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Q. What is Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP)? Discuss any five principles

of DAP in detail.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children, a professional membership

organization, provides the definition of Developmentally Appropriate Practices. It defines

DAP as: “Developmentally appropriate practice requires both meeting children where they

are – which means that teachers must get to know them well – and enabling them to reach

goals that are both challenging and achievable.” These practices are based on history in early

education, research and from good thinking. They must be current, based on effective

approaches in learning and development. Further, NAEYC states, “Developmentally

Appropriate Practice is informed by what we know from theory and literature about how

children develop and learn.”

DAPs are practices that aid in child’s optimal development and learning. They are based on

playful approaches so that the children learn. It is the task of educators to recognize multiple

talents of young children and involve them in learning program. The goal of DAPs is to help

children realize and achieve their full potential in all the domains of development – physical,

cognitive, social, or emotional well-being. These practices must be appropriate with the

cultural, linguistic and social spheres of the children.

These practices are not meant to make the task easier. It requires the teachers to know the

strengths of children and design tasks that are both challenging and achievable. These best

practices are based on how children learn and develop. They are in lieu with the age of the

children and their developmental status. They are addressed to the individual as well as the

cultural and social contexts of the children. These practices embrace continuity as it directs a

tradition of quality early learning and change as it includes new research, knowledge and

science related to children’s development and learning. They should support children’s
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delight and wonder in learning, support their eagerness to learn and help them explore the

world and get connected to it.

These DAPs lead to the framing of principles and guidelines to support a teacher’s intentional

decision making for practice. The principles are based on three core considerations –

commonality, individuality and context.

Principle 1: For the overall development of a child, all the domains of development viz.,

physical, cognitive, social and emotional and linguistic, as well as learning approaches are

important. They support each other and are supported by each other. This principle works

even when the child is learning to crawl. Crawlers are not only gain physical development but

are even able to satisfy the curiosity of exploring the world. Another instance is of nutritious

food and sound sleep. It not only improves physical health but helps in memory recollection,

and social interactions, which in turn help in cognitive development. Early childhood

educators are to take of mostly of cognitive development but need to give ample attention to

other domains as they aid in developing general learning competencies and executive

functions like attention, memory, self-regulation, reasoning, problem solving and approaches

to learning. All these in turn prepare the children for challenging curriculum and learning at

school.

Principle 2: Playful learning helps in nurturing self-regulation, language skills, cognitive

skills and social competencies as well as curriculum knowledge across different disciplines.

Play can be of varied type for pre-school children. It ranges from self-directed to guided,

solitary, physical, social, cooperative, onlooker, fantasy, rule-based, etc. It may be indoor or

outdoor. The basic development of motor skills and fine-motor skills is largely based on play.

It allows the child to explore the world on its own terms, interact with it, express his feelings

and emotions about it, develop problem solving strategies and learn new skills and upgrade

already learnt. Play allows the child to learn language skills by communicating with other
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peers, learn socialization and develop cognitive abilities to deal with the real-life situations.

At times, the play can be related to fantasy too so as to develop the imaginative skills. Adults

can play the role of facilitator or a partner but adult involvement decreases the concept of

play for the kids. The educators should be careful not to involve too much while instructing

children for self-directed play. They can make comments, give suggestions and ask questions.

Thus, play helps in nurturing academic language, conceptual development and support

learning approaches so as to obtain long-term success.

Principle 3: The progress of development and learning be general but variations based on

cultural contexts, experiences and individual differences must be considered in DAPs. They

are designed to address the development of all domains, social, linguistic, cognitive,

emotional, problem solving, etc., at a general level i.e. without any distinction of gender,

caste, religion or creed. This helps in improving mental abilities so as to shift solving simple

routines to complex problems by making an apt strategy for each one. But the impact of

culture and language are felt during the learning of the children. For instance, in most of the

eastern cultures like India more emphasis is given to work in groups as socialization skills are

more important. The educators structure activities so that the children may solve problems as

directed by the adults. On the other hand, in most of the Western cultures, children are

encouraged to satisfy their knowledge curiosity independently. At the linguistic level,

western world favours monolingualism i.e. knowledge of one language while eastern

countries favour multilingualism i.e. knowledge of more than two languages. In a country

like India, the children become multilingual during their early school days. With the cultural

and linguistic differences, individual differences too are more important. Each child has a

unique speed of learning, some day quick some day slow. The educators need to keep all

these concepts in mind while applying learning approaches in the classroom.

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Principle 4: As active learners, children continuously partake in and organize information so

as to create meaning through relationships, interactions with their environments and overall

experiences. Children are experts in gathering new information by interacting with the world

and its components. They decipher the pattern and apply them to new situations. The impact

of culture does play an important role in this. It may favour social learning or individualized

learning. The infants are expert in complex thinking with or without the help of adults. The

task of the educators is to facilitate a play-based learning environment to help develop

various skills of the children. Social environment allows them to learn about the social biases

and racial prejudices too. The use of non-verbal signals becomes important with the peers.

