Early Childhood and Youth Development » Play Is Not a Four Letter Word: Book Study Expert Commentary for Chapter 13 (Week 5) | Your DCTC News Source : Dakota County Technical College. This week we are discussing Chapter 13: Play Is Not a Four Letter Word. Dr. Walter F. Drew is our guest content expert this week to provide insight and lead our discussion. Visit Dr. “The goal of education is to create possibilities for children to invent and discover.” In Chapter 13, Rae Pica makes the point that “True play is open-ended and intrinsically motivated. What Can We Do to Cultivate Play and Creativity in Child Development? As a way of elaborating on Rae Pica’s comments, I invite you to view a short unedited YouTube video of 5 and 6 year old children as they engage in a compelling example of a true play experience that is open-ended and intrinsically motivated.
One area of child development that has received little attention, but which is a positive instructional strategy and strong indicator of creative potential, is solitary self active play. What Do You Observe as You View the Video? Is there joy, creativity, imagination, and inventiveness reflected in the children? Artful Thinking. Visible Thinking. Purpose and Goals Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based approach to integrating the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters. An extensive and adaptable collection of practices, Visible Thinking has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning.
By thinking dispositions, we mean curiosity, concern for truth and understanding, a creative mindset, not just being skilled but also alert to thinking and learning opportunities and eager to take them Who is it for? Visible Thinking is for teachers, school leaders and administrators in K - 12 schools who want to encourage the development of a culture of thinking in their classrooms and schools. Key Features and Practices At the core of Visible Thinking are practices that help make thinking visible: Thinking Routines loosely guide learners' thought processes and encourage active processing. License. Cultures of Thinking.
For more information, please see the Visible Thinking website. We define “Cultures of Thinking” (CoT) as places where a group’s collective as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all group members. Drawing on previous research by Ron Ritchhart (2002), the CoT project focuses teachers’ attention on the eight cultural forces present in every school, classroom, and group learning situation. These forces act as shapers of the group’s cultural dynamic and consist of language, time, environment, opportunities, routines, modeling, interactions, and expectations. As teachers strive to create cultures of thinking in their classrooms, they make time for thinking, develop and use a language of thinking, and make the classroom environment rich with the documents of thinking processes. Funding: Bialik College (Melbourne, Australia) under the patronage of Abe and Vera Dorevitch Project Staff:
Tools. Www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2014/Beilock.pdf. Raising the Bar for Early Education. Is early education and care a profession or not? The debate has dogged the field for decades. Positions taken by the workforce and organizations representing their interests seldom come to full agreement in scenarios reminiscent of the “tastes great; less filling” debates. This in-fighting, often played out between public pre-K, Head Start, and child care, does not center around the acknowledged value of the workforce’s intentions, efforts or contributions; rather, it stems from the field’s failure to consider what actually qualifies as a profession and its willingness to take it to the next level. Too often, terms such as “job,” “occupation,” and “career” are used interchangeably with “profession,” only clouding the issue.
Sociologist Byrne Horton (1944) provides an interesting lens to examine the issue. Based on an analysis of characteristics found across professions, his “Ten Criteria or Earmarks of a Genuine Profession”[i] contend, that a profession must: [i] B. Like this post? Earlymath/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MathMattersReport.pdf. Early childhood teachers' misconceptions about mathematics education for young children in the United States (free full-text available)
Joon Sun Lee Hunter College, The City University of New York Herbert P. Ginsburg Teachers College, Columbia University In this article we discuss nine common misconceptions about learning and teaching mathematics for young children that are widespread among prospective and practicing early childhood teachers in the United States. These misconceptions include: 1. Young children are not ready for mathematics education; 2. Mathematics is for some bright kids with mathematics genes; 3. New vision for early childhood mathematics education in the United States Mathematics education for young children is not new. The authors, as early childhood teacher educators and researchers, have attempted to assist prospective and practising teachers to realise the new vision of early childhood mathematics education. Young children are not ready for mathematics education. 1. Why do these teachers underestimate children's mathematical abilities in the early years?
