Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Culture,Curriculum, Connections

This study explores the implications of developmentally and culturally appropriate practice for early childhood education. Selections from classroom journals and personal narratives of 30 early childhood educators are presented to provide the context for the examination of the use of developmentally appropriate practice as a curricular base for early childhood programs. The capability of developmentally appropriate practice to respond to cultural diversity is analyzed and several questions are addressed Whose experiences are represented by developmentally appropriate practice? Whose ways of knowing are validated by developmentally appropriate practice? Teachers participating in this study noted that developmentally appropriate practice often failed to acknowledge the roles of culture, care-taking, inter-connectedness, and multiple ways of knowing in the teaching-learning experiences of young children. Their voices add the critical perspective of the practitioner to the consideration of what constitutes "appropriate" early childhood curriculum.     

Time,work, and developmentally appropriate practice

What makes it so difficult for teachers in early childhood settings to construct developmentally appropriate practice? Through case studies, this article explores the role of time, its organization, and how this organization intersects with the practical knowledge of individual teachers and with the discourse of developmentally appropriate practice. Three teachers, each from a different child care center, are presented: Jill who took for granted the organization of time as a rigid production schedule, Sonia who coped with intense constraints and time organized as a rigid production schedule, and Liz who reorganized all aspects of her program (including time) to aim for developmental appropriateness. When time as a rigid production schedule was taken for granted by teachers, opportunities for developmentally appropriate practice were obstructed in ways teachers could not easily identify or reflect upon. Time dominated as the determinant of events. Time was a scarce resource and teachers were rushed by time pressures which undercut children's play and the program which teachers prioritized. Program content and quality were lost. I raise this tacit acceptance of time organization as a problem, and suggest a reexamination of time organized as a production schedule in programs aiming to be developmentally appropriate.     

Mathematics in Early Childhood: Research-Based Rationale and Practical Strategies

Mathematics education is a critical part of the curriculum for students worldwide. The foundation for understanding mathematical concepts related to number sense begins early in life, and early childhood classrooms can provide the seeds for mathematical skills that will be needed later in life. In this article, the authors make a case for meaningful and developmentally appropriate mathematics experiences for young children in diverse early learning settings. Instructional and curricular methods inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach are described as effective ways to teach number concepts to young children from preschool through primary age. Strategies for teachers of young learners are presented in order to strengthen the mathematics curriculum in contemporary early learning settings. The authors’ analysis and recommendations are informed by their extensive experiences including studies in Reggio Emilia early childhood settings (infant toddler, preschool, and primary schools) and their work in early childhood teacher education at their respective universities.     

Beginning Reading and Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP): Past,Present, and Future

In this article, I address issues and trends, past, present, and future, in beginning reading instruction. I also trace the development of a related issue in the broader context of early childhood education: developmentally appropriate practice. Historical changes in reading education for young learners, as well as changes concerning guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice, are addressed. I conclude by suggesting that the fields of reading education and early childhood education share more similarities than differences. With collaborative initiatives, these two fields can strengthen their positive impact on the education of young learners as beginning readers.     

Missing the Boat with Technology Usage in Early Childhood Settings: A 21st Century View of Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Technology use permeates virtually all aspects of twenty-first century society, though its integration in early childhood settings and recognition as a developmentally appropriate practice remains problematic. A position is taken that education professionals may be ‘missing the boat’ by not embracing technology usage as a developmentally appropriate practice. Concerns are presented that both preservice education and inservice professional development require substantial improvement if early childhood education professionals are to both recognize the role of technology in developmentally appropriate practice and develop skills in using it in classroom settings.     

The Impact of an Ongoing Professional Development Program on Prekindergarten Teachers' Mathematics Practices

Mathematics is a natural part of daily life for young children as they explore and investigate the world around them. To build on these experiences, and to begin establishing a mathematical foundation, early childhood educators must not only be knowledgeable about mathematical concepts, they must also be aware of the most developmentally appropriate ways in which to teach these concepts to young children. After participation in an ongoing professional development program, specifically targeting teachers of prekindergarten children in public school, Preschool Programs for Children with Disabilities (PPCD), Head Start, and child care settings, teachers reported positive changes in math practices. Specifically, teachers reported a stronger alignment to national mathematics standards and increased awareness pertaining to developmentally appropriate mathematics practices as they apply to early childhood classrooms. Teachers reported a shift towards more hands-on activities and a shift away from the use of worksheets in their prekindergarten classrooms. Implications from this study suggest that ongoing professional development that is designed to meet the specific needs of early childhood educators can have a positive impact on reported mathematics content knowledge and instructional practices.     

