Professional Development Plan: Improving the Fundamentals of Preschool Learning - Assignment Example

RUNNING HEAD: Professional Development Plan Professional Development Plan: Improving the Fundamentals of Preschool Learning BY YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION HERE YOUR COURSE / TUTOR HERE DATE HERE Professional Development Plan Statement of Beliefs: There are certain social and technical skills which a preschool student should understand during the course of a well-structured preschool classroom. Aligning classroom efforts with various theoretical behavioral models for youths of this age will require adherence to state legislation. It is the belief of this educator that the development of an appropriate preschool curriculum begins with understanding the development and cognitive needs of these youths in an environment which is both rewarding and inviting. The Intervening Parties The development of a contemporary preschool learning program will involve the efforts of the teacher, the children and their immediate caregivers, and in-school administration and policy makers. The preschool teacher must recognize the fundamental needs of children in this group and develop/exploit the personal competencies necessary to attain the goal of improving preschool education. The teacher must be action-oriented and motivated to inspire children to listen actively and develop a positive sense of learning which can carry into the K-12 classroom environment. The instructor must work with the children’s’ caregivers to identify any notable hindrances to learning which may exist with each child in order to create supplementary teaching guides for difficult or unresponsive children. Administration interaction with the teacher will involve periodic classroom reviews and auditing of in-class activities to ensure that the teaching methods are aligned with school and state requirements. Goal 1 and Assessment Criteria Primarily, the preschool child must develop a sense of self as part of social-emotional development in the classroom environment (California Department of Education, 2008). The first goal will be to establish rewarding and mutually-respectful relationship with peers in a group environment in order to better prepare them for adult life and the receipt of the K-12 classroom curriculum. To accomplish this, the preschool children will be given reinforcing social teachings regarding cooperative attitudes and the receipt of personal accountability and responsibility. To coordinate the aforementioned goal, the preschool students will be periodically-paired into two-member groups and given a classroom task to perform as a simple test of individual and group youth motivations to perform. Erasure of the chalkboard, collection of books, or some other relevant classroom task will be assigned to these groups daily, so as to monitor whether some students cannot grasp the concept of working together or which students excel significantly in this area. These students will be identified as classroom leaders in both group discussion and in the task assignments to reinforce to other students the importance of collaborative attitudes. These children will be the model by which progress is either hindered or succeeding. As these tasks are performed by the students, they will build a sense of camaraderie and discussion will ensue, with an opportunity for their peers to provide task-related feedback, which again will reinforce the necessity to work as a team. This can be measured in the capacity by which students begin recognizing their self-capabilities and the importance of helping others to achieve a task. Goal Two and Assessment Criteria The second goal of the new curriculum is to improve social interaction with the preschool children. As part of routine classroom efforts, students will be paired into larger groups (consisting of 4-5 children) in which unique tasks will be assigned such as block tower construction or the creation of a collage with a specific theme. Each student in the group will have explicit responsibility for tasks associated with the project and must learn to delegate different tasks in order to meet the project’s goals. Using a simple kitchen timer or hourglass, students will learn how to cooperate in groups along a specific timeline for completion. In terms of academics, the goal is to get the children to understand the notion of deadlines and completing a project, as a group, within the allotted timeframe. The success of these efforts will be monitored over the course of three to four unique project task assignments. The success ratios for each group will be recorded, based on the time it took to complete the group tasks, in order to review whether the group becomes more effective or less effective toward meeting responsible timelines and whether each group maintained outbursts or other socially-related problems which would require reinforcement on how to correct these group behaviors. With this development plan, caregivers will also be surveyed at the end of the assigned tasks (over a period of weeks) to determine whether attitudes regarding group cooperation have been noticeable outside of the classroom. Goal Three and Assessment Criteria The third program goal is the establishment of empathy and concern for others. Though in a perfect world the educator would prefer the child to already have a sense of community and empathy for others, however this is not always present in the home environment. Students will gather into groups to discuss various hypothetical scenarios, using a classroom objects as a point of reference (i.e. The chalk ran into a very difficult eraser who would not let him write without erasing the words each time…). Students will be asked to identify different scenarios for how the chalk should handle the difficult eraser and still get its job done. Students will be assessed, through observational research and by noting student responses in an appropriate journal, to determine which students require reinforcement of empathy values and how to handle difficult social situations. Any students showing a lack of improvement in these areas will be segregated, together, into groups and given a new scenario to work out as a group. Once the group comes to a consensus about issues of empathy, they will report their solutions to the teacher who will offer positive feedback (when appropriate) that their responses were accurate/inaccurate in the given scenario. The purpose of this effort is to help children move seamlessly from preschool to kindergarten with the social skills necessary to achieve classroom excellence beyond preschool education (Hale and Biderman, 2007). Goal Four and Assessment Criteria The final goal of this new program is to establish higher levels of self-confidence in the student group. Based on whether a home environment is nurturing or whether students have caregivers who actively promote feelings of well-being will dictate the current levels of self-esteem in the youth groups. Reinforcement of having a sense of self-value is important in these groups as this is the period where the fundamental aspects of social involvement are paramount to build life-long social skills. As with similar exercises, students will be given unique tasks, such as helping the instructor pass out papers, with the teacher offering complimentary comments to each student in the public classroom environment. This is intended to build a sense of personal pride in accomplishment and the receipt of peer acceptance as they become the public recipient of peer approval for a job well-done. These efforts are just as vital to the entire classroom curriculum as they promote feelings of trust for other peers and for the instructor as well, providing the necessary inviting and rewarding classroom environment which students of this age group require. Monitoring these activities will involve a more quantitative approach to research, by having students fill out a simple, multi-tick questionnaire which focuses on their self-concept. Questions such as I do a good job in my chores and I really like my classmates, when given as a preliminary research tool, will determine whether students have a positive view of the self prior to the implementation of these new classroom activities. Once more during these exercises, and once after their completion, will determine whether the students’ self-concept ratios have improved in terms of how they view their own individual performance. Cargivers, as well, can be surveyed at the end of the classroom program to determine whether they have noticed a higher volume of self-confidence and self-esteem in their children. These quantitative numbers can be reported to the appropriate administrative staff as part of the regular classroom audit process. The objective of this goal to improve self-concept is to create a benchmarked tool by which preschool educators can incorporate these teachings into to the broader mathematics and literacy programs at various schools. Group activities and the public receipt of peer approval, from a practical social perspective, is one paramount need for children of this group in order to succeed into healthy and well-adjusted adults. References California Department of Education. (2008). “California Preschool Learning Foundations”. Sacramento, Vol. 1. Retrieved 11 Mar 2009 from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/documents/preschoollf.pdf Hale, Lysa and Biderman, Fran. (2007). “Contra Costa County Preschool Makes a Difference: Strategic Plan”. Retrieved 10 Mar 2009 from http://www.firstfivecc.org/pdfs/projects/PMDPlan050107FINAL.pdf Read More