English Question
1 Closing The Achievement Gap In Early Childhood Education Emily Houghton Department of Education, Vermont State University ECE-3840-S01: Advanced Early Childhood Development Professor Heather Duhamel February 19, 2024 2 In education, one of the most pressing challenges that educators face is the pervasive achievement gap. The achievement gap refers to disparities in academic performance and attainment, it often correlates with factors such as race, socioeconomic status, and mental and physical abilities. Early Childhood Education helps shape a child’s language, physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. The early years of a childs education is the most critical time to address the achievement gap and help bridge it. All Children should have access to high-quality education. The works of scholars such as Debra Ren-Etta Sullivan and Julie Bullard offer us valuable insights into the issues of the achievement gap and strategies to address it. Educators can bridge the achievement gap through understanding cultural differences and expanding on our cultural intelligence; through children engagement basing curriculum off childrens interests, multiple intelliegiences, and learning styles; progress monitoring through use of assessment tools; having a shared power& control, shared classroom, sharing discourse, establishing routines, and involving families and communities in their childrens education. Sullivan emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and valuing the cultural backgrounds of all students within the classroom, especially black children. Educators can acknowledge and value culture backgrounds by providing culturally relevant course content and materials, literature, resources, and experiences that reflect cultural backgrounds within the classroom. Teachers can also increasing their knowledge of culture through investing time learning about other cultures and learning about their own culture (Sullivan, 2016, pg 67). Cultural elements that are 3 easily seen and identified are food, dress, music, art, crafts, dance, literature, language, celebrations, and games. I plan to include culturally diverse books and toys on my classroom shelves. I plan to label the shelves and toy bins in the diverse students language and English. I plan to also acknowledge my childrens cultural differences by enabling their cultural food differences at breakfast and lunch time. For example, the student can only eat fish and not other meats due to their culture. I will provide the childs meal with fish for every lunch throughout the week for that student. I will not serve the child other meats. However, with family approval, I will offer opportunities for the children in my classroom to taste different cultural foods and ask them open ended questions. I will also integrate culture into my curriculum through incorporating culturally diversw books, music, art, games, and share knowledge about classmates holidays or traditions that they celebrate through their heritage, and include photos of historical figures that resonate with their cultural identity around my classroom. For January, I can share about Martin Luther King Jr I have a dream and show the class a picture of him. I can then read the book “Follow Your Dream Little One” that mentions culturally diverse prominent figures that have left their mark on the world through music, politics, art, science, and engineering. I can then extend it to asking the children about their own dreams or people in their culture that influence their work and understandings. When something is culturally relevant it just makes sense, it is most natural. When we put culture in our lessons our children will have a better understanding and be more engaged within classroom activities. Gaining competency in a culture takes years and years of continuous learning and growth. Through cross-cultural competency teachers can adapt effectively in cross cultural 4 situations and interactions (Sullivan, 2016, pg 66). Having cross-cultural competency can help lower the chance of Black Children being labeled as “special needs”. Teachers can make the children that our culturally diverse in our classroom to feel understood and accepted. Which makes children want to be on their best behaviors and fully engaged and produce their best work. I plan to expand my cultural intelligence through questioning my assumptions about people, understanding my knowledge of my own own culture by asking my relatives, researching databases on my culture, and reading books about my culture. As well as investing time into learning about the childrens cultures in my classroom through researching articles on databases and reading books. I also plan to collaborate with the parents and discuss their cultural and understanding to gain knowledge. I will also use vocal, face, and outward expression to demonstrate awareness of verbal and nonverbal behavioral responses in other cultures (Sullivan, 2016, pg 67). I never knew of ways before this class to help further create a culturally welcoming class environment. I plan to use these strategies now. In my curriculum I can focus on children interests and implement self reflection to continually assess and address any bias or assumptions that could impact my interaction with students in my curriculum and learning experiences (Bullard, 2020). Increasing childrens engagement is critical to addressing the achievement gap and overcoming it. Sullivan (2016) states that “All ponies on the merry-go-round are different, but they all get the chance to be at the front. Each child should have the same chance” (pg 36). Education is not “one size fits all” (Sullivan, 2016, pg 13). In my