Preparing For Practicum Kindergarten Methods

Building professional relationships… …with your practicum partner …with CT How might these professional relationships: differ? be similar? Create a Double Bubble Thinking Map to show this comparison.

Practicum visit 1: What to do/prepare/collect on Thursday? Basic expectations? Looking ahead to extended practicum.

critical conversations Review 3.2 & 3.1 of your handout. Work with your practicum partner to complete the planning document.

Building Professional Relationships with Practicum Partners Discuss & complete: Guiding Questions to Build a Relationship (6.1) Practicalities Rating Exercise (6.2.) DIRT Temperament Survey (6.4-6.8) Solving Our Problems (6.8)

Building Professional Relationships with your CTs Consider the 4 Focus Questions in 3.2: How might you use these questions to begin professional conversations with your CTs? Review your responses to 6.1-6.8. How might you use these conversation guides to begin professional conversations with your CTs? Individually complete 7.5. Share your responses!

Small Group Activities

Activity 1 Refer to Brewer Chapters 1 & 2, and additional texts provided to identify the cognitive, social-emotional, and psychomotor needs of the kindergarten child. Create a table, web, concept map or diagram to visually represent your conclusions. Discuss Brewer p. 35 Reflection Questions 1 & 3. Record your response to either Q. 1 or 3 on the page provided in the this folder.

Activity 2 Select one of the case studies provided to read & discuss in your small group. Complete the recording sheet provided in this folder. Complete the Self-Assessment document.

Activity 3 Read the Elementary & Kindergarten Handbook provided. Record any questions on the sheet provided. Complete the planning sheet provided with your practicum partner.

Activity 1 Group Members Our Response

Activity 2 Group Members Case Study selected & why?

Activity 3 Group Members Our questions

What Do We Know… the story so far

The Purpose of Education Small Group Discussion: What is the purpose of education today? What were the original goals of education? The Purpose of Education

Early American Concepts of Childhood & Education

“Miniature Adults”

Images of Childhood

“While the kindergarten idea was not always welcomed by the middle classes for their own children, since it stressed the importance of the trained kindergarten teacher rather than the mother in the training of the child, it was widely accepted by them as a means of training immigrant children and other children of the slums. With the establishment of free kindergartens in working-class neighborhoods in the 1870s, the advocates of kindergartens began to suggest that the proper training of these children might eventually lead to the elimination of urban poverty. For they believed that not only could they socialize the slum child in the habits of cleanliness and discipline but, through evening classes, educate working class mothers in the principles of Froebelian child nurture. Thus, through the child and his now educated mother, the family could be taught 'proper', that is middle-class, ideals of family life. It was further believed that by recovering the child before the stamp of the slum was irrevocably placed upon him, he could be taught habits of virtue and thus prevent the creation of future generations of paupers and criminals.”

Froebel’s Vision To stimulate an appreciation and love for children; To provide a new but small world for children to play with their age group and experience their first gentle taste of independence.

Elements of Froebel’s Kindergarten Gifts & Occupations: Based upon Pestalozzi’s notions of “object- teaching” A series of sequenced instructional materials; Manipulatives which encouraged children to compare, test and explore. Focus on “doing” not observing Active rather than passive learning Elements of Froebel’s Kindergarten

Froebel's ideas seem correct enough to us today, yet were radical in his day. Children were thought to be tiny replicas of adults.

What are Kindergarten children like today ? How can developmental theories help us to understand the social, emotional, psychomotor and cognitive needs of the kindergarten child?

What social, cultural & developmental influences impact the child?

