Different_Aproaches_to_Teaching

Different aproaches to teaching |Different Approaches to Teaching: Comparing Three Preschool Programs | |By Amy Sussna Klein | |As early childhood educators, we all have our own philosophies and approaches to education.| |Our approach to teaching is created from a multitude of resources and probably includes | |knowledge from early childhood theorists, an understanding of child development, and our | |experiences with children in different learning environments. Whether you are a new teacher| |about to embark on an early childhood career or a well-seasoned professional, it is helpful| |to know what other educators are doing in different types of programs. New approaches to | |teaching and learning can be adapted within our own environment and information about how | |your philosophy of education compares or differs from others can be shared with parents | |considering your program for their children. | | | |In this article, we will cover three different types of preschool programs—Montessori, | |High/Scope®, and Reggio Emilia. The following questions will be considered for each of the | |three approaches: | |What is the program’s history' | |What are its main components' | |What is unique about the program' | |How can one tell if a school is truly following the model' | |The Montessori Method | |Maria Montessori, Italy’s first woman physician, opened her first school in 1907. The first| |Montessori school in the United States opened in 1911, and by 1916 the Montessori method | |was found in locations across the world. | | | |The use of natural observation in a prepared environment by an objective teacher led | |Montessori to consider her method scientific. After Montessori completed her direct study | |of children, she specified every particular detail of how the school should be operated to | |ensure accurate replication. The teacher’s role in a Montessori school is to observe in | |order to connect the child with the suitable materials (Goffin, 2001). | | | |Two main branches of Montessori method have developed: the Association Montessori | |Internationale (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS). The Association Montessori | |Internationale was founded in 1929 by Montessori, herself, to maintain the integrity of her| |life’s work and to ensure that it would be perpetuated after her death. Nancy Rambush | |attempted to Americanize the Montessori method and founded the American Montessori Society | |(AMS) in 1960. What is most important to note about the two branches is that both are | |currently in preschools throughout the United States, and both have excellent programs with| |credentials for teachers. Also, both AMI and AMS support the use of Montessori materials. | |These learning materials are “self correcting;” they can only be used by a child in one | |way, thus avoiding the possibility of the child learning the wrong way to use them. | |What Are Montessori’s Main Components' | |Social | |The link between family and school is important. | |Most Montessori classrooms have multiple age groups, which is intended to give children | |more opportunity to learn from each other. | |Montessori advocated that children learn best by doing. | |In order to help children focus, the teacher silently demonstrates the use of learning | |materials to them. Children may then choose to practice on any material they have had a | |“lesson” about. | |Once children are given the lesson with the material, they may work on it independently, | |often on a mat that designates their space. | |Curriculum | |There is a belief in sensory learning; children learn more by touching, seeing, smelling, | |tasting, and exploring than by just listening. | |The child’s work as a purposeful, ordered activity toward a determined end is highly | |valued. This applies both to exercises for practical life and language. | |The main materials in the classroom are “didactic.” These are materials that involve | |sensory experiences and are self-correcting. Montessori materials are designed to be | |aesthetically pleasing, yet sturdy and were developed by Maria Montessori to help children | |develop organization. | |Evans (1971) summarized the preschool curriculum in a Montessori program as consisting “…of| |three broad phases: exercises for practical life, sensory education, and language | |activities (reading and writing).” (p. 59) | |Environmental Set-Up | |Montessori believed that the environment should be prepared by matching the child to the | |corresponding didactic material. | |The environment should be comfortable for children (e.g., child-sized chairs that are | |lightweight). | |The environment should be homelike, so child can learn practical life issues. For example, | |there should be a place for children to practice proper self-help skills, such as hand | |washing. | |Since Montessori believed beauty helped with concentration, the setting is aesthetically | |pleasing. | |In the setting, each child is provided a place to keep her own belongings. | |What Is Unique About the Program' | |The environment is prepared with self-correcting materials for work, not play. The | |Montessori method seeks to support the child in organization, thus