Week 5 Discussion – Integrated Curriculum and Effective Teaching Strategies – Discussion Group 2

In the readings and video this week, we have been studying how to plan, implement, evaluate, and enhance curriculum for young children. Our goal as teachers is to implement curriculum that is thoughtfully planned, challenging, engaging, developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically responsive, comprehensive, and likely to promote positive outcomes for all young children.

Instructions:

This discussion is designed as a review of many of the ideas and concepts that we have studied. The video below documents the activities of toddlers and preschoolers as they participate in an in-depth study of balls. The video also highlights a bit of the planning process that was followed by the teachers. For this discussion, please

1. Watch the video once completely so you get a flavor of the full learning experience.
2. Watch the video a second time, selecting two activities or portions of the video that you find particularly interesting (using the closed captioning helps with what the children say).
3. For each of these two activities or incidents you selected:

• • Note the time in the video that the activity occurred
  • Provide a brief description of the activity the children or the teachers are engaged in
  • Explain why this activity or incident stood out to you
  • Correlate the activity you selected with a concept from the Week 5 reading “Overarching Principles and Curriculum Planning”. How can you see the approaches to curriculum planning evidenced in this activity? Explain and reference the reading.
  • Identify at least one Teaching Strategy from the Week 5 handout of “10 Effective DAP Teaching Strategies” that is utilized in the learning opportunity you selected. Discuss how the strategy was used and why you think it was effective.
  • And finally, explain how the learning in this activity is integrated across multiple domains, (i.e. discuss at least two domains of development that are being fostered by this activity).

Note: This prompt is intended to be broad to encourage a wide variety of responses! If you are not sure how to respond, I will post a sample discussion response in the “Student Lounge” discussion on Wednesday. But if you don’t need it, don’t use it. I think our discussions are much more creative and engaging when everyone responds with their original thoughts and perceptions.

Investigating Balls (Running time 10:10)