1. Chapter 11 Creating Developmentally Appropriate Classrooms
The Importance of Age and Developmental Status

2. Focus Questions
How can culture and schooling affect students’ development?
Are there really stages to children’s development?
How do teachers determine what is developmentally appropriate for students?

3. Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP)
Providing learning environments, instructional content, and pedagogical practices that are responsive to needs and interests of a period of life.
What is known about childhood development and learning?
What is known about the strengths, interests, and needs of each individual child in the group?
Knowledge of the social and cultural contexts in which children live

4. Economic Aims for Schooling
National Education Goals Panel
All American children will enter school “ready to learn”
Preschools not equitable for families in poverty
1 in 5 children are living in poverty
Dangers
Major purpose of school is to prepare students for the workforce
Realization that college degrees are required for an increasing number of jobs

5. Cognitive Development Theories
Jean Piaget
Theory of Cognitive Development
Lev Vygotsky
Social Constructivist Theory
Cognitive Structures
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Maria Montessori
Teaching the “whole child”

6. Middle School Most diverse and varied population
Middle childhood- age range from 7-12
Educators knowledgeable and committed to young adolescents
Balanced curriculum based on their needs
Range of organizational arrangements
Varied instructional strategies
Full exploratory program
Comprehensive advising and counseling
Continuous progress
Evaluation procedures compatible with age
Cooperative planning
Positive school climate

7. Early Childhood Education
Collaboration
Child study and mental hygiene
Kindergarten
Nursery Schools to Prekindergarten
Great Depression
Children’s Defense Fund
Developmentally appropriate
Working parents
Project Head Start

8. Cognitive Revolution
s- new respect for children’s intellectual resources
Piaget: “American question”
How much can we accelerate the pace of children’s cognitive learning in order to create smarter adults?
More concerned with process than content
Social knowledge
Howard Gardner- goal is understanding

9. School Experiences Nature vs. Nurture debate
Individual differences and development domains- motor, cognitive, language/communication, social/emotional
Milestones and delays
Child Study Movement- developmentally appropriate practices