A Tapestry of Technology: Early Childhood Education Developmental Theorists
Lois McFadyen Christensen, Sharon Abrams and Ann Guy
UAB SOE
United States
LMChrist@uab.edu
wabrams@uab.edu
arguy@bellsouth.net
Using innovative and varied technology and Web sites, members of this symposium will
present content knowledge about leading early childhood theorists and educators through
an interactive session. Utilizing http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ ,
http://www.digitalvaults.org/, Gapminder.org., Sky Drive, Glogster, YouTube, PPT,
online primary documents, Blogster, and other Web sites, early childhood PhD students
present data about child development theorists and educators whose contributions were
prominent then and set the stage for progressive education now.
Cognitive Development
According to Piaget (1951) “play constitutes the extreme pole of assimilation of
reality to the ego while at the same time it is something of the creative imagination which
will be the motor of all future thought and even of reason” (p.162). Physical knowledge
and play went together like hand in glove from Piaget’s perspective. Play helped to
connect cognitive synapses in the brain (Gallagher, 2005). It was Albert Einstein whom
said that play is the highest for of research.
Lev Vygotsky (1967) considered the connections between cognition and play to
be essential to child development. His perception was that pretend play or “rehearsal”
was often the space where children function at high levels of competence to reach a zone
of proximal development.
Women unto themselves, the three women who shared the life of Booker T.
Washington, believed deeply in education and early childhood education. Washington
outlived two wives, Fannie Norton Smith Washington and Olivia Davidson Washington.
Margaret James Murray Washington, and English teacher, became a principal at
Tuskegee. Born into slavery Booker T. Washington’s beliefs about education clashed
with those of W.E.B. DuBois whom was educated as a free man at Harvard. Booker T.
Washington was a man of context and belief.
Pioneer educator, Lucy Sprague Mitchell envisioned intentional and free play as
the most authentic forms of education for early childhood learning. She believed play in
all forms were necessary processes for children to try on the real world (Antler, 1987).
All five educators and theorists will be examined through varied technological
means using play as a connection teaching strategy. Participants in this session will learn
content about educational foundations, African American education in the south and early
childhood education in the progressive era. Knowledge will be constructed by the
participant conferees using varied Web resources, sites, blogs and aps to “play” as they
learn content knowledge and skills simultaneously.
Development within the Contextual Environment
Bronfenbrenner’s systems were the environments surrounding the life of a child.
The immediate system of a child’s context, the microsystem, was the child’s family,
home, and friends. The second system, the mesosystem, included interactive components
in the child’s life such as the school and neighborhood. This would include playing with
family members, neighbor children and classmates, as well as interacting with objects
found within the local environment (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Thomas, 2005). According to
Bronfenbrenner, the more complex activities and tasks with playmates the more the
child’s cognitive and psychological growth was influenced. The complexities and roles in
processes of interaction between particular playmates within a given environment and
context sets in motion a “developmentally instigative characteristics” (p. 97). Not only
does this have cognitive outcomes but social, emotional, and moral components of child
development.
Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s belief was that active, experiential learning was the core,
in particular human geography, to which all content areas were tied. Given that life is
lived in a social context, she believed that early childhood education should mirror the
same. At Bank Street, education began with the child’s world. Educators linked it to the
community and moved it outward. Children learned how their lives connected to other
places and people in the world. Moreover, Mitchell was a forerunner in curriculum
development and in qualitative research methods. She envisioned teaching as a critical
pedagogue, although, she didn’t have the educative verbiage to refer to it as such.
Mitchell’s attention to social justice was that of a renaissance educator.
Play is a continuous life activity. It does not stop at childhood. So that is why in
this session, conferees will learn about play through play from early childhood theorists
while playing with technology.
Summary
Young children often express themselves through play. Play matters. Play is
essential to aid young children’s healthy development. Multiple factors that affect
children in all types of stressful contexts find that play is one way that assists them to
work them out problems and issues socially and emotionally. Kohn (2008) suggested
learning communities of young children grow cognitively, socially, emotionally,
physically, morally, and environmentally when given opportunities to have active roles in
discovery learning through inquiry, through play. Children engaged in play through its
myriad facets, face moral issues and problems and within authentic contexts. Children
have to figure out how to solve them. Play has exponential potential. It is crucial for
educators to envision play as vital to educative development and learning, together with
communicating its importance to families and policy makers.
Early childhood educators use of technology will build a cognitive knowledge
base about theorists’ writings and beliefs while learning about their stances on play. This
will occur all the while the conferee are “playing” with varied with technological sites,
aps, and blogs. Technology will be the means by which the conferees will access the
information about play, early childhood developmental theory, and the actual technology.
Technology as an Instructional Strategy
Educators at every level will find this historical child development theoretical
session fascinating because it affects them, and students at every level from infants
through secondary school and beyond. Teachers who study developmental holistic and
appealing history understand how imperative it is to enact pedagogy, particularly
technology-laced content as they offer information to their students. Technology is just
one instructional strategy to engage students. However, contemporary students are active
and fluid technological users. Learning through myriad technological strategies is ever
engaging ‘play.” It is effective, inquiry-oriented, and begins with all elements of play, the
work of children. However in the case of this interactive session the work and play of
adult educators learning about early childhood educational theorists and connections
between play and cognition are intertwined to work and play are synonymous, just as it is
for young children. In an NAEYC publication, it is stated that children learn through
play. Cognitive, physical, social, oral literacy and speech domains of learning are
enhanced through intentional and free play. These tenets are foremost from NAEYC.
Play is healthy
Play reduces stress
Play is more than meets they eye – it is simple and complex –
Make time for play as the cognitive language, emotional, and social developmental
domains are activated and exercised.
Play and learning go hand in hand.
Play occurs outside – such as block building and outside such as building forts and
running and rough housing.
There is still so much to learn about play
It is a definitively a ripe context for learning
PRESENTERS
SHARON ABRAMS – FANNIE NORTON SMITH WASHINGTON, OLIVIA
DAVIDSON WASHINGTON, AND MARGARE JAMES MURRAY WASHINGTON
LOIS M. CHRISTENSEN – LUCY SPRAGUE MITCHELL
ANN R. GUY – LEV VYGOTSKY