Pre-K Curriculum and Instruction

1. Pre-K Curriculum and Instruction Patricia H. Ging, EdD Associate Professor of Education Tennessee Wesleyan College 423.746.5237

2. Pre-K "The stronger the start, the better the finish." Those words, Secretary of Education Richard Riley says, should be our motto for early childhood education. http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr256.shtml Education World 8/10/2000

3. Curriculum and Instruction • Covers a wide range of areas • General Instruction and Specific Subjects

4. Curriculum and Instruction • Teachers of young children must know • What to teach • When to teach • How to teach

5. Curriculum and Instruction • Education should interconnect concepts across the curriculum

6. Curriculum and Instruction • Learning involves knowledge of the subject as well as understanding the process • The teacher should have a strong understanding of detailed material as well as the processes of child development

7. General Instruction • The curriculum process • Structuring a curriculum • Implementing a curriculum • Revising or modifying a curriculum • No Common Core Standards • Aligning a curriculum to reflect state standards • http://www.state.tn.us/education/ci/earlychildhood/index.shtml

8. TeacherEvaluation • I Can Statements • “Who can count to ten?” • “I can count to ten!”

9. General Instruction • How routines and transitions reflect a young child’s needs • Balance • Order • Depth • Variety • Structure • Challenge • Physical Activity

10. General Instruction • Instructional strategies • Play • Small groups • Cooperative learning • Inquiry • Discovery learning • Learning centers • Teacher-directed learning • Theme • Directed reading

11. General Instruction • Major theories and models of programmed instruction • Constructivism • Montessori • Project approach • High/Scope • Reggio Emilia

12. General Information • What is meant by constructivism? The term refers to the idea that learners construct knowledge for themselves---each learner individually (and socially) constructs meaning---as he or she learns. Constructing meaning is learning; there is no other kind. The dramatic consequences of this view are twofold: • 1) we have to focus on the learner in thinking about learning (not on the subject/lesson to be taught): • 2) There is no knowledge independent of the meaning attributed to experience (constructed) by the learner, or community of learners. • Dewey, Piaget and Vigotsky

13. General Instruction • Montessori classroom • It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience. • Dr. Maria Montessori

14. General Information • What is a Project?A project is an in-depth investigation of a topic undertaken by a class, a group of children, or an individual child in an early childhood classroom or at home.

15. General Information • High/Scope uses an active learning approach to educating children, imparting skills that will support their development through school and into young adulthood. It uses an open educational framework that provides teachers and caregivers with a blueprint for daily routine, classroom and playground organization, teacher-child interaction, and teacher-child assessment that encourages independent thinking, initiative, and creativity.

16. PROGRAM BACKGROUND • In 1962, the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program was initiated in Ypsilanti, MI, as a small, carefully designed research and curriculum development project to help low-income, at-risk children in the community gain a positive start at education and life through a high-quality preschool program. The High/Scope approach blends the knowledge of Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist who studied learning and development patterns of infants and children, with practical teaching experience in the classroom and other educational settings. Long-term studies show the High/Scope approach promotes the healthy development of children and provides long-lasting benefits throughout adulthood.

17. General Instruction • REGGIO EMILIA APPROCH TO TEACHING: • The following information is extracted from Carnegie Mellon – Cyert Center for Early Education. • "The curriculum is not child centered or teacher directed. The curriculum is child originated and teacher framed...We have given great care in selecting the term 'negotiated curriculum' instead of emergent or child centered curriculum. We propose that 'negotiated curriculum' better captures the constructive, continual and reciprocal relation among teachers, children and parents and better captures the negotiations among subject matter: representational media and the children's current knowledge."  Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Exchange, vol. 3, no.

18. The following overview of the Reggio Emilia Approach was taken from a packet of information available at The Hundred Languages of Children traveling exhibit: • Hailed as an exemplary model of early childhood education (Newsweek, 1991), the Reggio Emilia approach to education is committed to the creation of conditions for learning that will enhance and facilitate children's construction of "his or her own powers of thinking through the synthesis of all the expressive, communicative and cognitive languages" (Edwards and Forman, 1993). The Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education is a city-run and sponsored system designed for all children from birth through six years of age. The Reggio Emilia approach can be viewed as a resource and inspiration to help educators, parents, and children as they work together to further develop their own educational programs.

19. General Instruction • Curriculum integration as it relates to instruction • Cognitive tasks demanded from a lesson, teaching practice, or questioning technique

20. General Instruction • How to elicit and encourage in-depth responses and metacognitive thinking from children at age-appropriate levels • Techniques for creating effective bridges between curriculum goals and students’ previous experiences (or lack of previous experiences)

21. Sample Praxis Questions • Design a series of literacy lessons for early childhood education and indicate the state standards for which the lessons have been aligned. • Develop activities that involve a variety of instructional strategies and focus on one learning concept (e.g., how play, inquiry, and learning centers could be used to teach number concepts to 4-year-old children).

22. Sample Praxis Questions • Design a learning activity that incorporates science, mathematics, and literacy. Indicate which areas of the curriculum will be integrated into the lesson. • What would be some appropriate questions that would elicit in-depth responses and encourage children to focus on their thinking strategies? What would be inappropriate questions for young children?

