ECD 315 week three discussion one

Discussion 1: Curriculum Approaches

Think about your teaching philosophy.  How do you believe children learn, grow and develop? How do you as an early childhood professional contribute to that? There are many theories and theorists behind how education has developed and how they believe children learn best. When you were writing your philosophy who did you closely align with?  What did you believe in and what were some things you saw in your research you were still unsure about?  This is a time that you can really delve into what you believe and how you want to teach children. 

Your philosophy will affect your curriculum approach and your teaching strategies as you present the curriculum. Here are some different curriculum approaches to research and become more familiar with as you begin choosing what and how you will develop curriculum for your students.   The thematic approach to learning (Links to an external site.),  Emergent Curriculum ,  Project Approach to learning (Links to an external site.), and the  Integrated Curriculum (Links to an external site.) are all choices that you have to choose from and research this week.  This will help you better understand different types of curriculum and learning that you can present to your students.  Think about which ones your teachers may have used as you were going through school.  What are teachers using today?  Which one do you think you like the best and why?  As you compare and contrast these different approaches to learning think about what your role as the early childhood professional will be.  How will you handle the different situations and ideas as they come to you?

Some responsibilities you may have as the EC professional may be: choosing what the daily schedule will include, what type of curriculum you will use to teach your students, how you will deliver the curriculum, what teaching strategies you will use, how you will assess your students, how you will build relationships with families and how you will structure your group times. You will need to have a good balance of child-initiated and teacher directed time, one-on-one time, group time, centers and time where you can observe and assess children.

The physical environment and design will determine how effective your classroom will run. You need to set the classroom up so that you are able to see children in all areas of the classroom, so that it is bright, warm, engaging and welcoming and so that all learners’ styles are incorporated. Children need a space and time to practice trial and error, opportunities to role-play and opportunities to be members of the classroom community through daily jobs.

All of these things will directly affect and influence your curriculum and how you choose to use the curriculum in your classroom. Chapter 6 goes more in-depth on curriculum planning and how the different approaches will help you as you teach your students. 

As you prepare for your discussion: please use the checklist and tips below as a guide to ensure you have included each and every portion of the discussion prompt in your post. 

To prepare for your assignment:

· Read Chapter 6: What Are My Responsibilities as a Planner?

· Locate your assigned curriculum approaches in the table below by looking at the first column and review the provided resources. You have been assigned approaches based on the first letter of your last name.

 

Last Name Begins With	Curriculum Approaches	Resources
A - H	· Thematic Units · Emergent Curriculum	· Textbook section 6.4: Approaches to Planning Curriculum · The Emergence of Emergent Curriculum    · How We Learn: The Story Behind Bright Horizons® Emergent Curriculum (Links to an external site.)
I - P	· Thematic Units · Project Approach	· Textbook section 6.4: Approaches to Planning Curriculum · The Project Approach (Links to an external site.) · Five-Year-Olds Pilot Their Own Project Learning (Links to an external site.)
Q - Z	· Thematic Units · Integrated Curriculum	· Textbook section 6.4: Approaches to Planning Curriculum · Pages 553-557 of  Integrated Curriculum in the Primary Program (Links to an external site.) · Common Sense: An Overview of Integrated Studies (Links to an external site.)

 

In your initial post:

Put the names of the two approaches to planning curriculum you will be discussing as the subject line of your post

· Instructor Tip:  What two approaches are you most interested in learning about for this discussion? You may want to do a little research on all of them to ensure that you like the 2 you choose.

Compare and contrast your two assigned approaches to planning curriculum. Make sure to include at least two similarities and two differences between the two approaches. 

· Instructor Tip:  As you compare the two curriculum approaches what are to things that they have in common? What are two things they differ on?  Are the things in common a lot alike? How? Are the things that differ really different?  How?

Evaluate your role in planning curriculum for both approaches you are discussing.

· Instructor Tip:  As an ECE Professional what are you going to be responsible for as you plan and implement the curriculum? Will one be better?  Easier? More work? Why? How?

Summarize why it is important to have a solid understanding of each of these approaches, regardless of which approach you plan to implement.

· Instructor Tip:  Why is it important to know about both of the approaches you researched? Did you take a look at all of the ones provided?  Do you think it may be beneficial to know about all of them? 

· Instructor Tip:  As a professional having the knowledge and vocabulary to be able to talk to other professionals is important. When you are researching these other curriculums you are learning more and more.  Also, what if you move schools or centers and they are using a different curriculum?  It would be nice to know about it, and be able to talk about in an interview. Knowledge is power!