Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Encouraging Choices
I came across this article, http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=607, which stated the importance of giving children a choice to their learning which emphasized that this approach to learning is child centered and not teacher centered. This sounds similar to what Mr. Glassman was preaching to us on Monday! The article stated that it is more beneficial for a child to have different options to choose from. This allows children to find out what they're interested in and enjoy it much better while they're actually learning! Giving children choices at a young age allows them to "practice the skills of independence and responsibility, while adults help guard their health and safety by controlling and monitoring the options." From having the opportunity to make their own decisions children's self-esteem rises when they have mastered something--especially since they have done it on their own. The article continued on with other benefits that result when children are allowed to make their own choices: cognitive development, moral development, accepting responsibility, minimizing conflict, and maximizing learning. Each benefit is explained further on how and why giving children the choices gives these results, I suggest you look further on the website! The article has argued very great points and it seems like it would work, but how come we don't do this in most schools today?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is extremely interesting that you mentioned this article. I work at a daycare that is in the process of changing some of their learning curriculum to choice. Instead of assigning children to their learning centers, children will be given the opportunity to make their own choice as to where they want to go, and long as there are not a certain amount of children already in that center. I, as well as many of my coworkers, have been very apprehensive about this change and whether the children will be able to handle the responsibility of choice. Seeing an article like this and your post really helps to enlighten this idea that we will be putting in our daycare. Giving children the power of choosing their own learning centers will help to minimize the conflict which can be common in some classrooms, as well as teach them responsibility of choosing their centers.
ReplyDeleteI'm all about students of all ages being given a choice. I'm a nanny and I learned pretty quickly that if I give the three year old a choice she is much more likely to to do what I'm asking. The key is to give her choices but all that I approve of. I don't even give her the option to chose something I would allow. This way she feels like she has a say over her life. This works with people of all ages, I feel like if this was just somewhat incorporated into the education process things would run more smooth.
ReplyDelete