THE ENCOURAGING CLASSROOM
Creating a positive learning environment is essential to developing and managing an encouraging classroom where optimal learning and development can occur. Reflect on how creating an encouraging classroom involves many components, including applying the concepts of DAP, classroom arrangement and schedule, and effective communication. Section 1: Classroom Arrangement, Learning Centers Describe a learning center you have or would implement for a particular age group (share the age group). Why is it a developmentally appropriate practice for that specific age group? How does your learning center promote learning through investigation and discovery? Share how it supports prosocial behavior and the development of problem solving skills. Include connections between engagement and avoiding mistaken behaviors. Section 2: Classroom Schedule, Balancing Routine in the Child-Centered Classroom Classroom schedules can create the routine and predictability that allows children to feel safe in their environment and thus take appropriate risks in their learning.[unique_solution] Discuss how you plan to balance the stability and reliability of a schedule with the opportunity of spontaneous learning that follows children′s curiosity and interests. How will this balance promote engagement and reduce mistaken behaviors? Section 3: Communication to Support the Encouraging Classroom Professional, appropriate, and open communication results in the empowerment of children and families. Finally, discuss how communication supports the encouraging classroom. Include teacher-child, child-teacher, teacher-parent, and parent-teacher communication in your reflective sharing. In a 3-page Reflection paper, discuss elements in Sections 1-3 above. Your paper should include: 1. Describe at least one Learning Center and how it promotes development across the domains. 2. Describe the encouraging classroom and how it relates to DAP. 3. Describe the encouraging classroom and how it relates to both schedule and routine. 4. Describe the encouraging classroom and how it relates to communication. 5. APA formatted title and reference pages as well as in text citation where appropriate. 6. Proper grammar is used. Submit your completed assignment to the drop box below. Please check the Course Calendar for specific due dates. Save your assignment as a Microsoft Word document. (Mac users, please remember to append the ″.docx″ extension to the filename.) The name of the file should be your first initial and last name, followed by an underscore and the name of the assignment, and an underscore and the date. An example is shown below: Jstudent_exampleproblem_101504