Developmentally-Appropriate Classroom Development

Each year students enter my room with little to no experience in a large group settings. For this reason, I am always thinking about the appropriate learning development for each of my students and build lessons for each of their needs. Although I teach preschool currently I believe that no matter the grade level a teacher teaches they must always think about the appropriate developmental teaching practices that need to be embedded in their classroom (OES 1). Part of implementing developmentally appropriate teaching practices into my classroom is first understanding how my students learn and develop (OES 1.1). Research has shown that young children learn best through play situations. Preschool students are concrete learners so they need hands on materials that they can play with and manipulate. For this reason I set up centers and small groups that encourage my students to play and manipulate items. If I taught fourth or fifth grade students I would still start out lessons with manipulatives. Although these students are starting to learn how to process abstract concepts they still need the concrete concept first. Math is an excellent example where middle school students still need to be …show more content…
From the discussion board this week many of my fellow classmates shared how they have negative feelings about Math throughout school. I believe manipulatives can help take away some of those negative feelings students have about Math. The students can physically see how to solve a Math problem. The beginning stress of just seeing a problem on a worksheet is taken away from the students. They can relax, breath, and explore the concept being taught through the hands on learning. As a teacher I can slowly take away those manipulatives and start the student doing the abstract math concept on paper so they are able to achieve what they can without shutting down form just