What do we mean by “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” (DAP)? What do early childhood educators need to know about child development and learning? What effective teaching strategies do early childhood educators need to know? Brewer, Ch. 1

The Physical domain What kinds of motor skills are appropriate for children to develop in early childhood? Fine motor? Gross motor? How can we make physical activity an integral part of the day? Brewer, Ch. 1

Creating an Environment for Learning What are the elements of a kindergarten classroom? What resources support student learning? Assignment Overview: Classroom Organization & Design Part I Due March 12 Brewer, Ch. 3

The Language Domain How do we support emergent readers & writers in the kindergarten classroom? How can we scaffold student literacy development through interactive and shared reading/writing? Brewer, Ch. 9

1635 - The first Latin Grammar School (Boston Latin School) is established. 1635 - The first "free school" in Virginia opens. However, education in the southern colonies is more typically provided at home by parents or tutors. 1636 - Harvard College, the first higher education institution in the New World, is established in Newton (now Cambridge), Massachusetts 1642 - The Massachusetts Bay School Law is passed. It requires that parents assure their children know the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth. 1647 - The Massachusetts Law of 1647, also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act, is passed. every town of at least 50 families hire a schoolmaster who would teach the town's children to read and write and that all towns of at least 100 families should have a Latin grammar school master. 1690 - The first New England Primer is printed in Boston. 1690 - John Locke publishes his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which conveys his belief that the human mind is a tabula rasa, or blank slate, at birth and knowledge is derived through experience, rather than innate ideas as was believed by many at that time. Important Dates

1734 – Christian von Wolff describes the human mind as consisting of powers or faculties: the mind can best be developed through "mental discipline" or drill and repetition of basic skills and the eventual study of abstract subjects 1743 - Benjamin Franklin forms the American Philosophical Society, which helps bring ideas of the European Enlightenment, including those of John Locke, to colonial America: Emphasis on secularism, science, and human reason Greatly influences the thinking of prominent colonists, including Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. 1779 – Thomas Jefferson proposes a two-track educational system, with different tracks for "the laboring and the learned.“ 1817 - The Connecticut Asylum at Hartford for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons opens. 1821 - The first public high school, Boston English High School, opens . 1827 - The state of Massachusetts passes a law requiring towns of more than 500 families to have a public high school open to all students. 1829 - The New England Asylum for the Blind, now the Perkins School for the Blind, opens in Massachusetts

1830s - In Germany Froebel creates the first Kindergarten. 1836 - The first of William Holmes McGuffey's readers is published. 1837 - Horace Mann becomes Secretary of the newly formed Massachusetts State Board of Education. 1839 - The first state funded school specifically for teacher education (then known as "normal" schools) opens in Lexington, Massachusetts. 1852 - Massachusetts enacts the first mandatory attendance law. 1856 - The first kindergarten in the U.S. is started in Watertown, Wisconsin, founded by Margarethe Schurz. Four years later, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opens the first "formal" kindergarten in Boston, MA. 1857 - The National Teachers Association (now the National Education Association) is founded by forty-three educators in Philadelphia 1873 – Susan Elizabeth Blow opens the United States' first successful public kindergarten at St. Louis' Des Peres School.

1876 – The Centennial Exposition: the advocates of the kindergarten present an exhibition of their methods, leading to a popularization of Froebel's ideas. By 1883 all St Louis public schools have a kidnergarten. 1911 - The first Montessori school in the U.S. opens in Tarrytown, New York. 1913 - Edward Lee Thorndike's book, Educational Psychology: The Psychology of Learning, is published. Human learning occurs through stimulus-response and repetition! 1916 - Louis M. Terman and his team of Stanford University graduate students complete the Stanford-Binet IQ Test. 1916 - John Dewey's Democracy and Education. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education is published 1919 - The Progressive Education Association is founded with the goal of reforming American education. 1929 - Jean Piaget's The Child's Conception of the World is published.

Major Elements of a Teaching Philosophy Statement Conceptualization of learning How does learning occur? What have you observed or learned in your teaching experience? Conceptualization of teaching How do you facilitate learning? Goals for Students How do you help students learn? Personal Goals & Growth How have you grown as a teacher? How will you continue to grow? Major Elements of a Teaching Philosophy Statement