Teaching Methods, Theories and Approaches - Essay Example

?Curriculum and Methods for Early Childhood Educators 16th May, Introduction Contemporary curriculum approaches inearly childhood education stress the magnitude of making available to the young children experiences that foster holistic development and promote positive attitudes. They should also be developmentally appropriate to the life and learning of the young children. Early childhood teachers, therefore, must acquire the knowledge necessary to implement and develop child centered curriculum practices that inherently stimulate and motivate the young ones desire to become engaged in their own learning. The realistic goals is to help a child achieve intellectual growth, develop a positive self concept, increase proficiency in skills in writing, reading, thinking, listening and speaking and to increase skills involved in physical coordination. It also helps a child to enlarge his world of experiences, ideas, things and people. These help the child to increase aptitude in dealing with emotions, societal situations, self bearing and independence (Little, 1979). Working with Pre-K age group children calls for good class practices. Pre k/Pre kindergarten, being the first official academic classroom-based education environment that a youngster habitually attends, begins between the ages of 3-5 depending on how long the program is. It combines the focus to harvest a child’s cognitive, social, physical and emotional developments. This means it reflects an understanding of child development principles providing opportunities for the children to acquire concepts and skills involving decision making, problem solving, questioning, evaluating and discovering. An early childhood educator should therefore, combine philosophies, theories and concepts that endorse the children with opportunities to develop in all dimensions prior to basic education and future life. Direct instruction The direct instruction method is an approach whereby stems of behavior and social training techniques view child education as an input from the environment. The educator presents information to the class and whole groups. He or she structures or drills a practical lesson where they teach discrete skills and isolate facts. These lessons are fast paced and ensure consistency in classrooms (Guide, 1998). Being skill oriented, it emphasizes on the use of small groups, face to face instructions by aides and teachers carefully articulating lessons which cognitive skills are sequenced deliberately after being broken down into small units and taught explicitly. Direct instruction offers one of the most empirically effective and validated curricula for all types of children. These are the gifted, the average, disadvantaged and the developmentally delayed. It stands on the certainty that one should not introduce the subject matter to children when they are developmentally unprepared (little, 1979). For developmental appropriateness, the student teacher interaction is highly emphasized to improve children’s self esteem and improve their self expectations. The National Association for the Education of Young Children in 1998 stated that outdated practices that included extensive whole group and intensive drill and practices on isolated skills were not effective and suitable. Direct instruction though is always in small groups, which provide the kids with the opportunity to interact and participate with other kids while receiving their teacher’s individual attention. The small groups become learning communities allowing the children to share individual and group goals, valorized identities and moral principles. The length of lessons in direct instruction is adjusted according to the attention spans and activity levels of children in different ages. Faulty instructions are the overwhelm causes of children crippling intellectually, and if a student has not learned then a teacher has not taught. Therefore, direct instruction has a consistency with the literature on how to design instructions that children induce or construct concepts and generalizations. Dividing lessons into short exercises that are related but slightly different upholds children interest levels and helps them synthesize knowledge from diverse exercises into a larger whole. This is because the ability to read and write does not develop naturally without careful instruction and planning, and excellent instruction builds on what they already know and are able to do hence providing them with skills, knowledge and dispositions for lifelong learning (International Reading Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998). One of the major features of direct instruction is careful planning. This is carefully crafting the sequence of learning and tasks, practice and logical form of teacher-student communication. One should also teach with a variety of methods to encompass great diversity of the children. One should also teach them social competence to help them advance their language, social and cognitive skills. You should also take them through meaningful learning experiences like choral reading to allow them associate with symbols with the sounds of the words. Socialization Socialization is an approach where the educator holds open classrooms for children to socialize. The teacher developmentally provides nurturing and stimulating materials to the children. This model provides freedom for uninstructed play and interaction. The teacher provides to the children their creativity and experiences that helps in a child’s progress as well as reflecting into community values (Guide, 1998). Socialization is basically the process by which children learn to make plans, decisions, and express feelings, solve problems encountered during play time and be sensitive to others. The young children are communal beings influencing as well as being influenced by others. Constructive approach The constructive approach theory, on the other hand, is where educators endorse children with an active exchange between them and the environment. Activities in this lesson include problem solving, reasoning and coming up with new ideas. These activities foster a child’s learning and improve their thinking (Roopnarine $Johnson, 2005). It helps them build a foundation of physical knowledge and help them become increasingly independent and autonomous