| Competency 001 |
| Competency 001 The teacher understands human development processes and applies this knowledge to plan instruction and ongoing assessment that motivate students and are responsive to their developmental characteristics and needs. Reflection: Teachers must be knowledgeable of the developmental processes that occur in children during early childhood. During this time, there are many changes taking place in the child and teachers must aware of these changes in order to provide instruction that is developmentally appropriate. As a future educator, I must be mindful of the fact that not all students develop at the same pace and lessons must be tailored to meet the needs of all students. Teachers must be able to provide instructional lessons and activities that are haptic and engaging and allow for opportunities for the learners to conceptualize the newly acquired information. Allowing time to process and conceptualize or �chunk� the new knowledge is a necessity if students are to attain the deep understanding that we as teachers should be striving for. Recalling a list of facts in not the goal of the educational process. We want our students to be independent problem solvers who are able to explain how and why problems occur. This isn�t possible when they have bits and pieces of knowledge about a concept where they can ramble off facts. This only happens when the learners have been able to work with the new information, relate it to prior knowledge they already have about the concept, adjust the old schema to fit the newly acquired knowledge, and to think about their learning (metacognition). The teacher�s role is to provide opportunities for this deep understanding to take place. Evidence of Mastery: Session 4, Chapter 4 - Readers Response - How Children Learn Session 4, Application Activity |