Literature,listening, and young children

“What is that sound?”, “What did the kangaroo say?”, and “What might you hear during a walk?” provide evidence that educators of young children realize that listening represents a necessary ingredient in successful school experiences. Children listen for many hours of the school day, but listening has been a neglected area of instruction. The traditional low priority of listening instruction may have been based upon the myth that children naturally learn to listen or on the misconception that listening skills cannot be taught. Using literature to teach listening can improve learners' listening abilities, provided early childhood educators use developmentally appropriate children's literature.     

Teaching the Standards is Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Strategies for Incorporating the Sociopolitical Dimension of DAP in Early Childhood Teaching

Many early childhood practitioners in the U.S. are experiencing tension between their desire to offer students developmentally appropriate learning experiences and their obligation to teach the academic knowledge and skills mandated by their states. However, careful examination of the DAP guidelines’ definition of culturally appropriate practice reveals a significant sociopolitical dimension that has been obscured by the field’s tight focus on the sociocultural dimension. Because standards-based education is an explicit feature of the sociopolitical landscape of U. S. public education, teaching the standards is developmentally appropriate practice. Implementation of this broadened understanding of DAP adds new complexity to early childhood teachers’ work. This article offers ideas drawn from Bronfenbrenner, Vygotsky, and Dewey as sources of theoretical support and provides examples of strategic decision making—illustrated with examples drawn from Texas kindergartens—that can assist teachers in managing the curricular and instructional complexities that accompany the broadened understanding of DAP.

Children’s Memory: A Primer for Understanding Behavior

This paper provides the opportunity to understand children’s behavior from a memory viewpoint. For the last three decades, cognitive developmentalists have been asking the question, “what develops in children’s memory?” Four answers to this question are presented, complete with explanations, examples, and possible applications where appropriate. The purpose of the paper is to provide early childhood educators and other practitioners who work with children a different lens through which to view children’s behavior. The memory view is compatible with current best practices in early childhood education, and may provide practitioners an additional viewpoint from which to draw when implementing developmentally appropriate practice.     

Examining Differences in Students’ Beliefs and Attitudes: An Important Element of Performance-Based Assessment Systems for Teacher Preparation Programs

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) program review process increasingly emphasizes the importance of performance-based assessment of early childhood teacher preparation programs. As part of the effort to address performance-based assessment requirements, the teacher educator program described in this study examined students’ beliefs related to developmentally appropriate practice, attitudes toward children, and perceived competencies at different points in the program and upon graduation. One hundred eighteen students and 78 recent graduates participated. Results suggest that students’ beliefs are more consistent with developmentally appropriate practices and with a progressive or child-centered approach at later points in the program. In general, participants felt they were more competent in what they know about early childhood practices than in how they implement the practices. Students nearing completion of the program and those who had graduated reported that they knew more about early childhood practices than students enrolled in early courses in the program, and graduates felt they were more competent to implement early childhood practices than students not enrolled in the program. Results are discussed in terms of implications for examining teacher preparation programs.     

苏姗·霍兰德幼儿教育技术学术思想研究

苏姗·霍兰德是美国幼儿教育技术研究与实践的开拓者,其发展适宜性的幼儿教育技术学术思想对美国学前教育信息化发展产生了重要影响。研究评述了其对幼儿教育技术的开拓性贡献,并从技术观、幼儿教育软件评价、技术与幼儿课程整合、使用家庭计算机四个方面,对霍兰德的幼儿教育技术学术思想进行了系统梳理。     

Early Childhood Education as Development: Critique of the Metaphor

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the recent call for developmentally appropriate practices from the perspective of the sociology of the curriculum. A brief examination of this orientation toward curriculum studies is presented in the first section of this paper. Next, a discussion of curriculum theory as metaphor is presented and used to evaluate early childhood education as development on the basis of ethics, as well as disclosure value. Finally, two alternative metaphors are suggested as possible lenses for viewing the content of the early childhood curriculum: early childhood education as caring and early childhood education as schooling for democracy. Early childhood educators are urged to consider the potential of these two metaphors as ways of orientating discourse about what should be taught in early childhood and primary school classrooms.     

Early Childhood Education as Development: Critique of the Metaphor

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the recent call for developmentally appropriate practices from the perspective of the sociology of the curriculum. A brief examination of this orientation toward curriculum studies is presented in the first section of this paper. Next, a discussion of curriculum theory as metaphor is presented and used to evaluate early childhood education as development on the basis of ethics, as well as disclosure value. Finally, two alternative metaphors are suggested as possible lenses for viewing the content of the early childhood curriculum: early childhood education as caring and early childhood education as schooling for democracy. Early childhood educators are urged to consider the potential of these two metaphors as ways of orientating discourse about what should be taught in early childhood and primary school classrooms.     

