Exemplary educators who strive to be role models are lifelong learners who, among other things, continue to keep learning so that they can evolve and keep up with the times. It is with this objective in mind that I enrolled in the Moreland University, Masters in Early Childhood Education (MECE) program . Having spent eight years as a teacher in classrooms full of students from diverse backgrounds, I realized that we spend so much time planning, teaching, and assessing that we sometimes forget to stop and look back, review, reflect, and make course corrections. This program was the much appreciated break that my teaching machine got. I had the opportunity to reflect on my teaching practices, planning methods, and classroom environment. As I look back on what I have received from this program and how I have grown as a teacher and learner, here are some of the aspects I would like to reflect on:
Development Theories That Resonate With Me
My mother runs a Montessori Pre-School program and I teach at a school with very sound, research-based teaching methods, both of which have taught me that teaching practices which are founded on time tested theories and research bear far more successful results than random teaching methods. The two theories that resonate with me a lot are:
Dr. Maria Montessori’s theory which propagates that children learn according to their “periods of sensitivity” or their interest and mental capacity. The theory is based on the natural human tendencies of curiosity, desire to explore, need for movement, independent decision making, group interaction and sharing, enriching experiences, effort, failure, repeating and learning.
Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence, in which he identified 9 different intelligences, is an extension of the theory that there are three different learning styles: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. His 9 different intelligences are as follows:
Verbal-linguistic - well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to phonetics and meaning
Logical-mathematical - ability to think abstractly, discern logical/numerical patterns, and quantify things
Spatial-visual - ability to think in images and visualize abstractly
Bodily-kinesthetic - ability to control one's body movements in coordination
Musical - ability to discern, produce, and appreciate pitch, timber, and rhythm
Interpersonal - empathy, high emotional intelligence (EQ), and capacity to respond appropriately to moods, desires, and motives of others
Intrapersonal - high self-awareness and in tune with inner feelings, beliefs, values, and thought processes
Naturalist - ability to recognize, categorize, and understand living things and other objects in nature
Existentialist - capacity to tackle deep questions regarding human existence
As an educator, I have seen that when we present learning materials in multiple ways, keeping student needs in mind, design instruction and develop curriculum to suit different learning styles, I am always more successful in achieving the end goal. It is critical that education methods focus on children's strengths and acknowledge the presence of various intelligences instead of using the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Essential Elements in an Early Childhood Education Classroom
Embracing diversity - Diversity is truly the essence of an international classroom. We learn so much from all that our students bring with them in terms of their cultural identity, their religious practices, and their beliefs. Together, when we make these differences and diversity a part of our classroom learning, we create global citizens who will go on to build bridges rather than boundaries. During the program, I had several opportunities to reflect on things I may have said or done to convey any innate bias that I may not be aware of. Fortunately, having been a globetrotter myself and being in multicultural classrooms as a teacher, these instances were very few. However, there were some other invaluable learnings I received in terms of classroom libraries, books that I could include and practices that I could adopt in the classroom to demonstrate embracing diversity. Some book recommendations I really liked are: The Jabari series, Sparkle Boy, The Name Jar etc. I also got some wonderful ideas on ways to infuse culture in an ECE classroom. Some of these were: Making a heart blanket with each one’s name and country, having a traditional dress day, singing songs from different countries, exhibiting artefacts from different countries in the classroom etc. My most important takeaway from this part of the course was: Don’t ignore differences, acknowledge them, embrace them and be respectful towards these differences. Make them the strength of your classroom.
Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) - I learnt how critical this is to the social, emotional, physical, and mental well being of a child. This helped me include more students’ strength and play based learning in my classroom. My students benefited a lot from this because they were able to engage in more joyful ways of learning rather than just completing worksheets. Aligning developmentally appropriate practices to specific theories helped me to apply my learning to my classroom more consciously. For example - when I aligned Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development to DAP, I looked at my Grade 3 classroom where I have students in Stage 4: School Age (6 to 11 years) where the basic conflict is Industry v/s Inferiority. Here the DAP that I could implement was: Support children to achieve goals and feel a sense of pride. I did this by giving an ELL student whose strength is Math and not Literacy, the opportunity to teach other students, thereby helping him develop a sense of pride .This same student excels in solving math problems using manipulatives such as base 10 blocks. He often leads centers where he demonstrates how to subtract large numbers by regrouping using base 10 blocks. In the same stage another instance of using DAP was: A student who should have been at a Fountas and Pinnell Independent Reading Level M or N was actually at level K. He received additional support from me after school to read . I pre-read lesson material with him one day before the class and created the opportunity for him to be able to answer questions in class. His success in the classroom, in the presence of other students motivated him to read more and take on more challenging assignments.
