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Developmentally-Appropriate Instruction Teaching Competency

Kelsey J. Hayes

Regent University
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Developmentally-Appropriate Instruction Teaching Competency

Introduction

A good teacher knows the content, but a great teacher knows her students. An enormous

part of serving the students well as a teacher is knowing what your students need based on their

age and who they are as individuals. Developmentally-appropriate instruction involves teaching

in such a way that caters to who the students are. According to Sue Bredekamp (1992),

“Knowledge of human development through the lifespan should be applied at all levels of

educational experience” (p. 31). In other words, excellent teachers must have knowledge of how

students learn and develop at different ages in order to teach them effectively. Hart et al. (1997)

define developmentally appropriate as “the relationship among age, culture, and individual

determinants of development” (p. 2). Over the course of my time in student teaching, I have

made it my mission to relate the instruction and curriculum that I teach to my students based on

their levels as 8th grade students, their cultural backgrounds, and their individuality.

Artifacts’ Rationale

Google Slides: B.L.A.C.K. SEL

For my first developmentally-appropriate instruction artifact, I created Social and

Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons for the entire school with my cooperating teacher and the

Student Support Specialist. During Black History Month, we decided to dedicate a week’s worth

of lessons highlighting the strong African Americans who still live today. We discussed Marcus

Robinson, creator of P-13 clothing, Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, Eric

Thomas, a motivational speaker and author, and Adrick “Boo” Hills, International Basketball

League player. We worked together to plan and come up with ideas for the SEL lessons, and

then we split up the days to where each of us did the research for our specific highlighted
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individual. For my day, I researched Kamala Harris and the impact she has had as a naturally

born activist and racially diverse individual. SEL is split up into four sections: Announcement,

Acknowledgement, Activity, and Reflection. Each of these categories allows students to process

through the topic of the day with their peers on a more age-appropriate and personal level. We

utilized creative slide templates, pictures, and age-appropriate lingo to relate to the students. For

instance, with Kamala Harris, I related her experiences to how middle school students can be

activists and stand up for what they believe in, no matter how young they are. Additionally, my

cooperating school is an extremely racially diverse school, so it was extremely important for me

to plan something for my students to see that anyone of any color can make a difference. For

these lessons, I worked with the Student Support Specialist, an intelligent and culturally aware

African American man, and he offered incredible feedback and perspective that me and my

cooperating teacher may not have had. Overall, these B.L.A.C.K. SEL lessons have been a

developmentally-appropriate way to discuss race and perspective with our students.

Google Slides & Google Form: Jumanji Elaboration Escape Room

As for my second artifact, I created a virtual escape room called the Jumanji Elaboration

Escape Room. 8th grade students tend to have a difficult time elaborating and going into detail,

so we allotted two days to work on this specific skill set. In order to make this skill building

more fun, I designed a Jumanji Elaboration Escape Room Google Slides presentation and a

Google Form to go along with it. Each student had their own copy of the Google Slides

presentation that they could edit on and complete each activity. The slideshow began with a fun,

comical video, created by one of my best friends from college, that explained how to play the

game. The students were trapped in Jumanji 3, and they had to complete four activities to escape,

which each had code that students needed to crack. Once students thought they had the code,
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they would copy and paste the code into the Google Form; the way the Google Form was created

is that students would get a message telling them to try again if they did not get it correct. I gave

the students two days to complete this assignment and to try to escape Jumanji. Finally, I had a

bonus round where students could leave Jumanji in style via helicopter, or receive ten extra

credit points, if they wrote a body paragraph based on a thesis statement given to them. This

activity allowed students to think critically, have fun while learning, and to be challenged by

their work. This assignment was developmentally-appropriate instruction that my students loved,

and I hope to create something similar again at some point.

Theory to Practice Reflection

Developmentally-appropriate teaching practices vary depending on the age group. Middle

school students, Carmichael et al. (2009) claim, “rely on pedagogical practices that trigger

situational interest and support adolescents’ needs for competence, autonomy, and social-

relatedness” (p. 73). In essence, middle school students need instruction that helps them gain full

understanding of a topic, encourages independence, and pushes them to interact with each other.

For the B.L.A.C.K. SEL lessons, students had to learn how to talk about a tense matter like race

and respect one another’s experiences with the subject matter. Furthermore, the SEL lessons

provide a variety of opportunities for students to interact with each other and work together in

groups, depending on the week. With the Jumanji Elaboration Escape Room, students had to

work independently and were challenged to escape in the allotted time while simultaneously

gaining competency in this area and learning how to take responsibility for their own work. Not

only this, but students got to work hands-on and in a fun, interactive environment to learn about

formulating details and elaborating during the escape room. Through these instructional

activities, I have seen how the time and effort of creating these lesson plans has paid off. Whilst I
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may not always have the ability to spend over four hours creating an escape room or to

collaborate with other teachers, creating developmentally-appropriate instruction is well worth it.
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References

Bredekamp, S. (1992). What is “developmentally appropriate” and why is it important? Journal

of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 63(6), 31-32. https://doi.org/10.1080/

07303084.1992.10606612

Carmichael, C., Callingham, R., Watson, J., & Hay, I. (2009). Factors influencing the

development of middle school students’ interest in statistical literacy. Statistics

Education

Research Journal, 8(1), 62-81. http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/serj

Hart, C. H., Burts, D. C., & Charlesworth, R. (1997). Integrated curriculum and developmentally

appropriate practice: Birth to age eight. State University of New York Press.