pretend play and | |opportunities to learn creatively from errors are less likely to be seen in a Montessori | |classroom. Chattin-McNichols (1992) clarifies how Piaget, often called the “father of | |constructivism,” and Montessori both agreed that children learn from errors, yet the set-up| |in which errors may occur is controlled differently in the Montessori classroom. The | |didactic, self-correcting materials assist controlling error versus an adult correcting the| |child. | |How Can One Tell If a School Is Truly Following the Montessori Method' | |The first step to ensure whether a school truly practices the Montessori method is making | |sure that its teachers are AMI or AMS credentialed. Not every Montessori school has | |teachers with Montessori training. | | | |Although Montessori schools are sometimes thought of as being elitist institutions for | |wealthy families, this is not true. There are many charter and public Montessori schools. | |Nor, despite the fact that Montessori began her work with poor special needs children in | |Rome, are Montessori schools reserved for low -income children with disabilities. | |The High/Scope® Approach | |High/Scope® was founded in 1970 and emerged from the work Dave Weikart and Connie Kamii did| |on the Perry Preschool Project. This project, initiated in 1962, involved teachers working | |with children (three and four years old) a few hours a day at a school, attending staff | |meetings, and making weekly home visits. The program was developed with the idea that early| |education could prevent school failure in high school students from some of the poorest | |areas in Ypsilanti, MI (Kostelnik, 1999). The Perry Preschool Program is one of the few | |longitudinal studies in the early childhood field and had significant findings. For | |instance, compared with a matched control group, the children that were part of the Perry | |Preschool Program had significantly more high school graduates and fewer arrests. | | | |The High/Scope Foundation is an independent, nonprofit research, development, training, and| |public advocacy organization. The Foundation’s principal goals are to promote the learning | |and development of children worldwide from infancy through adolescence and to support and | |train educators and parents as they help children learn. | | | |The High/Scope Approach has roots in constructivist theory. Constructivists believe that we| |learn by mentally and physically interacting with the environment and with others. Although| |errors may be made during these interactions, they are considered just another part of the | |learning process. | | | |Although both Constructivism and the Montessori Method involve learning by doing, there are| |significant differences. In Montessori, for instance, the didactic, self-correcting | |materials are specifically designed to help prevent errors. Children learn by repetition, | |instead of by trial and error. The role of pretend play is also different in the two | |methods. In High/Scope, children’s creative exploration is encouraged, and this sometimes | |leads to pretend play, while in Montessori, “practical life work” that relates to the real | |world is stressed. | | | |Although Constructivism is a theory of learning, as opposed to a theory of teaching, | |High/Scope has exemplified an approach of teaching that supports Constructivist beliefs. | |Thus, children learn through active involvement with people, materials, events, and ideas. | |What Are High/Scope’s Main Components' | |Social | |One of the fundamental points in the High/Scope approach is that children are encouraged to| |be active in their learning through supportive adult interactions. | |The High/Scope approach includes times for various grouping experiences in the classroom. | |There are specific periods in each day for small group times, large group times, and for | |children to play independently in learning centers through out the classroom. | |Children are encouraged to share their thinking with teachers and peers. | |Social interactions in the classroom community are encouraged. Teachers facilitate work on | |problem resolution with children as conflicts arise. | |When a child talks, the teachers listen and ask open-ended questions; they seek to ask | |questions that encourage children to express their thoughts and be creative rather than a | |“closed” question that would elicit more of a yes/no or simplistic answer. | |Each day the High/Scope teacher observes and records what the children are doing. During | |the year, teachers complete a High/Scope Child Observation Record from the daily | |observations they have collected. | |Curriculum | |“Key experiences” were designed specifically for this approach. The following is a brief | |summary of key experiences taken from Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren (1999, p. 32). The key | |experiences for preschool children are: | |-Creative representation | |-Classification | |-Language and literacy | |-Seriation | |-Initiative and social relation | |-Number | |-Movement | |-Space | |-Music | |-Time | |“Plan-do-review” is another major component of the High/Scope framework. Children are | |encouraged to: 1) plan the area, materials, and