Images of the Young Child


Book Description

This collection of essays reflects the notion that perceptions of children and childhood shape approaches to education and child rearing. The essays include: (1) "The Child Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow," on how children have been regarded throughout recorded history; (2) "Piaget and Montessori in the Classroom," examining the different ways these renowned figures in early childhood education viewed the development and education of young children; (3) "Work Is Hardly Child's Play," on children's play and how it has been conceptualized by different investigators; (4) "Development in Early Childhood," summarizing contemporary scientific knowledge about child growth and development; (5) "Humanizing the Curriculum," on educational reform; (6) "We Can Teach Reading Better," about better understanding of the process of reading; (7) "Resistance to Developmentally Appropriate Practice: A Case Study in Educational Inertia," on the relationship between educational change and educational philosophy; (8) "The Hurried Child: Is Our Impatient Society Depriving Kids of Their Right To Be Children?" about early academic pressure on children; (9) "Overwhelmed at an Early Age," a further discussion of the effects of hurrying children academically; and (10) "Questions Parents Ask," providing answers to frequently asked questions. Eight of the essays include references. (TJQ)




Understanding by Design


Book Description

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.




Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8


Book Description

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.







Development and Dilemmas in Science Education


Book Description

First Published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




The Big Picture


Book Description

What is the purpose of education? What kind of people do we want our children to grow up to be? How can we design schools so that students will acquire the skills they'll need to live fulfilled and productive lives? These are just a few of the questions that renowned educator Dennis Littky explores in The Big Picture: Education Is Everyone's Business. The schools Littky has created and led over the past 35 years are models for reformers everywhere: small, public schools where the curriculum is rich and meaningful, expectations are high, student progress is measured against real-world standards, and families and communities are actively engaged in the educational process. This book is for both big "E" and small "e" educators: * For principals and district administrators who want to change the way schools are run. * For teachers who want students to learn passionately. * For college admissions officers who want diverse applicants with real-world learning experiences. * For business leaders who want a motivated and talented workforce. * For parents who want their children to be prepared for college and for life. * For students who want to take control over their learning . . . and want a school that is interesting, safe, respectful, and fun. * For anyone who cares about kids. Here, you'll find a moving account of just what is possible in education, with many of the examples drawn from the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center ("The Met") in Providence, Rhode Island--a diverse public high school with the highest rates of attendance and college acceptance in the state. The Met exemplifies personalized learning, one student at a time. The Big Picture is a book to reenergize educators, inspire teachers in training, and start a new conversation about kids and schools, what we want for both, and how to make it happen.




Education, Development and Intervention


Book Description

This book explores integrated education and learning, with a focus on new approaches such as artificial intelligence and ChatGPT. It provides insight into educational techniques that promote critical thinking and enhance learning skills. It covers various mechanisms that influence this link, including meta-cognitive capacity, memory, cognitive style, conceptual approaches, digitization, teaching approaches, echoing, and questioning. This discussion spans all levels, from early childhood to higher education. Additionally, it provides pedagogical tips on creating a learning environment that encourages pupils' creativity and critical thinking, both online and in the classroom. It demonstrates how an integrated approach to education can create high-quality minds and promote modern values to meet current and future challenges. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, early childhood teachers and educators, as well as academic faculty can benefit from its contents as it presents valuable perspectives, both practical and theoretical, that enrich the current STEM, robotics, and mobile apps education agenda.




How People Learn


Book Description

First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methodsâ€"to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.




Experiential Learning


Book Description

Experiential learning is a powerful and proven approach to teaching and learning that is based on one incontrovertible reality: people learn best through experience. Now, in this extensively updated book, David A. Kolb offers a systematic and up-to-date statement of the theory of experiential learning and its modern applications to education, work, and adult development. Experiential Learning, Second Edition builds on the intellectual origins of experiential learning as defined by figures such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, and L.S. Vygotsky, while also reflecting three full decades of research and practice since the classic first edition. Kolb models the underlying structures of the learning process based on the latest insights in psychology, philosophy, and physiology. Building on his comprehensive structural model, he offers an exceptionally useful typology of individual learning styles and corresponding structures of knowledge in different academic disciplines and careers. Kolb also applies experiential learning to higher education and lifelong learning, especially with regard to adult education. This edition reviews recent applications and uses of experiential learning, updates Kolb's framework to address the current organizational and educational landscape, and features current examples of experiential learning both in the field and in the classroom. It will be an indispensable resource for everyone who wants to promote more effective learning: in higher education, training, organizational development, lifelong learning environments, and online.




You, Me, and Diversity


Book Description

This book shows how appropriate picture books can bring the world into the primary classroom and promote development education and children's intercultural understanding. It responds to the research by the United Kingdom Literacy Agency in 2007 which revealed that many teachers are unaware of such books, feel unable to select contemporary literature for children and tend to rely on the books they enjoyed as children. You, Me and Diversity is based on research funded by the Development Education Unit of Irish Aid designed to offer teachers approaches for teaching development and intercultural education in primary schools through the use of picture books. It critiques a selection of the books identified and advises on how to use them in the classroom. It provides a directory of picture books published since 2000 which feature development and intercultural themes such as culture, climate change, migration and gender. The framework used for categorizing the picture books gives teachers a planning tool to ensure they offer children a full range of development and intercultural perspectives while also adhering to literacy guidelines. Every primary school teacher needs to read this book so they can widen their pupils' horizons while developing their literacy.