•A curriculum may refer to a

system, as in a national curriculum;

an institution, as in a school
curriculum; or even to an individual
school, as in the school geography
curriculum. (Scott, 2008)

•Refers to the lessons and academic

content taught in a school or in a
specific course or program. In
dictionaries, curriculum is often
defined as the courses offered by a
school, but it is rarely used in such
a general sense in schools.
(Hidden curriculum (2014, August 26). In S. Abbott (Ed.), The glossary
of education reform. Retrieved from http://edglossary.org/hidden-
•Entails the biological,
psychological and
emotional changes that
occur in human beings
between birth and the end
of adolescence, as the
individual progresses from
dependency to increasing
autonomy. It is a
continuous process with a
predictable sequence yet
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
Julia Weber (1954)
1. Those who wish to improve
curriculum must acquire a thorough
and detailed knowledge of the
scientific finding concerning all
aspects of human growth and
development. Broad conclusion and
generalization are not enough.
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
2. Colleges and universities could
well build into their curriculums the
experiences of continually
gathering pertinent data from the
accumulating research in many
sciences, and putting the pieces of
research into a synthesized whole
which could contribute to the
development of total concepts.
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
3. Those who wish to learn to
improve curriculum must also study
children as individuals. Each
individual is unique. Records of
each individual’s growth,
development and behaviour through
time should be basic data for
curriculum decisions. Evaluation of
growth and progress, too, can be
based only on such comprehensive
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
4. Those who wish to prepare
themselves for curriculum building
must patiently and objectively
observe of individual children and
seek to understand its meaning.
5. Only those who live and work
with children day by day can add
significantly to our understanding
of ways of working with children.
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
6. The administrative staff will also
have to be involved in the direct
study of children in the same
initmate and detailed way.

7. Children, too, must be

participants in curriculum building.
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
8. Parents must also be involved in
a partnership with teachers to a
degree unexplored at the present
time.
9. The involvement of parents ic
curriculum building means that
they too must become acquainted
with the scientific information
available and with the facts of
development of each of their own
children.
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
10. Methods of curriculum building
also will need to be changed. It is
no longer possible to construct
curriculum with bulletins that lay
out fixed plans like blueprints.
Curriculum is not a document, it is
11. Nor or a curriculum study and
a process.
plans any longer be made by a
committee that hands on the
conclusions to others to use.
 Child Development
Implications for
Curriculum Building
10. If experimentation is resultant
action are to be effective, those who
desire to improve the curriculum
must learn gradually and with
increasing skill to use the scientific
method.
11. Expre,mentation such as the
forgoing obviously requires the
joint efforts of those who is
expected to implement the finding.
 DA
Developmentally

P
Appropriate
Practices
 Developmentally
Appropriate
DA •
Practices
often shortened to DAP, is an

P approach to teaching grounded in

the research on how young
children develop and learn and in
what is known about effective
early education. Its framework is
designed to promote young
children’s optimal learning and
development. (NAEYC)
 •DAP, or Developmentally
Appropriate Practice,
DA encompasses a wider set of
beliefs and practices, which

P are professed by many experts

in the field of early education
and child development to be
“best practice” for teaching
young children, from birth to 8.
 • According to the National
Association for the Education of
DA Young Children (NAEYC) DAP
encourages teachers to make

P choices about education based

on sound knowledge of child
development and learning
processes while taking into
account individual differences
and needs, as well as social and
cultural constructs.
 •Considering DAP while
creating policy, curriculum,
DA and individual learning
environments yields the best
P results because it is based on
what is known through
research and observation and
recognized widely in the
field of early education as
best teaching practices.  It is
built from what we know
 3 Core Considerations
of
DA Developmentally Appropriate
1. Knowing about
Practices child

P development
learning
and
Knowing what is typical at each
age and stage of early
development is crucial. This
knowledge, based on research,
helps us decide which
experiences are best for
 •Development as expressed in
the NAEYC paper focuses on

DA
view that children evolve
incrementally. where the age of
children is significant.
P •DAP as a perspective for
framing curriculum
development suggests that
practices must meet the
development expectations that
have been identified as
occurring in relation to
 •Rogoff (2011) argues that
schooling structures reinforce

DA
the importance of age in
curriculum through having
classes of children who are all in
P the same ages.