both morally and intellectually. This is because young children are theory builders. Design of curricula and theories’ choice When designing a curriculum for a Pre K classroom, I would consider what content and theory to follow after I study the children, their parents and adults with whom they interact. The children’s temperaments and development levels, their personalities and interests in a group and individually. I believe this understanding of each child becomes the backbone of a curriculum. Their families’ culture and background will also provide insight to my curriculum. Each parent has an aspiration or hope for his or her child and family. These goals together with the customs and value of the families will very much influence the activities to be presented to the child. I will also combine my personal experiences, interest and personality so as to build the children’s knowledge of introducing new ideas. Children are active learners, who learn best from pursuing their own interests while being actively challenged and supported by adults. Engaging them in language and literacy, mathematics, science, physical development and fine arts in a well designed classroom learning environment while implementing group and individual instruction and documenting their progress. Children should be endorsed with language formalities, social practices cognitive and physical development. Mathematics, science and fine arts are subjects basic to any curricular. Mathematics will include simple counting like determining the number of eyes, legs, ears, wings, antennas and other physical appearances in living things. They will know about subtraction and addition of small figures. Science and Mathematics fall under logical thinking education and is organized into five key experience areas: classification, serration, number, space and time. In pre K science and mathematics fall under the same category. Classification is the grouping of things according to their common traits and those that are labeled with the same markings. Serration is the grouping of objects by differences, for example, smallest to largest, contrary to the classification which is the grouping of objects by similarity. Numbers always involve equalities, distinctions and one on one correspondence. Space will involve engaging them in spatial investigation with resources to fill and then empty, shape then arrange, fit together and take apart and also set in motion. Time is making them remember the past, form mental representation of clocks and calendars in their mind, collecting simple data and allowing them to predict things and call out to usual routines. In addition to this, science makes children get curious of and enthusiastic about the physical concepts of the environment. This includes exploration of water, air, earth and living things. They will explore their properties to determine why they exist that way (Rather, 2004). Fine-art is an area involving construction, rearrangement and building of a variety of items they use both at home and school. They will make objects of different sizes and shapes. Coloring, sticking, folding and cutting materials also improve the innovativeness of the children (Roopnarine & Johnson, 2005). I would also introduce dramatic arts, dancing and children songs that help the children in creating dialogue, linguistic and temporal concepts. As an early childhood educator, engaging several approaches to teach children in different occasions is vital. The direct approach fits best in classes involving simple mathematics and science where one will give instructions for a problem to be solved, show similarities and differences between different objects. This is the best approach since you get the pupils individual attention and get to recognize what he or she is good/poor at handling. It is also the best method to introduce rules to the children since they are in the collective group and have that notion of the teacher does not like that. It is also easier to teach them community morals and make them create individual and group goals. Socialization, on the other hand, would best fit where children work in open class where they interact with people, physical characters, insects and plants. Engaging in uninstructed play the children will have the chance to blend with their peers and many of them discover new worldly things in these lessons. They also show their capabilities of making plans, express feelings and sensitivity to others. The constructive approach helps children in designing, assembling and building simple artifacts provided by the environment (Rather, 2004). Materials should be labeled to help children learn organizational skills for literacy purposes. There should be an assessment and appraisals regarding how the students perform to encourage them to be more inventive. Conclusion High quality early education generates long lasting benefits. The National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education state that policy makers have the responsibility to construct comprehensive systems of curriculum, assessment and programs. Implement the curriculum while making ethical, valid, appropriate and reliable assessment a central part of early childhood education (Guide, 1998). Combining the philosophies of direct instruction, socialization and constructive approaches of early childhood education Pre K education is perfected helping the children to make choices, mirror on what they have learned, and make use of their ideas. These combined activities promote independence and initiative. In addition, children engage in group activities, develop self care skills, socialize during play time and meals and exercise their bodies during outdoor time. These and other features of pedagogy show how important Pre K education and its curriculum components are. References Barnett, D. W., Bell, S. H., Carey, K. T., & Barnett, D. W. (1998). Designing preschool interventions: A practitioner's guide. New York: Guilford Press. Little, L. F. (1979). Directions: Guidelines and curriculum planning for early childhood educators. Lexington, Ky: Educational Skills Development, Inc. Rather, A. R. (2004). Theory and principles of education. New Delhi: Discovery Pub. House. Roopnarine, J. L., & Johnson, J. E. (2005). Approaches to early childhood education. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall. Read More