Learning Portfolio Part Three

Part One:

Erik Erikson’s stage of initiative vs. guilt happens during the preschool years.  This is when children begin to develop a conscience and start to feel guilt for their actions.  They also discover that they can use all their skills to actually accomplish tasks and that sometimes these tasks lead to praise and sometimes they lead to punishment.

                                                          Quinton Baking

Quinton discovers he can help mom bake a cake and he pours the flour into the mixer but misses and ends up spilling most of the flour on the counter and on himself while mom isn’t looking. In excitement he looks at mom and exclaims, “ Look mom! I did it!”  Mom see’s nothing but the mess and gets mad at him for making a mess. This leads to Quinton feeling guilty for making the mess when all he really wanted to do was help make a cake.

In the video above, although hesitant, the mother does not stop the child from making a mess, yet allows him to continue to do what he is doing.

Parental/caregiver understanding is important in this stage, if the child doesn’t have an understanding parent and caregiver it will do mostly harm in their development. Children at this stage need an abundant amount of opportunities for exploration and caregivers who support their exploration as well to better them developmentally.

Without this exploration and support this can lead to a child’s lowered self- esteem and a feeling that they are not good enough and will lead to a lot of experiences in life being squished by two words, “I can’t.”  Without the belief in themselves they will give up before they even start, and this is what Erikson was trying to get us to realize when he introduced the stage of initiative vs. guilt.

Part Two

In order to positively influence the children in my classroom and insure that they gain a sense of initiative through interactions, I would start by looking at the environment.  It is really important for the children’s environment to have plenty of choices of things to play with.  I would try to gain as much material as I can to insure that no matter what the child wanted to do, there was an option to do that.  In some cases I have gone to daycare centres and experienced the educators in the room telling the children that certain centres were not open.  This would not be the case in my classroom, I would allow the children to go to whatever centre they wanted and have them all open in order for them to always be able to choose what activities they could do.

Another thing I would do is to allow plenty of time for new activities to be introduced into the classroom.  I would create an idea bin out of an old shoebox and encourage the children to enter their ideas into the bin whenever they thought them up.  Together we would write the idea down on the paper and they would insert it into the bin so that they felt more involved in the whole planning process. I would then pick them out periodically and make sure to address the individual who put the idea in the box (after first asking them if they wanted to be addressed so I do not make that individual feel uncomfortable.) “Frankie has an idea for a craft today, if anyone would like to participate it will be over here,” I would ask the individual child if they would like to run the craft as well and take on the ‘teacher” role.  This would give them the chance to be a leader to their peers and run an activity that is important to them.

                                                             Idea Box I Created

The most important part to my classroom would be the fact that I would be constantly listening to the children.  If I heard them talking about something they are interested in I would ask them more questions to find out exactly what it was. I would then plan my curriculum around that to help them learn more about exactly what they were interested in, and not just a variation of it.

Child – “I wonder how they get houses to stand up straight?”

Teacher – “ How do you think that it stays up? Do you know who builds houses? How long do you think it takes to build a house? Is that something you would be interested in learning more about? “

This helps to get a better understanding of exactly what a child is interested in so that they feel like they are an important part of the classroom and to better help them build their self-esteem. You can pin down exactly what they are interested in learning instead of loosely basing your curriculum off of a single phrase.

                                                      Real Tools in Play

In this case she may be interested in the actual build of the house, in which case I would create a work station using real tools and materials and possibly find a guest speaker to come in and talk about construction.

All of these things can help a child really break out of their shell and feel like an important individual, but not only can it do that, it can help their peers see them as one as well.

Learning Portfolio - Part Two

Cognitive Development

Piaget              VS.            Vygotsky

                                                       (Google Images Search: http://www.fotolog.com/tiravola/58642092/)

Part One - Similarities and Differences Between Piaget and Vygotsky

Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories on cognitive development are somewhat similar but also have very distinct differences.  Piaget believed that you learned from your own self-centered experiences, so to learn about something specific you would have to see it for yourself in order to truly learn about it, he believed that an individual would develop understandings before they would learn language.  Piaget also believed that you learned in different stages of cognitive development.  The sensorimotor (0-2 years), the preoperational period (2-7 years), the concrete operational period (7-11 years), and the formal operations period (11-15 years) (Found in the class notes.) Meaning that you would learn in different ways at different ages. Whereas, Vygotsky believed that language would precede development and that you learn from older individuals, so for you to learn something specific, you would have to learn it through social interaction. Since Vygotsky believed that imitation was so important in an individuals cognitive development, the dramatic play area in a class room would be really important so that the children could use that space to imitate others through role play. Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed in cognitive development and that it is an essential part in the learning process but they believed that it worked in different ways.  They also believed that egocentric speech (when the individual talks to themselves to run through a problem,) was a very important part in the process and that no matter what you needed language to learn.

Click on the image below to watch a 

video about the differences between Piaget and Vygotsky

                                                                                                       (ELECT: Early Learning Every Child Today & the Educational Portal)

Part Two - The Theory I Agree With

When looking at both Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories I find myself leaning towards Piaget’s theory more just from what I have seen with my own personal experience.  I do believe there is truth in both theories but I have discovered, in the observation of my own child, Quinton learns more from real life experiences.  I believe that in order for individuals to learn the most about the world around them they have to see it with their own eyes.  Quinton is more likely to learn about lions, tigers, and bears by actually going to a zoo and seeing the animals then from sitting at home and having myself tell him about them, an example of this is below. Monkey's had been described to him at home several times without the informational actually sticking until the day we went to the African lion safari and he saw the monkey's for himself.  Children also seem more interested in learning things if they see it for themselves rather then just hearing it from others.  I do believe however that they need someone to tell them more about it as the times goes on for them to learn to the full extent and really get in the most they possibly can.  So there is some logic to both theories and I believe they should and do work best together. 

Below is a video of Quinton learning about Monkeys at the African Lion Safari:

Part Three - Cognitve Development In the Classroom

When looking at cognitive development theories (Piaget in particular) and how I would apply them to my preschool environment there is one thing that I would do for sure.  I would include copious amounts of real life experiences into the curriculum and make sure to book field trips wherever possible.  I would get volunteers to come in whenever possible as well because of how important real-life experiences are.  If the children showed interested in a certain animal, like for example reptiles, I would look into hiring a guest speaker who would come into the classroom with an assortment of them to allow the children to experience them up close and personal (an example of a program like this here: http://www.creaturequest.ca) This has been available at center’s I’ve been at before, and are often filled with an abundance of great learning experiences that will really help with the children’s cognitive development. Also when on these field trips, or even just in the classroom I would ask lots of open-ended questions to ensure that the children take in the most information possible.  This would also help them with their cognitive development because, as discussed in part one, Piaget believed (like Vygotsky) that language was a very important part in cognitive development.  Piaget also believed that we learned in stages of life differently, so it is important that I understand each stage and what it entails and plan curriculum according to those stages.

References

Creature quest. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.creaturequest.ca/

Education portal. (2003-2013). Retrieved from

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/differences-between-piaget-vygotskys-cognitive-development-theories.html