methods they are going to work with; 2) do,| |actually carry out their plan; and 3) review, articulate with the class-room community what| |they actually did during work time. The review time helps children bring closure to their | |work and link their actual work to their plan. | |Cleanup time is a natural part of plan-do-review. Children are given a sense of control by | |cleaning up. Representative labels help children return materials to appropriate places | |(Roopnarine & Johnson, 1993). | |The High/Scope classroom has a consistent routine. The purpose of the resulting | |predictability is to help children understand what will happen next and encourage them to | |have more control in their classroom. | |Environmental Set-Up | |The High/Scope® classroom is a materials-rich learning environment. Usually, the locations | |for classroom materials are labeled to help children learn organizational skills. | |Materials are set-up so that they are easily accessible at a child’s level. This helps | |facilitate children’s active exploration. | |Teachers set up the classroom areas purposefully for children to explore and build social | |relationships, often with well-defined areas for different activities. | |How Can One Tell If a School Is Truly Following the High/Scope Approach' | |Teachers new to the High/Scope curriculum sometimes find work confusing because they are | |not sure of their roles (Roopnarine & Johnson, 1993). Sometimes, a list of the key | |experiences is displayed in the classroom, but then most of the day is spent in | |teacher-directed activities. This is not what was meant by key experiences! Key experiences| |in which the children have plenty of time for active exploration in the classroom, is a | |major component of the High/Scope approach. Furthermore, the teacher is not just passively | |facilitating while the children play. Rather, teachers in High/Scope classrooms are | |interactive (though not interruptive of peers playing). Often the role of a High/Scope | |teacher is to be actively observing and setting up problem solving situations for children.| | | | | |Plan-do-review was developed to help play become meaningful. There are many ways of | |implementing the review piece of plan-do-review. One example of successful review is when | |the children draw of a picture of what they worked on. However, it is not usually | |successful for children to each individually recall during a long large group time. For | |example, when children sit for a long period of time through large group time and each | |child is asked to say something (sometimes anything). These group times can grow long and | |the children get restless or drift off. | |What Is Unique About High/Scope' | |“Key experiences,” “plan-do-review,” and the High/Scope Child Observation Record are all | |unique components of the High/Scope framework. | |The Reggio Emilia Approach History | |Reggio Emilia is a small town of about 130,000 people in Northern Italy. In 1991, Newsweek | |magazine noted that the system of 33 infant/toddler schools and preschools in Reggio Emilia| |were among the ten best school systems in the world. Over the last 35 years, the teachers | |in the Reggio Emilia schools have taken the time to carry out a process of collaborative | |examination and analysis of teaching and learning about children. This examination and | |analysis has broadened constructivist theory, and the results have been demonstrated to | |experts in education. (As previously mentioned, “constructivist theory” refers to learning | |by doing and the development of knowledge and understanding based on the child’s own | |interests.) For example, in The Hundred Languages of Children (1998) Gardner recognizes how| |the Reggio approach beautifully connects important early childhood theory with practice. | |The Reggio Emilia approach will be covered in greater detail than the High/Scope approach | |and the Montessori method for a number of reasons. First, familiarity with the Reggio | |Emilia approach is integral to recent developments in early childhood theory and practice. | |The approach reflects on both constructivism and co-constructivism. Furthermore, | |adaptations of the Reggio Emilia approach have not been implemented as long as the other | |two program models in the United States. Thus, fewer people have actually had experience | |with Reggio. And finally, it’s a complex approach from a different culture. | |What Are the Reggio Emilia Approach’s Main Components' | |Social | |Cooperation and collaboration are terms that stress the value of revisiting social | |learning. First, children must become members of a community that is working together | |(cooperation). Once there is a foundation of trust between the children and adults, | |constructive conflict may be helpful in gaining new insights (collaboration). | |Co-construction refers to the fact that the meaning of an experience often is built in a | |social context. | |An atelierista is a teacher who has a special training that supports the curriculum | |development of the children and other faculty members. There is an atelierista in each of | |the Reggio Emilia preprimary schools. | |Pedagogistas are built in as part of the carefully