Key Issues in Promoting Children Learning and Development - Essay Example

Running Head: Promoting Children's Learning and Development Section1 Key issues in promoting children's learning and development -thinking about my practice Introduction Children are tomorrow's adults who would be entrusted to make and implement decisions when need arises. Therefore, they are expected to be thoughtful, disciplined and productive. The foundations of future responsible men and women are built by promoting children's learning and development at all stages of their growth. Promoting learning and development require understanding of underlying child related principles, theories, practices as well as laws and standards set forth to explain, guide and protect the children. There are various theories already advanced forward to state and explain learning and development of children. The three main theories are behaviorism theory, constructivism theory and socio-cultural theory. Behaviorism theory states that knowledge exists and learners should discover it. . Constructivism theory states that knowledge can be created in the mind of a child while socio-cultural theory states that knowledge is created and transferred when children interact with members of the society. The society, the state as well as individual members of the societies understand the importance of developing and nurturing the capabilities of a child to develop into a responsible and productive adult in the coming years. There are various ways of promoting learning and development of children. First, according to Blake et al (21), children learn and develop when they feel sense of containment, worth and love. They also need to be inspired, encouraged and challenged to stretch beyond their capabilities to be able learn and develop. As a result, they develop positive attitude towards learning. Secondly, children and young people need a role model who they are able to observe and emulate. This will show them a path to follow as they develop into adults. Thirdly, they need opportunities to practice and internalize different ways of being and behaving. The opportunities can be availed in form of well thought of role-plays, music, acting (drama) and group work. The opportunities enabled them to learn and understand themselves and their personalities as they interact with various members of the society. Therefore, children should receive enjoyable and challenging experiences during their learning and development. Fourthly, the individuality of every child should be recognised and nurtured at all developmental stages. This assures that the children's individual needs as well as interests and abilities are taken into solemn considerations. Fifth, the children should be assisted to identify their talents and hobbies. This is because talents and hobbies make them enthusiastic and the levels of their self-esteem grow. Furthermore, talents and hobbies help children develop passions early in life. This is done by listening to the voices of children when they talk about their interests and likes in life as well as paying attention to the environment where the child learns and develops. Sixthly, children should be praised for every good thing they do. This reinforces positive behavior in their learning environment. It is important to note and understand that children enjoy growing and developing in a stimulating environment. Stimulating environment presents a platform for challenging activities and experiences for growing and developing children. If every aspect of a child is taken into consideration, the child would exhibit progress in his or her learning and development endeavors. Seventh, it is important to ensure that children are safe and healthy. Children should be kept away from hazards that can devastate or disempower them in the environment in which they live. Children should be fed with balanced diets. In addition, children should be taught how to keep themselves healthy. They need to learn to wash their hands regularly and brush their teeth after main meals. Whichever the approach utilized to promote learning and development of children, monitoring and evaluating every activity or strategy used is important. Strategies that fail to work as required should be removed and replaced with effective ones. This ensures higher universal quality of activities employed to promote learning and development in children. All teachers and other members of the society, who have significant impact of children's growth and development, should be dedicated, enthusiastic and encouraging to help children make significant progress. Section 2 Promoting children's learning and development -exploring my practice How the key question was turned into sub-questions for investigation. Learning and development of children is effectively promoted through integration of very many factors. However, through practice, I have noted that praise is important in promoting learning and development of children at their early stages of growth and development. The key question states as follows; what role does praise play in promoting learning and development in children The sub questions that link to the above questions include: how can praise be used to promote learning and development of children To what extent can praise be effective in promoting learning and development in children When does praise work best to promote learning and development of children These questions shade light to the use praise as a means to enhance learning and development in children. Data collection methods The data was collected through direct observation. The children were observed in their natural learning environment as they learn, do assignments, respond to teacher's questions, play and interact. I watched and listened to the children as they take on their tasks. The questionnaire provided a structured way of collecting data relating to the practice. I took notes on interesting behaviors and body language changes resulting from praise. The narratives described behaviours and the environment where the children lived. Narratives helped to communicate general information on the behavior of the children under consideration. The reason why observation was chosen as a method of collecting data According to Stone and Stone (29), direct observation provides insights into the children's tasks and environment. It exposes characteristics and events that interviews or questionnaires would have not exposed. It is a cheap and straightforward way of collecting data. It provides highly reliable and valid data (Shapiro, 51). In addition, it provides visual evidence and is concerned with here and now. Therefore, seeing is equivalent to believing. According to Reynolds et al (32), observation is appropriate for growing children as learners because it is natural and spontaneous technique exploring real life situations. Subjects under investigation were the children. The teachers were also involved in the data collection because they are part of the natural school setting and environment. The parents were also involved in the study because they provided extra information for comprehensive study. Difficulties encountered during the study At one point, the children were distracted when they noticed a strange person was watching them. As a result, their behavior and performances was influenced and some information was not collected. However, I distanced myself and observed from the distance. It was difficult completing the records of children activities in a single observation but more researches that are similar