Early Childhood
Your Name CHLD 252
Days/Time of Class
MVC Reflection Essay #1
Response to Prompt #3
Here is my example of how I would like you to format your Reflection Essays (with the
exception of length—your essays will be 1-2 pages in length). Place your name, course number
& days/times of our class in the header. Identify which essay it is and (and this is very
important!) identify which number of the prompt you are responding to. Again, this is very
important. If you do not, you will miss critical points on your essay, and you’ll be annoyed.
Following simple directions is an essential aspect of being successful in college.
Start your essay with a brief line about what you’re going to discuss (this can be a simple
summary of the prompt you’ve chosen to answer). This provides you with a beginning for your
paper. Be sure to have a conclusion as well. It might look like “I named MyVirtual Child
Indeera and she is now an infant. Watching her language and cognitive abilities develop has
been fascinating. I have seen much evidence of her growth through the lens of Piaget’s
cognitive theory (a stage theory of cognitive development, which includes, four stages: the
sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational periods). I
believe this theory also aids me in understanding how to support her growth in this area. Several
elements of Piaget’s theory include schemas, assimiliation, and accommodation… (etc)” The
prompt for #3 on Reflection Essay #1 reads as follows: “Using one of the cognitive theories
discussed in text (e.g., Piaget), discuss your child’s cognitive development from birth through
infancy. What evidence do you see to support one of these theories in your child? What
language development you seeing during infancy? How can you support these areas of
development?” A brief introduction (as in my example above) sets the stage for the rest of your
essay. My essay would go on to include definitions of the stage of Piaget’s theory
(sensorimotor) that would be demonstrated by my child during this developmental period. I
would provide definitions and examples of schemas, assimilation, and accommodation.
A bit about what to include in your essays: each reflection is worth 20-points. In general,
you will be graded on a) comprehensiveness (i.e., did you thoroughly answer the prompt? 6
points—note: if you do not identify your prompt you will automatically receive 0 of the 6 points
for this element—I can’t judge if you were comprehensive if I don’t know what to judge it by);
b) incorporation of course content (i.e., did you explicitly integrate readings/discussions into
your essay? 6 points—note: if you do not highlight [i.e., bold or underline] you will
automatically receive 0 of the 6 points for this element—make your concepts explicit and easy to
find, then ensure you define these concepts; you may have noticed that I did this in my example
above); c) organization/literacy (i.e., is your paper easy to follow for the reader? Do you
include a brief introduction and conclusion? Did you use full and complete sentences? Are there
major or minor grammatical or syntactical errors that should have been caught in proofreading? 4
points); d) raising of your child (i.e., at the point your essay was due, had you raised your MVC
to the specified and appropriate developmental period? 4 points).
Some questions will lend themselves more directly to incorporating course concepts (e.g.,
a question specifically about temperament). Others may be more broad (e.g., “What decisions
did you make to support your child’s growth during this developmental period?”). Each question
is asking you to bring what you’re learning in our course into your reflections about raising your
virtual child. For example, for the latter question you might discuss things like breastfeeding,
reading to your child, setting up his environment to be stimulating (but not overly
stimulating) and/or childcare. Additionally, don’t just use a shotgun approach and provide a list
of different concepts, but explore them more intimately—this directs you to the
comprehensiveness aspect of the grading rubric. For example, you may provide this list, but then
take two of the concepts, discuss/define what they are, how you’ve thought about them (e.g.,
“Based on the research about the benefits of breastfeeding, such as… I chose to breastfeed for x
amount of time.”). Therefore, answer the questions that are being asked (i.e., don’t leave out a
major part of the prompt in your response), but also explore the concepts you identify in a deeper
way. Point being, while these are reflections and personal experiences with raising your child,
I’m asking you to integrate content from the course and to do so in a meaningful way.
In terms of font and size, I prefer Times New Roman, 12-point font (it’s easiest to read),
but you may also use Courier or Ariel. However, make sure that you use at least 12-point font.
Sometimes when you are submitting directly into BBL, it can make formatting funky (especially
if you’re not using Word). You may attach a document (be sure it is a type, such as pdf, pages,
or Word, which is supported by the University and BBL) or copy and paste directly into BBL.
Be sure that your formatting is acceptable. You may submit more than once; if you notice there
are problems, resubmit. I will grade the last submission unless you specifically ask otherwise.
Our BBL is set to use the highest grade.
Finally, a comment on length. Some of the questions are BIG picture questions.
Remember this is a short reflection paper (no more than 2 pages). In order to get full credit for
comprehensiveness, I don’t expect you to re-write your textbook and include everything! It’s
better to pick 1-3 concepts and more meaningfully explore them then it is to try to include
everything (and make a really long essay or to not go into any depth about any of the concepts).
On the other hand, the expectation is that you reflect and respond with more than a few
sentences. Again, the goal is for you to take your MVC experience and integrate that with
course concepts.