classroom, I incorporate a variety of different learning styles in my learning 5 experience activities and I plan to in incorporate them in future lessons. For example, in my farm unit I let the infant toddlers use a farm felt board with velcro farm animals and named the animals as the children pulled one off the felt board and I also pulled out farm animal figures for my children that learn best through a experiential/tactile learning style. In our farm unit we played various farm songs such as Old MCdonalds had a farm, The Animals On The Farm Say, and Farmer in the Dell and have them imitate sounds for my auditory learning styles. I also had some children observing their classmates during these experiences. For my talkers that learn best through a interactive learnings style, I like to ask open ended questions and encourage their language and gestures. The most successful and effective learning environment incorporates different approaches to learning for learners to find the best fit (Sullivan, 2016, pg 13). All learning styles are valuable and equal, their is none better than the other. When teachers understand their childrens learning styles, it enables them to create environments that are exciting, rich, dynamic, and interesting (Sullivan, 2016, pg 35). It is also important to understand multiple intelligences some children may be good with bodily/kinesthetics, they know how to use and move their body effectively. They communicate through body language including making things or touching. Bodily/Kinesthetic learners might thrive with hands-on activities and acting situations out. Some children are interpersonal, they can understand and read others. They enter groups and join conversations easily and pay attention to social cues. Some children may be visual learners and learn best when things are presented with words or images. Some children learn best through auditory. They learn best through audioectures, discussions, and audio recordings like podcasts. Some children may 6 be logical/mathematical, they can understand sequencing and patterns. Some children may be musical/rythmic, they may have a musical ear, be good with instruments, understand patterns, understand harmonies, and the conversation of music. Some children may be Linguistic/Verbal, they are strong readers, writers, or speakers. They may adapt well to learning multiple languages (Sullivan, 2016, pp 38-39). Having an understanding of the different learning styles and multiple intelleginces are strategies that can be used to plan a curriculum that meets the needs of every child and allows for an understanding of childs interests to help engage children in learning new materials by making it easer to retain and apply in future schooling lesson and personal experiences.Understanding these learning styles and multiple intelligences allows teachers to see children behaviors in a different way (Sullivan, 2016, pg 46). The fidgeter may be better with body/kinesthetically, the child that shouts out answers or talks to themselves may be gifted in the area of Linguistic/verbal multiple intelligence. The child looking the other way be processing the information and an auditory listener (Sullivan, 2016, pg 45). We can encourage the use multiple intellegiences and learning styles when planning curriculum and designing our classroom for play. There are many different definitions of curriculum in fact Bullard (2020) shares with us that Understanding By Design (ubD) found 83 different definitions of curriculum in education literature (pg 2). I plan to define curriculum in my future as the textbook defines it “a roadmap that teachers use to assist learners in meeting desired outcomes” (Bullard, 2020, pg 3). I plan to use Backward Design framework for my future curriculum. This is my first time learning about the Backward Designs and it 7 really makes sense to me. The teacher focuses on determining the desired results, decides how to assess the results, and then plans learning experiences (Bullard, 2020, pg 8-9). Backward design focuses on outputs rather than the inputs. Bullard (2020) states that “The emphasis on outputs rather than inputs allows a focus on deeper, content-rich curriculum, higher level thinking, transferability of learning, and increased learner understanding” (pg 9). Planning backwards allows for teachers to determine enduring understandings and essential questions to engage children in higher level thinking. Enduring understandings allows the concepts or big ideas that we are teaching to be transferable and can be refined as children move to the next grade levels and in at home or in their community (Bullard, 2020, pg 11). I currently plan my curriculum around objectives/indicators included in the Vermont Early Learning Standards and NAEYC standards. I can write the VELs shorthand on my lesson templates and this can also be done still through using Backward Design framework. In the future, I now will focus on my desired outcome first (what I want the children to know and understand), which objective I want to focus on, plan how I will assess them throughout the lesson to see what they have learned, and then plan my learning experiences. Before this class I have always planned the learning experiences first and then chose which objectives they met by observing them through anecdotal notes and checklists. We can help bridge the achievement gap through building relationships with our children and their families. Sullivan (2016) state that “the first key step in building authentic relationships is listening. Listen to parents, ask questions, do not draw your own conclusions about anything (what they want, how they feel, their home lives, 8 their neighborhoods, their