was done to complement the initial research. Data analysis According to Houser (178-180), data was systematically developed for meaning in different ways. They included counting events, noting patterns of behaviours and determining plausibility. Analysis of the data utilized clustering where patterns were identified and similar patterns were grouped together. The data was grouped and patterns were identified. The patterns predicted and shade light on how lives of children are controlled. The data was related to the aspect of my practice. Evaluating how I promote children's learning and development - Section 3reflecting on my practice and moving forward (1000 words) To what extent is my practice like I thought it was Through my practice, I have always known that praising a growing child create tremendous results in learning and development. Praise is perhaps the most effective and easy to administer as compared to other forms of promoting learning and development. However, I never thought that praise need to be planned and executed appropriately to be highly effective. I never thought that what is praised is the behavior and not the child. Initially, I used to believe that the praise should be like this; you got good high grades! You are a good boy or you are a good girl. This kind of praise is an example of praising a child and not the behaviour. As a result, the child would be at risk of misinterpreting the praise and associate working hard with good or bad behaviour. This is because good boy or girl would be a heavy label to the children especially those who are low learners. To the children, good grades would be an indicator of good behaviour and failing would indicate bad behaviour. Instead, a child should be told; you did a good job working hard in class. The greatest experience I encountered is plan praise and ensure that good behaviour of the child is praised when necessary. My experience with helping children grow, learn and develop has been rich and informative. Many approaches can be applied to make the children learn and develop in appropriate ways. They include praising, motivating, withdrawing privileges, reminding, negotiating and selective ignoring. Of all the above, praise is valuable at the growing and learning stages. Every time a child is praised, his or her face lightens up in approval. Children desire to be praised and offer praises. When the teachers praise their pupils, they become specific and show that they are paying attention to the child's growth. Most teachers were quick to praise the children. They told the pupils well done for assignments and tasks that were appropriately done. This avoids suggesting to pupils that they are valued according to their performance. The teachers praise the behavior of the pupils and not the pupil. The teachers were also keen in applying praises to their pupils by ensuring that the praise did not lose flavor in the lives of the children. Only irregular achievements were praised. This helped to prevent the pupils from being addicted to praise at the expense of other important issues that are important for effective learning and development. In addition, when appropriate behavior had been achieved, the immediate need to praise subsided significantly and teachers moved on to shape another behavior that promoted learning and development. Praise was effective when the teacher determined a specific behavioral goal; for example, when the teacher wanted to develop a positive attitude towards learning, he or she told the pupils that they like their reading habits. The teachers regularly changed their praise delivery accolades. When a child arranges his or her assignment well, the teacher said good job. Some teachers went a head and ask other children to sing praises to the child who did well. For example, well done well done, try again another time. The teachers praised their students privately while others left little nice class work notes attached to the pages where the assignment was done. The messages convey to the pupils that their hard work was noticed and appreciated. As a result, they became pleased and encouraged to learn. It is important to note that when children were praised for good grades, they understood that good grades are important to succeed. How good do I feel my practice is, and why I am contributing positively to learning and development of children in their formative years. However, my practice needs some sharpening to make it highly effective to encourage positive behaviour in a sustainable manner. This is because there are areas that I had ignored because I did not have the idea of how it should be done. For example, I was not sure whether praise should be directed to appropriate behavior or the child. Furthermore, I thought praise should be spontaneous rather than planned. I did not know that excessive praising may convey a message that discipline and good behavior is optional. In the light of my answers to the above three questions, how could I refine or develop my practice I have realized where I have to put much effort. I need to develop an action plan consciously and consistently for praising children as well as a corresponding motoring and evaluation system. This helps to establish whether the praises are effective or not. By monitoring and evaluating the praise schemes, it is possible to establish if number of praises outweighed number of criticism. Furthermore, timing praises is very important. Praises should not be directed to usually expected behavior but rather to exceptionally behaviour acquired recently. The body language of a child can indicate whether a child yearn for praise or not. For example, if a child come home running and says, mommy, look at my assignment I did in school. I got straight "As". Such a child deserves praise How feasible is it for me to improve my practice in the ways identified above, given the context(s) in which I am working I have the passion to help children learn and develop in an appropriate. In addition, the above activities are within my reach and the head and other members of my departments are supporting it. Therefore, the environment is conducive to do it.. How I am working to improve my practice I will continue researching and reading literatures on the role of praise in promoting learning and development of children in both school and home environment. Conclusion There is need to constantly monitor and evaluate the type and the number of praise children receives at a given period. This is an attempt to ensure that the quality of praise is maintained and children are not over praised. Over praising loses meaning or make the children depended on praising to the extent that they cannot do anything without it. . Praise help children learn and develop but it is not the only way to reinforce good behavior. Therefore, it is important to compliment it with other ways of reinforcing positive behaviour. Sources Blake, Simon, Bird, Julia and Lynne Gerlach. Promoting Emotional and Social Development in Schools: A Practical Guide. London: Sage, 2007. Shapiro, Edward S. Conducting School-Based Assessments of Child and Adolescent Behavior. New York: Guilford Press, 2002. Stone, Deborah L. and Debbie Stone. User Interface Design and Evaluation. Oxford: Morgan Kaufmann, 2005. Reynolds, Cecil and Randy Kamphaus. Handbook Of Psychological And Educational Assessment Of Children: Personality, Behavior, And Context. 2nd Edition. New York: Guilford Press, 2003. Houser, Rick. Counseling and Educational Research: Evaluation and Application. London: Sage, 1998. Read More