Principle 5: For the development and learning of children, the use of technology and

interactive media should be done responsibly and intentionally so as to make it a valuable

tool. In the contemporary digital world, the use of technology is pervasive and essential for

all-round development of children. The concerns about excessive screen time, obesity, lack of

motor skills, etc. need to be taken care too. Keeping in mind these cautions, use of digital

media can allow educators to expose children to empower themselves by self-learning at self-

pace. For the teaching of the exceptional children, digital media is a boon. The learning and

improvement of new skills and new content becomes easy. The use of technology should be

not in terms of exploring the technology but in terms of exploring the content.

Q. Explain creativity equation and discuss major obstacles to creativity.

OR

Share your views about creativity (defining and explaining creativity) based on your

understanding from readings and class discussion.

Creativity is an attitude, a product, a process, a skill, set of personality traits and set of

environmental conditions.
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It is an attitude as seen when children try out new ideas, do things differently, explore

possibilities, imagine, engage in fantasy or day dream, challenge accepted ways of thinking.

It is a process as seen when an educator provides raw materials and allows the students to

work on their own.

Children enjoy their creativity when they finish a task given to them. This makes it product-

oriented.

Creativity as a skill is depicted in early childhood days, which is supported by practice. The

loss of practice in adulthood leads to loss of creativity.

Creativity can be explained as set of personality traits like openness to new and arbitrary

things or ideas, willingness to experiment, curious, flexible, sensible, individual, playful,

independent, etc.

Creativity as a set of environmental conditions include people, places, objects and

experiences. The greater the exposure of the child is to these conditions, the greater will be

the creativity.

In terms of mental process, creativity refers to producing something different and original,

new and different from existing. It, thus, includes concepts like originality, imagination,

divergent thinking and ability to create something new or to combine things in novel but

meaningful ways.

The creativity equation is nothing but the amalgamation of the above perspective of

definition of creativity. It is the combination of unconditional love, acceptance,

encouragement and nurturance from adults like family members, relatives, friends and

teachers. The adults should allow the children to do things on their own so as to make things

happen. The trust of the adults allows the children to develop competence and improve self-

esteem. When the children are able to make something on their own, they are able to gee

good and motivate self to do more challenging tasks. The ability to take risk increases, which
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makes the children feel even more self-dependent or independent. They are ready and feel

safe to take risk so as to expose and enhance their creativity.

Obstacles to Creativity:

The factors that restrict creativity are:

 Parents:

Creative children are mostly against authority, limits imposed on them, adult logic and

explanations. They have a unique way of doing and explaining things, which do not match

with the parents. The parents consider such views as odd, immature, abnormal and naughty.

This is due to the gap created between the expectations of the parents and the dreams of the

creative children. A student was very creative in painting but parents were inclined to make

him an engineer. Such clashes prove disastrous in many cases. Hence, parents need to be

made aware of the creative power the of the child so as not to be an obstacle but nurturer of

the same.

 School:

The school environment is based on conformity and convergent thinking while the creative

child is based in non-conformity and divergent thinking. This compels the teacher to try and

tame the creativity by insult or punishment. Many strong-headed creative children find such

classrooms as non-creative and confining. The teacher needs to know and value creativity of

the child and even encourage the child to follow the creativity along with curricular activities.

 Sex roles:

The pre-defined sex roles for boys and girls do hinder the creativity of the children. It

compels the boys to be more active, strong and independent while wants the girls to be more

passive, gentle and dependent. This prevents them from selecting their choice of field for

study or career, leading to subduing their creative talent of a particular field. A girl interested

in engines is prevented to take more interest as engineering is more a field for boys rather
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than girls. This mars the creativity of the girl to make new machines or to put old machines to

new uses.

 Society, culture and tradition:

Society, culture and tradition refer to a set of behaviour, values and attitudes. For instance,

the taboos of the culture prevent a child to learn and make creative use of the things she/he is

interested in. Traditional families forces their kids to select traditional careers for which the

kids are not prepared. They wish to select creative arts while family wants them to be

commercial minded. Such situations often results in victory of the traditions as the children

are not economical independent enough to make a path for self. Thus, individuality is

sacrificed for values of society, culture and tradition.

Q. Discuss the teacher’s role as a facilitator.

During the early childhood period, the teacher is the most ideal person in the life of a

children. They see the teacher as role model, neglecting even the parents. A number of things

can be done by teacher so as to encourage creativity among the students.

 Value the creative ideas and absurd thoughts so as to provide conducive environment.

 Encourage divergent thinking, not force established thoughts and values.

 Students should be encourage to inform about their creative thinking without any

form of embarrassment.

 Provide them with ample opportunities to develop varied means of expressions.

 Allow children to be independent and avoid spoon-feeding.

 Provide enough space to students to think differently to solve problems

 Teachers should act only as facilitator in problem solving rather than answer provider.

 Avoid comparing or evaluating the work

 Encourage creativity by uncritical comments, statements on patterns, designs, etc.

 Teacher should try and be a partner in the creativity of the student.

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 Provide conducive environment and required materials to the student so as to facilitate

creative thinking

 Curricular activities and tasks be so designed as to help bring out the creativity of the

students.

REFERENCES:

1. https://extension.psu.edu/programs/betterkidcare/early-care/tip-pages/all/exploring-

developmentally-appropriate-practice

2. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap/definition