values, and their experiences)” (pg 116). All relationships take time to build. It will take time for parents to get to know you and trust you with their child (Sullivan, 2016, pg 116). We can build these relationships by sharing goals & expectations, sharing power & control, sharing discourse & ideas, and sharing the classroom (Sullivan, 2016). Also, through understanding the childs family by asking questions. Before a child comes to my classroom they fill out a form with a bunch of questions these questions are related to parents jobs and work schedules, family structure, religions or traditions, celebrated holidays, family interests, childs own personal interests (food, toys, activities), childs sleep and feeding schedule, language preferences, child medical and developmental history, as well as families goals for the child. We also offer open house to have conversation to get to know the child and revisit goals. It is important first to have a conversion with the parent or guardian about goals for their children and then also to have a conversation with the children about goals they have for themselves. My classroom holds parent-teacher conferences twice a year to discuss goals with the parents or the childs guardians. At this time, I am able to show the parents/guardians the objectives/indicators for the childs age level that we use for VELs and on Teaching Strategies Gold. I am also able to share with them the milestones at different age levels with print outs from online. Some may be personal goals when younger relating to sleep habits and nutrition/eating. I also share observations that I have made so far. As a teacher I also share classroom goals and hold high expectations for my classroom. I keep my expectations meetable that does not cause the children to be super stressed out.. The goals resemble the same for parent, teachers, and children (Sullivan, 2016, o. It 9 is important to be on the same page about goals and expectations to not confuse the child. Having high expectations set allows for my classroom to not be chaotic and we can engage effectively in a calm learning environment to meet our goals. High expectations also hold children accountable for their actions/behaviors and acts as a motivator for the children to do well. Students do better academically when expectations are set high. Some expectations are put in place to keep the children safe. The expectation create a level of trust and respect between the student and teacher. Sullivan emphasized in her novel that culturally diverse children also learn better through high expectations and that parents do want their children to have high expectations set in school (Sullivan, 2016, pg 90). Once goals are established. I monitor children’s progress through assessments tools. Children should be assesses to determine a childs developmental level, establish learning goals, plan an effective curriculum, ato decide whether children are progressing, and to screen for possible disbabilities. Assessments that I use in my classroom include writteb observations in my notebooks, a sticky note, or on my observation classroom wall. I write a lot anecdotal notes or running records. I write my observation down as detailed as possible and try to be anti-bias. My observations also include the date, time, setting, and the childs initials. Observations can also be shared on our school tablet on an app called Bright Wheel. Parents and teachers can communicate everything on this app such as observations, diapering, feeding, or when children are with service providers. I also put all my observations into a online program called Teaching Strategies Gold. Once I put in my observation I use a rating scale on the platform to determine what level the child is at in meeting their goal. I choose the 10 objective/indicator that the observation reflects and check mark what number level they are at based of colored bands that represent the childs age and stage level. I can share these scores with families on the platform. I also use a checklist for milestones in my classroom. I also fill out ASQs for the children in my classroom tstruggling with goals/milestones and have their parent fill one out to determine if a child needs additional support services. In my classroom children receive services after filling out the ASQ for things such as speech, fine motor, gross motor, or feeding. Their are times where I have also used time sampling to be able to make changes to my classroom to help behaviors from occurring. Time sampling is done by dividing my paper into three columns A.B.C. In column A, I can write what occurred before the incident/behavior, column B I can write what behavior occurred, and column C I can write what occurred after the behavior. Sullivan (2016) states that it is the childs education and they should have opportunities to take some responsibility for it (Sullivan, 2016, pg 93). In my classroom I allow choices. I believe it is important to teach children self-control. I plan to let my children get a tissue or use the bathroom when needed, even during my lessons. Needs of children need to be met first before they will learn and engage. Sometimes it is ok to let a situation play out with both children and see how they problem-solve their issue. Giving power & control to children in the classroom builds self-esteem and hold the children accountable for their work and actions. It allows them to make appropriate decisions for themselves. It helps motivate the children to be leaders in the classrooms. I plan to allow my class to take a step back when needed and let them do what they want to do for an activity. I can expand learning on 11 the activities they choose to do and the