Housekeeping:
Candidate’s Statement
 17-20 CLEAN UP
 16-13 REWRITE
 12-10 GET HELP
 9…. SEE ME
DO’S AND DONT’S
 What is “IT”…do not use
 No Contractions!
 Reread theories – check text!
 What is teacher identity?
 Your uniqueness, essential self,
distinctiveness as a teacher
 Where do you go for help?
Understanding and Applying
Developmentally Appropriate
Practices
Chapter 3
Developmentally
Appropriate
Practice
Framework for organizing basic
knowledge about early childhood
education
Evolved over time
Defining principles and guidelines
What is DAP?
 Developmentally appropriate practice is teaching that
is:
 Attuned to children’s ages, experience, abilities and
interest
 That helps them attain challenging and achievable goals
 Focus on how children develop and learn optimally:
 Age-related
 Individual human variation
Position
Statement
Summary of the field’s best thinking
A defense of its
practices
valued
An advocacy tool for improving
programs for young children
Meeting Children
where they are
Continuous Observations
Decision making: Plan curriculum
and adapt teaching strategies
Continual progress
Reaching Challenging and
Achievable goals
Intentional teachers
 Have a purpose for everything that they do
 Are thoughtful and prepared
 Can explain the rationale for their decisions and actions
to other teachers, administrators, or parents
Making Informed Decisions
1. Consider what is known about development and
learning of children within a given age range ~ Age
appropriate
2. Consider what is known about each child individually ~
personality, strengths, interests, abilities ~ each child
takes away something different
3. Consider what is known about the social and cultural
contexts in which children live ~ Culturally appropriate
Knowledge is substantial and changes over time!
Knowing Children
What is it about children that should inform our teaching practice?
Read # & # - make sure you understand meaning!
Principles of Child Development and Learning
that Inform Practice
1. All the domains of development and learning are important,
closely interrelated and one domain influences what takes place
in other domains.
2. Many aspects of children’s learning and development follow
documented sequences, with later abilities, skills, and knowledge
building on those already acquired.
3. Development and learning proceed at varying rates from child to
child, as well as at uneven rates across different areas of a child’s
individual functioning.
4. Development and learning result from a dynamic and continuous
interaction of biological maturation and experience.
Principles of Child Development and Learning
that Inform Practice
5. Early experiences have profound effects, both cumulative and
delayed, on a child’s development and learning; and optimal
periods exist for certain types of development and learning to
occur.
6. Development proceeds toward greater complexity, self-regulation,
and symbolic or representational capacities.
7. Children develop best when they have secure, consistent
relationships with responsive adults and opportunities for positive
relationships with peers.
8. Development and learning occur in and are influenced by multiple
social and cultural contexts.
Principles of Child Development and Learning
that Inform Practice
9. Always mentally active in seeking to understand the world around them,
children learn in a variety of ways; a wide range of teaching strategies and
interactions are effective in supporting learning.
10. Play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation as well as for
promoting language, cognition, and social competence.
11. Development and learning advance when children are challenged to
achieve just beyond their current mastery, and when they have many
opportunities to practice new skills.
12. Children’s experiences shape their motivation and approaches to
learning, such as persistence, initiative, and flexibility; in turn, these
dispositions and behaviors affect their learning and development.
Role of the ECE Teacher
Five interrelated dimensions:
1. Creating a caring community of learners
2. Teaching to enhance learning and development
3. Planning curriculum to meet important goals
4. Assessing children’s learning and development
5. Establishing reciprocal relationships with families
“Widening the Lens”
 Move beyond either/or thinking
 To BOTH/AND THINKING when solving problems or
making decision about practice
 Rejects simple answers to complex questions
 Requires diverse perspectives
 Consider several possible correct answers
 Complexity and interrelationship among the principles
that guide ECE practice
Research base
 Well grounded research forms the basis of NAEYCs
position statements on developmentally appropriate
practice
 Provides a solid guidance for early childhood educators
 DAP Research show gains in:
 Social-Emotional Development
 Learning
Knowing children +
Knowing how to teach +
Knowing what to teach +
= EFFECTIVE PRACTICE