Understanding the way children learn and develop is crucial in creating effective and stimulating teaching programmes. There are many factors which combine to influence the way a child develops, learns and behaves and developmental psychologists have put forward different theories to explain their effect on human growth.
Developmental psychologists study human development in areas of cognitive development, social development, intellectual development, perceptual development, personality development and emotional development.
The work of developmental psychologists helps educators, parents and whanau to not only recognise typical growth and behaviour, but also recognise signs of potential problems which may need some specialist help, for example a baby who is not walking by the age of 15 months.
(Cherry, 2022)
ECE professionals pay a crucial role in the health and wellbeing of children in their care and are well positioned to identify tamariki who need extra help.
Activity
Read the modules and complete the quizzes created by the US Centres of Disease Control about childhood milestones and which provides tools to help kaiako monitor the development of children in their care and communicating with parents.
How did you go on this online mini training course? Share your thoughts about the content in the forum, then read and respond to the posts of some of your classmates.
Te Whāriki requires that early childhood education providers design a curriculum which is meaningful and relevant to their own specific situation. Adapting recognised theories of pedagogical and philosophical theory and practice to the different contexts in Aotearoa | New Zealand is a common approach to this requirement.
ECE services produce philosophy statements to put forward the values and beliefs which informs their programmes. A philosophy statement describes how the service approaches the way in which teaching and learning are done and influences all the day-to-day activities and environment. (Howley-Rouse, 2020)
Reading
The importance of an ECE centre’s philosophy
This article is from Oma Rāpeti Early Learning Centre and explains why having a philosophy of ECE is important and describes their own philosophy.
Expected Duration: 15 minutes
Questions
Pre Read Question: Read the article and click the link to read their full philosophy here
URL: https://www.omarapeti.net.nz/our-philosophy--freemans-bay/
Post Read Task: Complete the activity below
Activity
Research the following well-known early childhood education philosophies and consider how they apply in general ECE practice, and how they could be applied to Māori and Pasifika ECE learners.
- RIE/Magda Gerber
- Montessori
- Reggio-Emilia
- Kindergarten
- Steiner/Waldorf