Scaffolding and Differentiation - Both scaffolding and differentiation are critical elements in an ECE classroom as both these practices play a very important role in confidence building and thereby uplifting the social, emotional, and mental well being in a child. When we scaffold, we start by teaching with support. Similar to constructing buildings, learning is also constructed step by step, initially with a lot of support, then reduced support, and finally independently. As facilitators of learning, we are not required to provide answers all the time, but it is our responsibility to gradually guide the student towards the answer. There will be failures along the way, but we must continue to encourage every child and help them develop the self belief that they too can reach their goal. This is where differentiation comes in. Some students may need more support than others and the type of material or activity that different students require to be able to understand a concept may be different. It is then that we, as teachers, differentiate instruction. Differentiation can be done through content, process, product, or the learning environment. Through the Masters in Early Childhood Education program, I learnt different strategies to differentiate instruction.
Social Experiences and Related Curriculum - This program helped me appreciate and celebrate myself for things I was already doing in my classroom. I may not have known the exact vocabulary that could be used to describe the things I was already doing, for example - helping my students learn about Ancient China by turning their research into a drama script and then directing their own play, teaching my students procedural writing by assigning a project that required them to create their own board games with a clear instruction manual, encouraging students to try every assignment or question, make mistakes and learn, and creating a supportive environment where our class motto is “We are one family where we all grow together.”. All of these are examples of facilitating learning through social experiences. These social experiences help my students become confident, caring, and trustworthy class citizens who have the important values of empathy, respect, trustworthiness, and concern for others. These experiences with their classmates and teachers help them develop stronger and deeper relationships with their peers and adults, a skill that will help them their entire life.
Our World Today and Minimizing The Impact of School Shutdowns On Our Children
Fortunately for my students and me, we had only 15 days of complete shut down in two years. Even though we were extremely lucky to be at school, there was always uncertainty about any possible shut downs. Therefore, for the first time as an educator, I realized the importance of being prepared for distance learning. The learning and ideas I got with respect to activities for students in the age range of 5 to 8 years in a distance learning scenario, was indeed profound. Some of the things I am taking away from the program are:
The video call routines which were so relaxed, engaging, and with some really enthusiastic and happy students. The credit for this goes to the well prepared teachers, from whom I learnt that the first few minutes should be spent in general conversations helping students get into the mood for the class, followed by structured activities, and the class should end with a reminder for the next meeting.
The parent orientation and assistance ideas were enlightening and interesting. I became more conscious of the fact that communicating with parents and showing them how things are done in the classroom would help them to provide the required assistance to their children, thereby reducing frustration and anxiety both for the parents and students.
Online social activities. Some of these were : Lunch Bunch, and Celebration Thursdays, recommended by a fellow cohort member, games played by teachers in the videos we had to annotate, conversations between classmates etc.
Finally, while researching the impact of school shutdowns, I read a very helpful article on how we can support students when they return to school. Some of the points highlighted there are listed below:
Validate, support, and listen to students: Recognize that the recent events will likely have had substantial impact on students’ mental health such as experiencing a host of emotions in regard to the announcement of new changes, including anxiety, disappointment, and anger. As educators, it is important to listen to students’ concerns and express understanding and empathy. It is important to keep families informed, let them know you understand and have a constant dialogue to solve problems.
Be honest and encouraging, rather than reassuring: While some students who are anxious will need some initial assurance from trusted adults and teachers that returning to school is okay, it is not advisable to provide blanket reassurance statements such as: everything will be fine; there is nothing to be worried about etc. An open, honest, and encouraging communication with students is a preferred approach. This may include acknowledging risks while emphasizing how precautions reduce those risks and how students can feel comfortable about coming back to school given all the thought and planning that has gone into protecting students.
Encourage a gradual approach, not avoidance: Being anxious about schools reopening, meeting friends after a long gap, following a routine, and getting back to structured work can be unnerving for some students. Give students time to settle in, accept precautions and any new measures being taken, and facilitate discussions to help students cope rather than avoiding them altogether.
The Impact of My Learning On My Students
The top five benefits that my students will have from all that I have learnt in this program are:
The incorporation of more play based learning activities.
The presence of a diverse selection of books that will teach them about the beauty in diversity and help them love themselves for who they are.
They will continue to work hard to meet the high expectations I have from them, but these expectations will align with developmentally appropriate practices, which will help my students have more successes than failures, thereby uplifting their self confidence.
My students will feel more empowered to deal with their aggression or frustration because of the tools that I will provide to them and their families.
Finally, they will have more productive and happier online classes by virtue of me being prepared with a variety of online activities and games.
Photo Credits:
Diversity hands - https://www.wgu.edu/blog/improving-diversity-classroom2005.html#close
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