•The practice of separating

children into classes and
“rooms” in terms of their age
became an accepted educational
practice and is something that is
usually qiuestioned.
 3 Core Considerations
of
DA Developmentally Appropriate
2. Knowing
Practiceswhat is

P individually appropriate.
What we learn about specific
children helps us teach and care for
each child as an individual. By
continually observing children’s play
and interaction with the physical
environment and others, we learn
about each child’s interests, abilities,
 •You can’t very well
create a one-size-fits-all
DA approach, implement it
across the board, and call
P it DAP because the entire
philosophy implies an
attention not only to
general developmental
levels, but those of
individuals as well.
 •According to Carol
Copple and Sue Bredekamp,

DA authors
Basics of Developmentally
of 

Appropriate Practice
P , teachers who practice
DAP meet learners where
they are (not necessarily
where they should be) and
take into consideration all
the developmental areas of
 3 Core Considerations
of
DA Developmentally Appropriate
3. Knowing
Practiceswhat is

P culturally important.
We must make an effort to get to know the
children’s families and learn about the
values, expectations, and factors that shape
their lives at home and in their
communities. This background information
helps us provide meaningful, relevant, and
respectful learning experiences for each
child and family.
 •NAEYC has included direct
references to culturally

DA
appropriate practices, in
recognition that variations in
children’s development will
P arise due to cultural practices
and beliefs.
•Children with greater social
competence are those who
have had more life
experiences at an early age.
 Basic principles of child
development that guide
DA the
practitioners
decisions of
of DAP
P
By NAEYC Paraphrased by
Amanda Morgan

1. All domains of child

development (social,
emotional, physical,
cognitive) are important
and interrelated.
 2. Many aspects of child
development follow

DA a consistent documented
progression, with later skills

P
and proficiencies building
upon the others already
acquired.
3. Rates of development
vary from child to child and
even vary between domains
of development within the
 4. Development and learning
takes place within the

DA dynamic interaction of both

biological maturation and
personal experience.
P 5. Early experiences have
profound effects, and there
are optimal periods for
certain types of learning and
development.
 6. Development
builds towards greater
DA complexity, self-
regulation,
P and representational
thinking capabilities.
7. Children learn best
within caring and
positive
relationships with adults
 8. Development and learning
occur in and are  influenced
by society and culture.
DA 9. Children are always
seeking to understand the
P world around them. They
learn in a variety of ways and
therefore a variety of teaching
methods and learning
experiences should be offered
to reach those different
 10. Play is an important
vehicle for developing self-

DA regulation as well as social,

language, and cognitive
development.
P 11. Development and learning
are advanced when children
are challenged just above
their competency and when
they have many opportunities
to practice new skills.
 12.
Children’s experiences sh
DA ape their motivation and
approach to learning
P (persistence, initiative,
flexibility) and these
dispositions in turn
influence their learning
and development
Cultural and
historical
view on
development
 • is a theoretical
Cultural
and framework[ which
historical helps to understand
view on and analyse the
developme relationship
nt
between the human
mind (what people
think and feel) and
activity (what
 • This theory focuses
Cultural
and on not only
historical individual learning
view on and the influences
developme adults and peers
nt
have on learning,
but on how cultural
beliefs and attitudes
affect instruction
 • Vygotsky stated that
Cultural "children are born with
and basic biological
historical constraints on their
view on minds. Each culture,
developme however, provides what
nt he referred to as 'tools of
intellectual adaption.'
These tools allow
children to use their basic
mental abilities in a way
Cultural
and
Core Ideas:
historical  1. Humans act
view on
developme
collectively, learn
nt by doing, and
communicate in
and via their
actions.
Cultural
and
Core Ideas:
historical  2. humans
view on
developme make, employ,
nt
and adapt tools
of all kinds to
learn and
Cultural
and
Core Ideas:
historical 3. community is
view on central to the process
developme of making and
nt
interpreting meaning –
and thus to all forms
of learning,
communicating, and
Cultural Vygotsky (1998) suggested
and that a child’s chronological age
was not a reliable criterion for
historical
determining a child’s
view on development. He argued that
developme “Development as a continuous
nt process of self-propulsion is
characterized primarily by the
continuous appearance and
formation of new which did
not exist at previous ages”
Cultural
and
historical
view on
developme
nt
Cultural Zone of
and
historical
Proximal
view on Development
ensures the difference
developme between what the learner
nt can do by themselves,
what they can do with
guidance and what they
are not yet able to do.
Cultural Zone of
and
historical
Proximal
The theory of the zone of
view on Development
proximal development was
developme created to argue against the use
nt of academic, knowledge-based
testing to gain understanding of
students' intelligence. This
concept was also introduced to
develop further Jean Piaget's
theory of children being lone