23. Mathematics and Numeracy • Developmentally appropriate practices in lessons based on mathematical concepts • Design • Implementation • Evaluation

24. Mathematics and Numeracy • Mathematical concepts • Estimation • Geometry • Number sense and numeration • Whole-number operations

25. Sample Praxis Questions • Design a lesson for 5-year-old children that will introduce basic geometrical concepts. What instructional strategies would you use? How would you evaluate the effectiveness of your lesson? • Identify a state standard for each of the following mathematical concepts: estimation, geometry, number sense and numeration, and whole-number operations.

26. Literacy • Developmentally appropriate practice in lessons that promote oral language expression and literacy in children • Design • Implementation • Evaluation

27. Literacy • Importance of providing children with a literacy-rich environment • Printed material • As source of information • For pleasure or recreation • As a means of recording or communicating

28. Literacy • Availability of reading, writing, and listening materials, computers, printers, and audiovisual equipment

29. Literacy • Specific literacy concepts • Writing process • Phonemic awareness • Sentence decoding • Word families • Root words • Phonics

30. Literacy • Characteristics of quality children’s books • Balanced collections that reflect a wide variety of genres and reflect the makeup of the community • Books that have strong story lines, age-appropriate themes, illustrations, and/or read-aloud possibilities

31. Literacy • Specific literacy teaching strategies • Grapheme-phoneme correspondence • Journal writing • Shared reading • Cueing systems • Rubrics • Reflective logs

32. Sample Praxis Questions • Describe a literacy-rich environment for young children. Explain how the components of the environment will foster literacy concepts. • Identify each of the following literacy teaching strategies and how each strategy could be used to help a student for whom English is a second language: grapheme-phoneme correspondence, journal writing, shared reading, cueing system, rubrics, and reflective logs.

33. Sample Praxis Questions • How do phonemic awareness, sentence decoding, word families, root words, and phonics support literacy development? Identify each of these specific literacy concepts and the role each plays in literacy development. • Design a unit that incorporates the writing process into daily activities. Specify each stage of the writing process within the unit.

34. Science • Developmentally appropriate practice in lessons that develop each child’s innate curiosity about the world and broaden each child’s procedural and thinking skills for investigating the world, solving problems, and making decisions • Design • Implementation • evaluation

35. Science • General principles of scientific inquiry • Cause and effect • Systems • Scale • Models • Change • Variations • Structure and function

36. Pre-K Standards • http://Pre-K Standards

37. Sample Praxis Questions • Choose a grade level and design an Earth science unit that identifies goals, state standards, activities, and evaluation. • Think about ways in which the principles of scientific inquiry can be employed for developing a child’s innate curiosity about the world, for broadening a child’s procedural and thinking skills for investigating the world, solving problems, and making decisions.

38. Social Studies and Character Inquiry • Developmentally appropriate practice in learning experiences that promote cultural and character education • Design • Implementation • Evaluation

39. Social Studies and Character Inquiry • Ability to design, implement, and evaluate lessons that develop the social studies disciplines • History • Geography • Economics

40. Sample Praxis Questions • Design an activity that promotes cultural and character education. Include extension activities and evaluation procedures. • Develop an activity that would involve multiple social studies disciplines (e.g., history, geography, and economics).

41. Creative Arts andAesthetics • Developmentally appropriate practice in visual and performing arts lessons that engage and broaden each child’s experiences and skills • Design • Implementation • Evaluation • Video

42. Creative Arts andAesthetics • Ability to integrate the arts into content area studies • Appropriate responses to children’s work

43. Creative Arts andAesthetics • Incorporating Art into Daily Routines • In the classroom • Potted plants - Various leaf colors, shapes, and blooming schedules • Some children may notice and remark about the diversity in the beauty • Others will likely do so with some teacher assistance

44. Creative Arts andAesthetics • A Unique and Wonderful Area • Use a low table and an attractive tablecloth for displaying interesting objects • Shell collections, cut flowers in vases, rocks in various sizes and textures • Change regularly to increase the children’s curiosity • Children can be encouraged to bring in wonderful objects for the showcase

45. Creative Arts andAesthetics • Creative Experiences • After a storm, the children can collect branches or other items from the playground • Use these items in art projects or in the Wonderful Showcase Area

46. Creative Arts andAesthetics • White Board • Children can be assigned to decorate a portion of the white board. This could be a designated daily task

47. Sample Praxis Questions • Design a learning activity for visual and performing arts that would be appropriate for a 5-year-old child. Identify the learning goal for this activity and the means for evaluating the success of this goal. • How can creative arts and aesthetics be used to enhance learning in other content areas?

48. Sample Praxis Questions • Develop a unit that integrates the arts into content area studies. Include activities that integrate the arts with mathematics, literacy, science, and social studies. • What is the value of creative arts and aesthetics in education?

49. Sample Praxis Questions • Should creative arts and aesthetics be integrated with content area studies? Identify several ways in which creative arts and aesthetics enhance learning. Are there times when creative arts and aesthetics might hinder learning?

50. Physical Education and Health • Developmentally appropriate practice in the content discipline designed to strengthen gross and fine motor skills and foster a healthy lifestyle. • Safety procedure and precautions. Video