1
Creating
Inclusive
Classrooms
The Ability/Disability Continuum and the Health Dimension
Chapter 12
© 2009 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
2
Rationale for Developmentally
Appropriate Educational Practice

Definition: Developmentally appropriate practice
(DAP) involves providing learning environments,
instructional content, and pedagogical practices
that are responsive to the major attributes and
salient needs and interests of a given life period
in order to facilitate continuing developmental
progress.
© 2009 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
3

Developmentally appropriate practices result
from decisions about the education and wellbeing of children based on three important kinds
of knowledge:
– What is known about child development and learning
– What is known about the strengths, interests, and
needs of each individual child
– What is known about the social and cultural contexts
in which children live
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4
Economic Aims for Schooling

Education goals are increasingly related to the
demand for evidence of achievement in
schooling.
 According to the NAEYC, the goal of early
childhood education, helping each child be
“ready to learn” when he or she enters school,
has not been fully realized.
 Economic goals for schooling places pressures
on schools to teach more and more cognitive
material to younger and younger children.
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5
Two Problems with
Economic Aims

The view that the major purpose of schooling is
to prepare students to enter the workforce
misses a number of other, equally important
aims of education.
 The tendency to “blame” descending levels of
schooling (and teachers) when students do not
“measure up” ultimately comes to rest on
parents, who then tend to demand increasing
levels of academic instruction at younger and
younger ages.
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6
Early Childhood Education and
Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Early childhood education seeks to advocate for
the nurturing of young children as a necessary
means to achieve the democratic goals of a just
society.
 It therefore acts in some ways in opposition to
strictly economic goals for education.
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7
Theoretical Basis for
Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Universal theories:
– Cognitive
developmental theory
(Jean Piaget)
– Psychosocial
development (Erik
Erikson)

Particularist theories:
– Constructivist theory
(Lev Vygotsky)
– Cognitive development
(Jerome Bruner)
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8
Constructivist Thought in
Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Children of all ages are understood to be active
constructors of their own knowledge.
 Concepts and perceptual development is
enhanced through wide experiences with
people, materials, and events.
 Curriculum is expected to provide multiple
opportunities for direct and concrete
engagement.
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9
The Idea of Cognitive Structures
The term “cognitive structure” refers to the
concepts, ideas, and understandings that
children construct through transactions with their
social and physical environment; also known as
frame, lens, or scaffold.
 Knowledge is “made” by the knower, who
assimilates new experiences within knowledge
structures already present, and accommodates
to experiences that do not fit neatly into those
structures.
cont.

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10

Motivation to learn comes from the fact that
children’s cognitive structures are constantly
challenged.
 The need to understand provides the impetus for
acquiring new knowledge.
 This need to understand is internal.
 The teacher’s task is to provide a match
between what the child is ready to learn and
what is available to the child to learn.
cont.
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11

The constructivist view differs from the traditional
view of readiness in that it emphasizes that
cognitive readiness is not determined simply by
biological maturation.
 Rather, readiness also depends on the
transactional nature of the child’s environment.
 At any point in time, a child is ready to learn if
learning experiences are at an optimal level of
novelty or incongruity.
© 2009 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
12
Characteristics of a Developmentally
Appropriate Classroom

Constructivist ideas gained scientific support and
integrity in the 20th century through the work of
Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner.
 Both the work of Vygotsky and that of Bruner
place greater emphasis on the social-cultural
context of children than did Piaget.
cont.
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13
Pedagogies: Old and New

Historical antecedents:
–
–
–
–
Comenius in the 17th century
Condillac and Rousseau in the 18th century
Pestalozzi and Parker in the 19th century
Dewey in the 20th century
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14
Child-Centered Instruction






Use of small group organization
Use of activity centers
Project-based learning
Provision for student choice
Joint teacher-student planning of learning
activities
Integration of content
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15
Roles: Old and New

Teachers work in collaboration with students,
other teachers, and other adults.
 The goal is to support the learning and
development of all children.
 Teachers need to know as much as possible
about each child—learning styles, interests,
preferences, personality, temperament, skills
and talents, challenges and difficulties.
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16
Place of Content Knowledge:
Old and New




Early childhood education is concerned with the
process of learning and its effect on child
development.
Knowledge acquisition is seen as necessary for the
child to reconcile incongruities and solve problems;
thus students may learn different things from the
same lesson.
Early literacy learning involves “playing” with
language.
Deductive reasoning, basic to mathematical
understanding, is an inherent capability of young
children.
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17
Assessment: Old and New

Screening and assessment should never be
used to close educational doors to children;
they should be used to open them.
 Observation of children in natural activity
contexts is an important factor in assessment.
 Also important is looking at collections of
children’s work, and ongoing communication
with parents.
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18
Perspectives on Age and
Development

School experiences profoundly influence and
are influenced by people’s development as
human beings.
 “Development” refers to systematic changes in
the individual that occur from birth to death.
 What implications does this have for schooling?
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19
Sensitive Periods and
Developmental Crises

Sensitive periods are points in development
when children learn readily.
 Childhood—sensitive periods depend, in part, on
the life history of the child and on the child’s
experiences in school
 Adolescence—a period of physiological,
emotional, and cognitive change
 Ego identity, or the development of one’s sense
of self, is a lifetime enterprise.
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20
Individual Differences and
Developmental Domains

Individual differences may be related to
biological, psychological, social, and cultural
factors.
 The nature vs. nurture debate is ongoing and
refers to the question of whether differences are
innate or learned; they are probably both.
cont.
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21

Developmental domains refers to aspects of
development that progress more or less at the
same time, if not at the same rate:
–
–
–
–
Motor development
Cognitive development
Language/communication development
Social/emotional development
cont.
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22

Milestones (e.g., first words, independent
walking) and transitions from one stage to
another can be influenced by many factors:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Gender
Geography (e.g., climate)
Genetics
Specific environment
Differential cultural values and expectations
Disabilities
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23
The Importance of
Developmental Knowledge

Necessary for effective use of developmentally
appropriate practice
 Necessary in order to take individual variations
into account
 Especially important in inclusion classrooms
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24
Examples of Cultural Variations

In values, such as the notion of independence
 In ideas of what constitutes “childhood”
 In expectations for the “proper” time to acquire
specific knowledge (e.g., knowledge of sexuality)
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25
Something to Think About
Much of the story of human development must
be written in light of cultural influences in general
and of the particular persons, practices, and
paraphernalia of one’s culture. Chief among
these, of course, in any complex culture, will be
such educational institutions as apprenticeships
or formal schools.
© 2009 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.