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Misconceptions About Math in Early Childhood Classrooms | Photo: Caroline Silber for Strategies for Children “Young children are not ready for mathematic education.” That’s the first of nine misconceptions described in an article published in the Australian Journal of Early Childhood. “In the turn of the 21st century, the early childhood education field in the United States has begun to take a big step forward in promoting early childhood mathematics education,” write authors Joon Sun Lee, a Hunter College education professor, and Herbert P. Ginsburg, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. They hope to add to this momentum by dismantling myths about young children and math. The other eight misconceptions are: • Mathematics is for some bright kids who have “mathematics genes.” • Teaching simple numbers and shapes is enough. • Language and literacy are more important than mathematics. • Teachers should provide an enriched physical environment, then step back and let children play. • Math should not be taught as a stand-alone subject.
Snapshot 61 | FPG Child Development Institute. Snapshot 58 | FPG Child Development Institute. Impacts of a Science and Math Professional Development Project for Pre-K Teachers of Dual-Language Learners. NIEER Assistant Research Professors Alissa Lange and Kimberly Brenneman presented a poster at the American Education Research Association's annual conference in San Francisco. The poster, entitled "Impacts of a Science and Math Professional Development Project for Pre-K Teachers of Dual-Language Learners (DLLs)," summarized findings from the SciMath-DLL project's first two years. This National Science Foundation-funded study develops and evaluates professional development supports for teachers around science, math, and teaching dual-language learners.
The poster outlined challenges to the implementation of high-quality professional development, such as limited educator time to engage in coaching activities, and how these challenges have been addressed (e.g., creating electronic methods for reporting). Improvements in teacher practice, such as more focused lesson planning, and in the SciMath-DLL program itself, such as higher quality workshop approaches, were also highlighted. Www.k12.wa.us/WaKIDS/pubdocs/CharacteristicsofEnteringKindergarteners-English. Math struggles start even before kindergarten, state says | Education Lab Blog. Don’t just worry about the old math — or the new math.
Or whether students use calculators, or don’t have them. New data from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) suggests that the state’s math problem starts before children line up for their first day of kindergarten. Courtesy Washington OSPI For the second year in a row, kindergarten teachers in hundreds of schools observed their students and rated their school-readiness skills — everything from how well they hold a pencil to whether they recognize letters and can count to 10.
Three-quarters of those kindergarteners were deemed school-ready in five areas: social-emotional, physical, language, cognitive and literacy. But in math? The observations were done as part of a program called WaKIDS, short for the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills. To do the assessment, teachers this fall observed roughly 38,500 kindergarteners — about 44 percent of all incoming public school students.
Successful STEM Education | Identifying Effective Approaches in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. PBS Math Supplement Boosts Math Skills For Young Children - Early Years. Ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/practice_guides/early_math_pg_111313.pdf. Researchers Explore Ways to Embed Math Learning in Early Education - Early Years. Don’t STEM the Tide of Curiosity. The future economic viability of our country relies on a STEM-literate citizenry and workforce, but we aren’t educating our children to be science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) literate. Research evidence is mounting for the importance of math and science school readiness for long-term achievement in these areas and in reading; yet, we leave behind so many children from low-resource communities.
Children who are as curious, able, and eager to learn as their middle class peers arrive at school behind in math and science knowledge and skills. These gaps are likely to widen during the school years. The author’s son embraces his inner scientist, with proper safety precautions.Used with permission of Kimberly Brenneman. We have to change the equation here. It is particularly satisfying to see the variety of groups interested in this issue. It won’t be easy. . - Kimberly Brenneman, Assistant Research Professor, NIEER Like this post? Like this: Like Loading...
Adults Need to Stop Being Afraid of STEM - Room for Debate. Kimberly Brenneman is an assistant research professor at the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, where she directs the Early Childhood STEM Lab. The typical 3- or 4-year-old is already interested in science, technology, engineering and math. What we need are parents and teachers who share their enthusiasm and are comfortable with the subject material.
Preschool children don’t need us to spark their interest in science and math -- they’ve got spark to spare. What they do require are adults dedicated to protecting that spark and fanning it; yet, far too few find this in their homes and schools. Children who are capable of identifying trapezoids are taught only about circles, triangles and squares. They can interpret simple data patterns to decide whether seeds need water to sprout, but we offer them numerals to trace. Few adults would happily admit to not being able to read, but these same people have no trouble saying they’re bad at math. How to establish a digital math culture in kindergarten SmartBlogs. One of the things I enjoy about exploring mathematics with young mathematicians is their excitement and authentic, genuine mindset in regards to learning. I am energized by their discoveries when they are exploring new concepts.
