Focusing on the Kindergarten grade level, teachers are trained to mainly facilitate student learning through play. Lecture style teaching is not the most effective teaching style at this age since children’s attention spans are extremely short. The idea of students learning through play is to help the student maintain longer attention spans in order to promote better learning.
Some of the requirements that teachers are trained in involve vocabulary, social, math, and science developmental skills. Education-Portal.com (n.d.) also states at this grade level teachers, “Learn how to create environments to facilitate development; how to select developmentally appropriate materials and equipment; and how to work cooperatively with parents to develop specific plans for helping their children in areas where they might need focused attention.” Teachers include many different tools into their curriculum to help them effectively be better educators and one of the important tools they turn to in order to help them meet all their requirements is the use of technology within their classrooms.
The kinds of technologies found in a Kindergarten class are electronic devices like interactive white boards that have replaced the good old chalk board. It is able to display the teacher’s computer desktop screen on the board and is capable of manipulating the desktop through its touch screen features. Only about 40% of Kindergarten classrooms are equipped with this type of technology but that will change in the future as more classrooms will have this device installed in the near future as they are able to afford it (Datta, 2011). Portable devices such as the teacher’s laptop or e-reader are used in some schools (depending on the t...
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...ents learning pattern in order to effectively guide the child down a path to academic success. Sasson (2010) states it best as she encourages Kindergarten teachers everywhere by saying, “Make Your Teaching Sparkle. Teach for Success. Make a difference in the classroom.”
Works Cited
Datta, S. (2011). Technologies That Are Widely Available for Teachers. Ehow.com. Retrieved on July 31, 2011 from: http://www.ehow.com/info_8423048_technologies-widely-available-teachers.html#ixzz1TiK4KHU6
Kindergarten Teacher: Requirements for Teaching Kindergarten (n.d.) Education-Portal.com. Retrieved on July 31, 2011 from: http://education-portal.com/articles/Kindergarten_Teacher_Requirements_for_Teaching_Kindergarten.html
Sasson, D. (2010). Kindergarten Readiness - Is Your Child Ready For School? Ezine Articles. Retrieved on July 31, 2011 from: http://EzineArticles.com/3509951
Working as an Instructional Technology Specialist for the past seven years has provided many opportunities to observe teachers and students in a classroom setting. During this time teachers have been in the process of phasing in a new standards-based curriculum with an emphasis on student mastery of these standards. New technology tools have also been incorporated in many classrooms including studen...
California Department of Education. (2010). Desired Results Developmental Profile Preschool. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/documents/drdp2010preschooleng.pdf
Zill, Nicholas. (1995). School Readiness and Children’s Development Status.Eric Digest. [Electronic version]. Retrieved April 21, 2003, from http://www.ericfacility.net/databases/ERIC
Thinking back on my childhood, I first remember all the times I played outside in my backyard. I would pretend to dig up dinosaur bones or create imaginary realms of ancient lands; there I would perform diplomatic services for the people in need. I was usually alone, and those are some of my fondest memories. When I first decided to become a teacher and thought about what is important to my philosophy on how children learn, I immediately knew I was a strong believer in play. Although, many decision makers such as legislators and school district leaders believe in more academic types of learning styles, my paper will discuss why play is so powerful and important to children.
McWayne, C., Cheung, K., Green Wright, L. E., & Hahs-Vaughn, D. L. (2012). Patterns of school readiness among head start children: Meaningful within-group variability during the transition to kindergarten. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(3), 862-878. doi: 1939-2176
... middle of paper ... ... Wesley (1998) states that effective pedagogies plant seeds, nurture and wait “.remembering that it is the nature of the seed to grow” (p 81). These concepts all contribute to the idea of what it is like to be an effective childhood educator.
...ctive. Play is an essential learning tool and one that must not be ignored within the classroom. It is a catalyst to help children develop socially, emotionally, physically and cognitively. It is not only an important part of a child’s development as a pupil but also a child’s development as an individual.
What separates a good teacher from a great Teacher? “First and foremost a teacher must love working with children. No matter how well you teach, there is always room for Improvement ” (Killen,2009.p.100) .In this Essay I hope to show some of the key attributes, that I consider essential to becoming an effective early childhood teacher. Those key aspects are communication, building lasting relationships, engaging students effectively in the learning process, and encouraging and appreciating diversity in the classroom.
Technology is a recent development that has been widely used in many fields to enhance productivity and output. For instance, it has been incorporated in the education sector to allow easier access to information. Mostly, technology in education has taken the form of using computers and related accessories like software to enhance the learning capacity, information access, and development of students’ learning capabilities. In essence, extensive use of technology in classrooms has reduced the workload of tutors while enhancing the overall performance of students through employment of various programs aimed at developing the learning of students. Technology is used on all sorts of classroom scenarios including early childhood education. Some technologists and educations specialists, however, cite that use of technology in early childhood may be detrimental. This paper seeks to explore both the positive and negative attributes of use of technology in early childhood education.
Image a school with laptops available to each student to complete their class notes, teachers who are able to help their students through the screens of their computer, children who are excited to learn about numbers with the help of cute, animated characters. With the endless advancement of today’s technology, schools across the world have begun integrating various technology into their curriculum. These devices have the potential to greatly impact students in their learning. When a school opts to use technology in a school setting, the most important factors they should take into consideration are the benefits of using technological devices, the effectiveness of technology used
In the article by Chris Preston and Lee Mowbray (2008) a kindergarten classroom was the choice of installation of the interactive hardware. The justification for using this technology with Kindergarten children was their short attention span and the ability of the interactive whiteboard to keep them actively involved promoting learning (Preston and Mowbray 2...
Technology enables students and teachers to have a fast and easy way to acquire unlimited access to tons of information. With all of the useful technologies, the curriculum is bound to change in endless ways, creating more opportunity for learning.
The first tier is junior kindergarten followed by regular kindergarten being the second tier (Galloway & George, 1986, p.68). Junior kindergarten was created with the intention to give children another year to become developmentally ready before they take on kindergarten. Given this extra year, children are given different opportunities to excel in different areas that will help better prepare them for kindergarten that following year. In 2006, Pagani, Jalbert, Lapointe, & Hébert agreed with Calloway & George and said that: “Junior kindergarten could represent an excellent opportunity to hone precursor social and academic skills that facilitate kindergarten and school entry success”
Entering my kindergarten teaching experience in the last quarter of school year I had to quickly become familiar with kindergarten content standards and the school’s curriculum. To do this I observed my mentor teachers instructional time with the children and gained as much information as I could about the children’s educational standing by developing a professional relationship with the my mentor teacher and the children. I learned that the majority of my kindergarten children had not previously attended preschool and that this was their first year of school. I found that interacting with the children in social activities provided me with great insight to their literacy, math, science, and social studies development. In reviewing the children’s class projects, school displays, and an array of their work sample along with my mentor teachers year-long assessments I was able to recognize challenging, emerging and advanced content areas of the children’s core curriculum. These emerging and challenging content areas is what I centered my curriculum planning around. “Information about each child’s learning and development is used to evaluate teaching effectiveness. This may lead to changes in schedule, curriculum and teaching strategies, room set up, resources, and so on.” (Bredekamp and Copple, p. 249)
In Kindergarten school, some parent believes play is the best way for young children to learn the conceptions, skills, and set a solid foundation for later school and life success. In the other hand, many parents disagree and believe play is a waste of time, messy, noisy, and uneducationall. I believe play is not waste of time, but it something worth to fight for, in this presentation I would show parent the main importance of some of the numerous kinds of play, and why play is a fundamental basis for improving children’s ability to succeed in school and life.