Betül S. – @ MAKALESKOP
Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) can be defined as positive climate which is aimed to create in early childhood settings based on theoretical knowledge and research outputs to support healthy development of children in various domains including cognitive, social, emotional, and physical. DAP is planned based on three sources of knowledge which are developmental appropriateness, individual appropriateness, and social and cultural appropriateness. The more you take into consideration those sources of knowledge the more the program could be inclusive and responsive the needs of children because knowing developmental milestones , individual needs and interests of each child, and social and cultural context the child live in and values and believes in that context gives you the power of forming best curriculum that reveal a child’s best potential.
For a developmentally appropriate curriculum there are important principles which is needed to take into consideration in the planning process. Acknowledging importance of all areas of learning and development is one of them. It is important to keep in mind that all domains of development are interconnected with each other and a change and development in one domain influences other domains. Therefore, integrated curriculum can be seen one of the important components of developmentally appropriate practice and while preparing activities and experiences for children, it can be effective to serve different domains in a play, activity, or experience.
Another principle can be seen as remembering that development follows a sequence. That means it would be more meaningful to preparing experiences where new skills and knowledges are built on existing ones so that things make sense in children’s minds and to provide more meaningful experiences to them. But it also shouldn’t be forgotten that curriculum should take into account individual differences since development and learning proceed at varying rates. So, there can be differences among children in terms of learning and development process, also there can be some differences within a child among different domains. Therefore, curriculum must be responsive those differences and enable alternatives to support those children. There are soo many way of learning about something, so it is important to detect best way for each child and adopt the experiences according to child’s needs and interest. At this point flexibility of content in curriculum helps teachers and professionals to adopt it according to children’s individual needs and interests. Curriculum plan should be considered as guidance for teachers and professionals, so the more it is comprehensive and responsive, the better results you get in the setting it is applied. But while guiding professionals in the field, it shouldn’t be restrictive and result- oriented. It should just give a framework with various objectives to professionals to make process easy for them and while doing this it should leave space to teachers to breath and move according to needs and dynamics in the setting. The curriculum should focus more on process rather than results and outputs. It should aim to create a challenging environment where children can reach their highest potential without pushing limits too much with unrealistic objectives. That is to say, the objectives and challenges should be achievable for children.
The developmentally appropriate program should give the most active role to the children. Teachers should function as mediator who enable the communication between environmet and the child. She should observe interests and needs of children and function as a guide who enable challenging experiences for children who try to construct their knowledge through their own experiences. At this process teacher listens what the child says, asks questions, encourages children, demonstrates how to do things, be a good model, add challenges, gives assistance and so on.
Makaleskop 