Connections are made easily and this inspires students to look deeper. I also enjoy the many technologies that help me to capture my students mathematical understanding. Technology helps give everyone a voice. During the month of November, we’ve been focusing on attributes of two- and three-dimensional shapes. I also look for tools and opportunities for my students to experience what attributes are and the special features they have. Here’s a look at some of the lessons and technology tools we’ve been using during our study of two-and three-dimensional shapes. We integrated a variety of technology throughout our lessons, and the tools became part of our learning culture and were not an add on or a distraction. Introduction and discussion. Www.nnstoy.org/download/White Paper 10-4-2013%282%29.pdf. Schlembach, Sue (schlemse) - Outlook Web App. Next Generation Preschool Math.
Math Apps, Preschoolers and Framing New Research Questions. Image captured from video by Next Generation Preschool Math. For the past two years, I’ve been following the creation and development of Next Generation Preschool Math, a research and development project funded by the National Science Foundation. The project is designed to shed light on how -- and if -- 4-year-olds can learn early math skills from apps designed to be used in classroom settings with teacher input and guidance. The results of the study won’t be available for another year or more, but I explored the work involved in developing apps and setting up such a study in a The New York Times piece yesterday, ”Field-Testing the Math Apps.” This is challenging research work, involving vast literature reviews on different stages of children’s cognitive development to the rounds of testing required to ensure the games work as expected.
I talked to various people about the aims of the project. Cordes questioned why the NextGen Math project was set up the way it was. Math Apps, Preschoolers and Framing New Research Questions. Earlymath/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MathMattersReport.pdf. Mathematics | Home | Mathematics. For more than a decade, research studies of mathematics education in high-performing countries have concluded that mathematics education in the United States must become substantially more focused and coherent in order to improve mathematics achievement in this country. To deliver on this promise, the mathematics standards are designed to address the problem of a curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” These new standards build on the best of high-quality math standards from states across the country. They also draw on the most important international models for mathematical practice, as well as research and input from numerous sources, including state departments of education, scholars, assessment developers, professional organizations, educators, parents and students, and members of the public.
The math standards provide clarity and specificity rather than broad general statements. The Common Core concentrates on a clear set of math skills and concepts. Frequently Asked Questions about the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) | AMTE. Frequently Asked Questions What is the CCSSM? What is their purpose? What are the mathematical practices? What do they look like? How is the CCSS different from the NCTM standards? How will the CCSS impact our state standards? How will the CCSS impact NCLB and our state accountability tests? What impact will the CCSS have on teacher preparation programs? What is the CCSSM? The Common Core State Standards were developed as part of a state-led effort ( 48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia ) coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).
The mathematics standards (CCSS-M) were designed to prepare high school graduates to succeed in entry-level, credit bearing academic, mathematics college courses or workplace preparation programs. What are the mathematical practices? The Mathematical Practices are: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Submit a question. States Work on Teacher Preparation -- Stateline. Student teacher Allison Brown high-fives Rakiya Thomas, 8, in a third-grade class in Valley Park, Mo. Some say states should require a would-be teacher to work in a classroom before getting a license. (AP) A growing number of states are trying to improve the quality of teachers by transforming the programs that are supposed to prepare them for the classroom. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell last month signed a bill requiring his state’s teacher preparation programs to include at least 10 weeks of full-time student teaching and to collect and report data on the performance and effectiveness of their graduates.
According to many researchers, teacher quality is the single most important factor inside a school in student achievement. States have long possessed powerful tools to ensure that teachers are adequately trained: They are responsible for licensing teachers, and they must approve any teacher preparation program that operates within their borders. Teachers for Education Reform. Philip Uri Treisman. Shiree Lee - The University of Auckland. The Power of Play | Boston Children's Museum. Findings from the Research done by Dimensions Educational Research Foundation. Research and Collaborations - Nature Explore. Dimensions Educational Research Foundation. Vol 16, No 2. An Ocean of Unknowns. Pnas.200910967.pdf (application/pdf Object) Effects of Music Instruction on Developing Cognitive Systems at the Foundations of Math and Science - The Dana Foundation. Connecting Intentional Play to Science, Math, and Literacy Learning. A Child's First Method of Learning Is Still the Best.
1-s2.0-S0190740910003634-main.pdf (application/pdf Object) What Will Your Students Remember? by Leah Davies, M.Ed. Helping Children Succeed by Leah Davies, M.Ed. Kandinsky Circles (Art & Math Arrays) Math Apps, Preschoolers and Framing New Research Questions. Educational Songs & Children's Music from Songs for Teaching®