DEVELOPMENTALLY-APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTION 1

Developmentally-Appropriate Instruction

Alyssa Brock

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Fall, 2020

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Introduction

“All teaching practices should be appropriate to children’s age and developmental status,

attuned to them as unique individuals, and responsive to the social and cultural contexts in which

they live.” (Mincemoyer, 2016). My classroom placement is a third-grade class with a few

gifted students and several more that understand and progress quickly though most topics. The

first artifact I have for this competency is a hands-on science activity that gave students their first

chance to do a fun in-class activity with their hands after weeks of virtual learning. The second

artifact is a math activity meant to engage them in a fun puzzle while practicing the subtraction

skills they were working on and challenge them with practice that was a bit more involved than

their usual few math problems.

Rationale for Artifacts

The first artifact for this competency is a hands-on science activity on the physical

properties of matter. In this activity, students were supposed to each put their hands in a box of

objects, feel them, then try to figure out what the objects were as a class. We couldn’t have

students all touching the same things or getting too close to each other with the current social

distancing and safety guidelines, so I changed this activity so students would each have their own

paper bag with their own items. For the items, I used objects from a forested area that could be

thrown away or tossed back outside after students touched them. Students each felt their own

objects in their stapled-shut bags, wrote down what they felt and a guess of each item, then

opened their bags to see what they guessed right. This was used as a fun opening activity for a

unit on physical properties. I chose this activity for this competency because it is an activity that

I put a lot of time and effort into to make it work for social distancing and safety guidelines

because I wanted students to be able to have something fun they could stand up and do with their
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hands. This was important because the students had been complaining that they were tired of

doing all their work on a computer screen. These students are almost all eight years old and

claim they are not used to spending so much time in front of a screen so this was the first chance

they had to start learning with their hands this year.

The second artifact for this competency is a subtraction with five-digit numbers activity

students were given during small group time for individual practice when they were not in a

group. It was an individual work activity that they were allowed to discuss with other nearby

classmates. It is a code worksheet where students have a chart of the alphabet with each letter

being a number. There is a riddle to solve, “how do you fix a broken pumpkin?”, and students

would solve this by completing each math problem, writing in the letter that matches their

answer, and reading the code out at the end. I chose this activity for this competency because

this was meant to practice the subtraction skills students have been working on as well as give

them a bit of a challenge with large numbers that included subtracting with zeros and borrowing.

These students also enjoy figuring out riddles and silly jokes so I wrote this activity to meet

those interests and engage them in the puzzle part of it while practicing the necessary skills.

Reflection

"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." (Copple, 2009). One topic I remember well from several

of my Regent courses is the importance of relationships with students and having an

understanding of each individual student’s abilities and interests. Having that connection with

each student is crucial to the teacher’s ability to engage students in learning, to build on already

known skills in a way that best fits the learner, and to earn the respect of students. Without this
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knowledge and these relationships, students will be far less likely to show a willingness to learn.

If the student doesn’t feel their needs are being met, the work is too challenging or too easy, the

work is uninteresting, or that the teacher doesn’t understand them as an individual, they won’t

learn.
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References

Mincemoyer, C., 2016. Exploring Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP). [online] Better

Kid Care (Penn State Extension). Available at: http://bkc-od-

media.vmhost.psu.edu/documents/TIPS1401.pdf

Copple, Carol and Sue Bredekamp, editors. Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early

Childhood Programs: Serving Children from Birth through Age 8, 3rd Edition.

Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2009.