients to their organizations and, hence, expands
In this reflective analysis of NAEYC Standard three, Observing, Documenting, and Assessing to Support Young Children and Families, I will first reflect on my growth, as an early childhood professional, during my course of study. Secondly, I will address my strengths related to the standard and discuss areas in need of further professional development. Finally, I will outline my goals for future growth and development. Early childhood educators demonstrate professional competence by understanding the role of assessment and the various methods of assessing student learning, including observation, documentation and standardized testing. These assessment strategies, along with partnerships with parents, can support students in their development and growth, by informing instruction and evaluating instructional practices.
Moreover, culturally responsive teaching practice demonstrates a clear feature since it contains guidelines that have a connection to different styles of teaching. It uses strategies that fit and matches with the teaching style that the teacher uses. Indeed, culturally responsive teaching practice is crucial because it plays a vital role in appreciating their culture and the cultural heritage of others. Besides, it includes resources, materials in all subjects, multicultural information disseminated in schools. Therefore, culturally responsive teaching practices consider the cultural customs of every student, thus it ensures that the content is worthy and fits in all cultures of the students. It is crucial to note that culturally responsive teaching practices involves considering the environment of the classroom. Activities would
It is an educator’s job to embrace and acknowledge the rich diversity all the children collectively bring to the classroom, while understanding that the children do not need to be treated the same because they are not the same as each other, but be respected and accepted for their differences. Inclusion is an essential; plank in the broad platform of social justice and raising achievement is a goal which all educators much hold for their pupils, It is important that early year professionals are aware of all different ways in which society constructs (Neaum 2010) this involves taking account children’s social cultural and linguistic diversity and including learning style, family circumstances, location in curriculum decision making process so all children are recognised and valued (Nutbrown and Clough 2006)
Developmentally appropriate practice provides a framework of promoting quality in early childhood education programs. It Developmentally appropriate practice are used to help create a program that is acceptable for the age and development of young groups of children with also considering the individual need of each child. When programs use developmentally appropriate practice they should help develop the domains of development. These domains are all connected, a child’s development in one domain impacts what takes place in another domain.
Additionally, a high quality early childhood program highlights on developmentally appropriate curriculum. I believe an early childhood classroom should be flexible, stimulating, clean, safe and organized. It should be a place where students can be engaged in learning through interacting with things around them.
The ability to accept new idea's and practices and a willingness to adjust the curriculum in accordance to specific cultural and social influences has been suggested to be another important factor for the effective early childhood...
Working in the field of early childhood can be both complex and challenging. Today, early childhood educators must take on a good number of roles including manager, advocate, policy maker, and classroom practitioner (Allvin, 2016). It is vital that early childhood educators understand that children’s early learning and development are multidimensional, complex, and influenced by many factors and so are able to implement developmentally appropriate practices in their childcare settings (“School Readiness,” 1995). Part of developing proficiency in working with young children is learning about and following accepted professional standards of conduct. As an early childhood educator and administrator, many daily decisions will have moral and ethical
Our role as an educator is to support the children as its essential to give the children the opportunity they deserve to engage in open ended play. Educators play the role in a child Mesosystem as they are influenced by the interactions a relationships we are able to create as student- teacher according to Urie Bronfenbrenner Ecological theory. Children are born to be curious about a particular aspects and challenge themselves with it creating a fantasy world around themselves during the exploration letting them learn and grasp new concepts and experience new way of learning. To do this, the educator must be flexible and creative enough to create activities that would benefit a child holistic development. The educator must make sure child has a sense of belonging, their well-being is taken care off, are able to engage in a meaningful way, and last but not least, the child is capable enough express themselves. Another example in which the educator can support the child is by doing inquiry
What made me into the person I am today? I have asked myself this question many times before, yet it all leads back to the same concept. In fact, I came to the conclusion that it is simply a summarization of our developing years. For example, some of our biggest influences, especially in those years, are our parents and friends. Our parents help shape us into the people we are today and, in most cases, we share the same values as them. In addition, our friends are also part of the reason we are who we are. They are the first group of people we interact with and whether we mean to or not, we try to imitate them as much as we can. As a result, the three values of my personal culture that make me into who I am are respect, work ethic, and joy.
The purpose of early childhood education is to firstly learn about one’s self and agency, how one’s actions can affect and impact others; to develop a sense of identity; who you are and how you fit into this world. Experience a sense of belonging through interactions with peers and teachers whilst celebrating and sharing diverse cultures whilst embracing others. Children need to have opportunities to explore, experiment, to gain insight and knowledge in numeracy, literacy, science and social structure through innovative and richly supported curriculums (DEEWR, 2009). I have very high expectations of all children as I believe that this assists in building self-confidence and