questions they have they want me to answer. I can also ask open ended questions to see what the children know or want to know more about. I can do this also by sharing discourse of ideas. I plan to allow my children talk to their peers during lessons and activities. I now have a new outlook on this situation from Sullivan. I never realized that children could be talking about the lesson and sharing their ideas or asking their peers questions. Sullivan (2016) states that “opening up the discourse to include children more creates wonderful opportunities for connecting dots between what you are teaching and what children are thinking”. Bullard agrees with encouraging dialogue in the classroom. She state when we encourage dialogue everyone everyone is focused on learning. Children can learn as much from their peers as they do from the teacher. Children build upon each other thinking and responses (Bullard, 2020, pg 150). The child might be coaching themselves through the task or maybe reading out load and thinking out loud helps them learn better (Sullivan, 2016, pg 94-97). I currently use routines in my classroom. Routines offer structure for children and create smooth transitions. The children can expect what is about to happen such as after diapering or breakfast or lunch. Routine support cognitive and social emotional development (Sullivan, 2016, pg 101). I now however, have a new take on routines. Sullivan (2016) says “sharing the daily routine means finding that balance between structure, opportunity, and flexibility. This balance is important because the daily routine cannot just be about a schedule of teaching activities. It has to be about learning” (pp 101- 102). I plan to take advantage of learning opportunities during routines like at lunch time, free play, and toileting. I also plan to continue on a few minutes longer with a task that children seem 12 more engage in even if it adds ten minutes and goes into another portion of the schedule. Being flexible and making these adjustments will allow the children in my classroom to feel accomplished and not rushed for the next thing on the todays to do list. Sullivan (2016) states “Sharing the room means that each year the children coming into the room have some input regarding what’s on the walls and bulletin boards, what cultures are represented, and even what additional learning objects and materials need to be included” (pg 97). I currently share the room with my children by sharing walls of art work completed by my students daily. I have cord across the wall that I hang up art work on, as well as a bulletin board. This makes the children in my classroom feel valued and build self-esteems. They feel that they done excellent work, which they have. Displaying the work also build the relationship with families because they see we are proud of their childrens work and care about their children. It is important to have a variety of toys out that can encourage children to problem solve and ask questions. I currently create centers in my classroom. I have a dramatic play center for kitchen and dolls, I have a reading corner, a block center, and currently a free play center with shelves of different types of trucks, farm animals, balls, and music instruments, which my children are currently interested in. It allows also for a variety of learning styles such as visual, auditory, and experiential/tactile. I also share a bulletin board for community events that occur in the area of the school and for school events that take place throughout the year. This also further builds relationships with families. My classroom holds a popsicle play date during the summer. Family or friends can attend the event and eat popsicles with their children on the playground. In the winter 13 time, we do dollar ice skate day where family and friend can skate with the children, and family sled day, where parents or family can sled with their children down our hill in the schools yard. We do a hulaballoo family night in our classroom where the children get to dance in the middle of the classroom and families engage and talk with each other. We hold breakfast with buddies where family or friends can enjoy breakfast in the classroom with the child and do an activity set up by the teacher. Our school as a whole sets up community events like trunk or treats; parades; EMS, fire truck, and police day; traffic safety day; and fundraising events. Events are shared on our classroom bulletin board, the bulletin board in the schools lobby, online through social media, and on the school webpage. I also tell my families in person about the events. Bridging the achievement gap in early childhood education requires a comprehensive approach that addresses the complex factors contributing to disparities in learning outcomes. It takes effort by teachers, parents, children themselves, and the community. We can bridge the achievement gap by understanding cultural differences in the classroom; having an understanding of multiple intelliegience and learning styles and incorporating those learning styles and interests into curriculum; through sharing power & control, sharing discourse, sharing the classroom, establishing routines; establishing goals ,and monitoring those goals through ongoing assessments to identify areas for improvement and tailor our efforts to meet the unique needs of each child. 14 References Bullard, J. (2020). Creating Curriculum in Early Childhood: Enhanced Learning Through Backward Design. Routledge. Sullivan, D. R.-E. (2016). Cultivating the Genius of Black Children: Strategies to Close the Achievement Gap in the Early Years (First ed.). Redleaf Press.
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