BEING A CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHER EDUCATOR: AN INVITATION FOR DIALOGUE

This article is part of a larger exploratory study that followed preservice early childhood teachers through their program and into their first year of practice, giving voice to their understandings of quality teaching and learning, and insight into the ways their preservice program prepared them for the challenges of teaching in diverse settings. Analyses of our graduates’ first-year interviews revealed participants’ perceptions on those elements of the program which best guided their decisions in practice, such as reflective thinking about their daily work and child observation and inquiry. Findings support the importance of engaging in differentiated instruction, reflective practice, and collaboration through a variety of experiences in the field, and illuminate everyday practices that bring richness to teaching and learning in early childhood education. Emergent questions about the best ways to provide quality early childhood teacher preparation are discussed in relation to the dilemmas early childhood teachers face in the current educational landscape.     

Little Boys: tomorrow's macho lads

This paper presents elements of an ethnographic case study of a group of five male friends between the ages of six and eight years. The study sought to examine the ways in which the group's social dynamics interacted to define, regulate and maintain collective understandings of masculinity. Dominant peer culture was found to be particularly potent in championing a hegemonic masculinity embodying and cultivating physical domination, aggression and violence underpinned by constructions of females and femininity as the negative ‘other’. These restrictive understandings were interpreted as normalised through the philosophies and practices of the boys' teachers and their principal. Here the naturalist assumptions underpinning dominant early childhood pedagogy constituted the boys as ‘gender innocent’ and were implicated in understandings of developmentally appropriate practice. Through illuminating clear parallels to associated research, this paper presents further warrant for abandoning these naturalist assumptions which continue to mitigate against gender equity in early childhood (MacNaughton, Rethinking Gender in Early Childhood Education, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 2000). In this regard, the paper signifies the importance of maintaining a focus on addressing issues of collective masculinity in early childhood.     

‘It’s more than care’: early childhood educators’ concepts of professionalism

This article reports on the findings from a small-scale study of early childhood educators’ perceptions of their roles, responsibilities and ideas related to professionalism. Twenty-five early childhood educators from Canada (Ontario), Nigeria and South Africa participated in qualitative interviews to address the following questions: (1) In what ways do early childhood educators perceive of themselves as professionals? (2) How is the concept of professionalism impacted by values, beliefs and experiences? And (3) Do contextual variations exist in conceptualizations of ECE professionalism? Valuable insights were gained into the commonality of educators’ experiences and ideas across contexts, as well as the prominence of an ‘ethic of care’ as an inherent aspect of teacher professionalism. The study’s findings provide support for the literature advocating for care (and passion) as a social principle within education and socially constructed ideals of professionalism.     

Between a rock and a hard place in the primary grades: The challenge of providing developmentally appropriate early childhood education in an Elementary School Setting

Primary grade teachers attempting to implement developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) in their classrooms must contend with the competing professional paradigms of early childhood education and elementary schooling. In this article I describe the practices of one primary grade teacher to give a picture of how these tensions play out in one public elementary school setting. Though the practices of the teacher studied here embody some aspects of developmentally appropriate practice, they are also marked by problems with personal interpretation, partial adoption, and inconsistency in implementation of DAP principles. Analysis of this teacher's experience provides insight into the general challenge of implementing DAP as well as into the specific challenges facing primary grade teachers committed to developmentally appropriate teaching.     

How early childhood teacher beliefs vary across grade level

The continuum of beliefs reported by early childhood teachers (Head Start through third grade) and how those beliefs relate to classroom practice were explored in this article. Head Start, kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade teachers’ beliefs and self-reported practices were measured by three different instruments. These included the Early Childhood Survey of Beliefs and Practices (Marcon, 1988), and the Teacher Beliefs Scale (Charlesworth et al 1990 and Charlesworth). Each classroom was also observed using the Classroom Practices Inventory (Hyson and Vartuli 1992). The belief measures were moderately correlated and observed practices supported what teachers reported as their beliefs and practices. Beliefs were significantly more appropriate than practice at every grade level. As the grade level increased the level of self-reported developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices decreased. The same held true for observed practice. Teachers in first, second, and third grade did not rate developmentally appropriate practices as high as Head Start and kindergarten teachers. Teachers with fewer years of teaching experience and those with certification in early childhood education were more likely to believe in and use more developmentally appropriate practices.     

The power of improvisational teaching

In this study we examine how improvisation can facilitate understanding how teachers respond to children's multiple resources, interests, experiences, and skills in early childhood programs. Improvisation is conceptualized as a responsive, partnered activity through which teachers and children generate meaning and knowledge together. In our analysis we show improvisation is taken up differently in two classrooms and how it variably provides opportunities for learning. Two cases from a professional development program designed to support culturally and developmentally appropriate early mathematics are used to demonstrate the possibilities improvisation creates in era of increasing standardization of curriculum.     

Developmentally appropriate criteria for evaluating sexual abuse prevention programs

Many sexual abuse prevention programs originally designed for school children are inappropriately used with preschool children. Programs used with young children need to take into consideration their unique learning abilities. This paper uses a developmentally appropriate practice framework as a guide in helping early childhood professionals evaluate sexual abuse prevention programs.