planned support system of the Reggio | |Emilia schools. The word pedagogista is difficult to translate into English. They are | |educational consultants that strive to implement the philosophy of the system and advocate | |for seeing children as the competent and capable people they are. They also make critical | |connections between families, schools, and community. | |Curriculum | |One of the special features of the Reggio Emilia approach is called “documentation.” | |Documentation is a sophisticated approach to purposefully using the environment to explain | |the history of projects and the school community. It does not simply refer to the beautiful| |classroom artwork commonly found throughout schools following Reggio Emilia Approach. And, | |even though it often incorporates concrete examples of both the processes and products that| |are part of a child’s education, it is more than just that. It is a fundamental way of | |building connections. Documentation is discussed in more detail in the next section that | |describes the uniqueness of the Reggio Emilia Approach. | |Co-construction increases the level of knowledge being developed. This occurs when active | |learning happens in conjunction with working with others (e.g. having opportunities for | |work to be discussed, questioned, and explored). Having to explain ideas to someone else | |clarifies these ideas. In addition, conflicts and questions facilitate more connections and| |extensions. There is an opportunity to bring in different expertise. Thus, to facilitate | |co-construction, teachers need to “aggressively listen” and foster collaboration between | |all the members of the community whenever possible. Real learning takes place when they | |check, evaluate, and then possibly add to each other’s work. | |Long-term projects are studies that encompass the explorations of teachers and children. | |Flowcharts are an organized system of recording curriculum planning and assessment based on| |ongoing collaboration and careful review. | |Portfolios are a collection of a child’s work that demonstrates the child’s efforts, | |progress, and achievements over time. | |Environmental Set-Up | |In Reggio Emilia, the environment is similar to that found in Montessori schools. However, | |the environmental set-up as a “third teacher” has been enhanced and extended in the Reggio | |Emilia approach. | |Like Montessori, it is believed beauty helps with concentration; the setting is | |aesthetically pleasing. | |Reggio Emilia schools create homelike environments. In Reggio, the homelike atmosphere is | |designed to help make children feel comfortable and learn practical life issues. | |Each child is provided a place to keep her own belongings. | |Documentation is a major part of the environmental set-up. Documentation illustrates both | |the process and the product. In documentation, the child is seen as an individual but also | |in relation to a group, with various possibilities for the individual. | |What Is Unique About the Reggio Emilia Approach' | |Reggio Emilia has become so popular in the early childhood field because it offers many | |unique curriculum ideas, because of the strong infrastructure for the Reggio schools, and | |because of the attention to co-construction. | |• In terms of curriculum, the length and depth of projects is unique in the Reggio Emilia | |Approach. According to Amelia Gambetti’s presentation for the University of Missouri in | |Kansas City (April 15, 1993), three weeks is a relatively short project in the Reggio | |Emilia schools. | |• Using the environment as a third teacher is stressed in the Reggio Emilia Schools. | |Documentation helps facilitate the environment as a teacher. There are numerous connections| |to which documentation is integral. Three major connections are the connection between: | | | |the many audiences (e.g., parents, children, administrators, community, and staff | |personnel) and the experience | |the work itself and the producers (e.g., by revisiting a project at a later time or by | |redoing a project using a different medium) | |theory and practice | |• Flowcharts enhance the Reggio curriculum. A flowchart records information in such a way | |that one can see the step-by-step process of how relationships are built; they help the | |teachers organize and keep in mind the nature and purpose of the curriculum. The purpose of| |a flowchart is to tell the past (what happened before), the present (what is being | |discussed now), and the future (what predictions can be made in preparation for what may | |emerge). There is an excitement about this process because teachers will see themselves as | |researchers and look for solutions. Flowcharts are an essential tool for future | |consideration in establishing an ongoing process of documentation. Flowcharts show acts | |across time. Therefore, as Forman (May 1995) mentioned in a conversation to the researcher,| |flowcharts are more of a sequential representation than webbing, which is more of a | |semantic net with no real flow to it. These are illustrated in the video An Amusement Park | |for Birds (Gandini and Forman, 1994). | |• The infrastructure, which has been in place for over 30 years and has low turnover, is | |also unique to the Reggio Emilia Approach. The infrastructure includes atelieristas. In The| |Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education | |(Edwards, Gandini, Forman, 1993), Vea Vecchi (one of the atelieristas) described her role | |to Lella Gandini as someone who guides children and teachers. Vecchi stated that this is a | |role that takes on different styles and attitudes in the 20 preprimary schools in Reggio | |Emilia. In this conversation with Lella Gandini, Vea Vecchi described the reciprocity of | |the roles of the teachers, children, and the atelierista: “Working together, guiding the | |children in their projects, teachers and I have repeatedly found ourselves face-to-face – | |as if looking in a mirror – learning from one another, and together learning from the | |children. This way we were trying to create paths to a new educational approach, one | |certainly not tried before, where the visual language was interpreted and connected to | |other languages, all thereby gaining in meaning.” (p. 121) | |• Pedagogistas are also an important piece of the infrastructure. The pedagogistas have | |ongoing collaboration with the people involved with the schools in Reggio Emilia. Most of | |these pedagogistas are general child development experts, one is a special needs (in the | |Reggio Emilia schools respectfully called “special rights”) expert, and one is a puppeteer.| |They are built in as part of the carefully planned support system of the Reggio Emilia | |schools. | |• Co-construction is strongly emphasized in the approach. For example, a child can learn to| |construct knowledge with peers and adults. Co-construction emphasizes the social nature of | |such activities in which cognitive conflict is emphasized. Perhaps Loris Malaguzzi | |(Edwards, Gandini, Forman, 1993), the founder of the Reggio Emilia experience, referred to | |the force of co-construction when he advocated the following: “We seek to support those | |social exchanges that better insure the flow of expectations, conflicts, cooperation, | |choices, and the explicit unfolding of problems tied to the cognitive, affective, and | |expressive realms” (p. 62). | |How Can One Tell If a School Is Truly Following the Reggio Emilia Approach' | |Any school that claims to have a Reggio Emilia approach should be careful to remember that | |we live in a different culture. Simply copying how the schools in Reggio Emilia operate may| |miss the point. When someone visits a program that labels itself as a Reggio Emilia school,| |it is important to hear that the school is an adaptation of the Reggio Emilia approach and | |not just an attempt to copy it. This adaptation should show that careful, purposeful | |discussion and collaboration is happening among the adults in adapting the ideas from | |Reggio Emilia. This approach was never meant to provide a quick fix to schools. | |Furthermore, it is helpful to understand why Reggio Emilia experts refer to this as an | |“approach” and not a “model.” They call it an “approach” because it develops over time with| |a careful reflection upon the population that is being served. Thus the idea that a school | |can become a “Reggio Emilia school” overnight is unrealistic and could be problematic. For | |example, teachers could misinterpret the approach and turn their classes into a | |free-for-all or eclectic approach that does not help children make strong, purposeful | |connections. To see if a school is a good adaptation of the Reggio Approach, look for the | |following indicators: | |1. teachers reflect on their teaching practices | |2. children are celebrated and seen as competent and capable | |3. teachers realize it’s an ongoing quest to capture what children are actually doing | |4. the use of documentation is evident, and it truly illustrates the children’s | |explorations (e.g., capturing the process children go through to come up with ideas and | |examining children’s thought) | |5. the teachers seek to learn, not copy, Reggio educators and adapt their knowledge in the | |school | |6. relationships are important (for example teachers with families, children with teachers,| |teachers with each other, etc.) | |Conclusion | |As mentioned in the Introduction, all three of these program models are worthy of respect. | |Unfortunately, practice and theory don’t always connect. It is damaging when a school or | |classroom labels itself, as one of the program models and that is all there is – a “nice | |label.” Also, it’s problematic when teachers have insufficient training (and sometimes no | |real training at all). For example, with the Montessori method, does the teacher have AMI | |or AMS credentials' Another issue in identifying a program good for children is making sure| |a program has not become too eclectic. Sometimes schools choose from so many different | |program models, aspects in the classroom contradict each other. For example, a school that | |follows an approach that wants children to learn actively, yet the program has borrowed the| |idea of children sitting and just repeating the teacher for most of the day. Hopefully | |these reviews will help families and teachers reflect and connect the theory and practice. |