Running head: Culmination Paper 1

Culmination Paper

Susana Ramirez

Pacific Oaks College

HD450-1P Reflective Teaching

04/11/2017
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This culmination paper is an overview of six early education program observations

conducted for the Reflective Teaching course at Pacific Oaks College. This paper will provide a

brief description of the programs and children I observed. As well provide a comparison and

contrast analysis of the Cognitive, Emotional, Language, Physical and Social development of the

children I observed. In addition, I will provide an overview of the resources and information

given in this class and how I applied it to my observations. Lastly I will give my own personal

reflection of my journey in this class, the lessons I learned and my overall experience conducting

these observations.

These six observations where conducted in four different early education programs.

These programs are private and publicly funded. The children ages range from two to four. I was

able to observe reflective teaching, emergent and academic curriculum.

Observations

The first observation took place at Eisner Early Intervention program located in

Downtown Los Angeles. Founded in 1920 the Eisner Health Center is a non-profit health center

that serves children within the ages of two to four years old. On the day of my visit four children

were present during my observation. The four children were boys. The curriculum was based on

individualized care. The classroom was divided into three different learning areas, grocery store,

kitchen, and occupational gross motor skill activities. Within these different environments the

children were encourage to explore and utilize the many different props each learning area had to

offer. I didnt hear the teacher refer to the children by their name. Child A was taking advantage

and exploring all three areas of the classroom. Child B and Child C began playing together when

Child D says I want to play! Child B and Child C look at him and turn their full bodies giving

Child D their backs. Teacher Margaret told Child B and Child C to include Child D into their
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activities; they both say No! and ran to the kitchen area. The children continue playing and

after thirty minutes, it was time to go to lunch.

The second observation was at an Early Head Start program. The classroom was at

Kedren Community Center in Watts. The classroom was composed of eight children and two

child care providers. The children ages were from two to four years old. By the entrance of the

classroom the walls had childrens hand drawn portraits of their family. The classroom had an

array of activities ranging from arts and crafts to mega building blocks. The two child care

providers Nicole and Lisette began the day with circle time. During circle time the children sit

around the teachers in a rug and the Teachers ask the children to sing along. After twenty

minutes three children got up and began to run around the rug. Teacher Nicole then asks the

three children to help her reenact the stories being told. Teacher Nicole would say to the children

roar like a T-Rex in which the kids would walk like a T-Rex and would roar like one as well.

After circle time it was time to go outside and play for thirty minutes. Teacher Nicole asks the

children to line up in a straight line and march like soldiers.

The third observation takes place at Beth Shir Shalom Early Childhood Center. The

preschool is located in Santa Monica. As part of a progressive reform synagogue their Judaic

values guide their practice. The toddler classroom consists of five children: four boys and one

girl. This class is only supervised by Teacher Cindy. During the morning, children usually attend

a morning lesson in Hebrew conducted by Teacher Cindy. All the kids participate by repeating

basic Hebrew words such as thank you. As the lesson concluded teacher Cindy informs the

children they would begin their salsa dance routine. The salsa dance consists of upbeat salsa
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music followed by the childrens interpretative dance. After the dance Teacher Cindy introduces

the jungle theme to the children. The children start asking Teacher Cindy! Are we having plants

and flowers? Teacher are we going on a field trip? Another child asks Teacher are we playing

with jungle animals? As the children continued exploring the classroom Teacher Cindy would

go around with a snake stuff animal and would have the children repeat after her the word snake

with an emphasis on the S sound. After their jungle activities it is time for a snack and Teacher

Cindy directs them to the restroom to go wash their hands.

The fourth observation takes place in Mind and Motions preschool in South Central Los

Angeles. The classroom consisted of twelve children: five boys and seven girls, ages three and

four year old. The class was supervised by Teacher Iris along with T.A. (teacher assistant)

Brianna. On my arrival children were being served breakfast. Teacher Iris and T.A. Brianna

started passing out fruit and oatmeal. A child was singing I want to eat, eat, and eat apples and

banoonoos!! Teacher Iris started clapping and the children smile, laugh, and began singing

along. Teacher Iris announces to the children Lets get ready for Free Choice. During Free

Choice children are allowed to choose a play activity. Two of the children Mike and Bobby go

the sensory table. At the sensory table Teacher Iris have water sponges, trucks, cars and dolls.

Mike and Bobby grab a truck and they both start having a dialogue of taking their trucks to the

car wash. After a few minutes Bobby says to Teacher Iris Teacher I think its time to go outside

and play!

The fifth observation also takes place in Mind and Motions preschool in South Central

Los Angeles. The class was supervised by Teacher Nicole along with T.A. Sam. The classroom
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consisted of eight children: four boys and four girls. The children ages were three to four year

old. As I entered the classroom I noticed many decorations on the classroom walls encouraging

the unity of different cultures. An example of this was a poster on the wall representing several

children of different cultures holding hands. During the morning, children usually work on

language and literacy activities. Before the morning activities begin Teacher Nicole lets the

children stretch and she puts upbeat music to allow children to jump and run around the

classroom. When teacher Nicole is ready to start the activity, she asks for their attention and

begins to give instructions. She announces, We will be painting or making a collage of the letter

Q. Then she directs them towards the arts and craft section of the classroom. After their activity

I conclude my observation.

My last observation takes place in Beth Shir Shalom Early Childhood Center in Santa

Monica. This is my second observation of the class. The classroom is composed of five toddlers:

four boys and one girl. During the afternoon after lunch time Teacher Cindy instructed the

children that they were going to take turns every twenty minutes at different learning centers.

Mckenzie and Herb raised their hands and exclaimed Teacher Cindy! Teacher Cindy and they

tried to express their desire to go at the writing center. At the writing center Teacher Cindy sets

up two activities: chalk board and letter collage. Mckenzie chose the letter collage activity.

McKenzie selected several letters and a variety of long strips of construction paper. When using

the glue stick she kept looking at her index finger saying Sticky yet continued working on her

project. After fifteen minutes two parents come to pick up their child and I also take off.
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Analysis

In all the observations I was able to see language, cognitive, social, physical and

emotional development. An example of language/cognitive development is when McKenzie at

the writing area was able to identify and name the materials she was using for her letter

collage. When she started working on her writing activity she had an ongoing dialogue with her

classmate of what she was writing. Another example of language/cognitive development is in

Teacher Iris classroom. During breakfast time after the children received oatmeal with apples

and bananas the children started singing. They were singing I want to eat! Eat! Eat! Apples and

banoonoos! I was also able to see social/emotional development with McKenzie and Herb. An

example of social/emotional development is when Herb asks McKenzie for them to go together

to the explore area. He says Lets go McKenzie youre taking too long! Teacher Cindy

mentioned to me that for every group activity they want to be together they also have play dates

at home.

I was able to see the social/cognitive development when Bobby and Mike were having a

conversation of pretending to be at a car wash. They were both talking about what they do at the

carwash and that there is a burger place where they usually like to eat with their families. Bobby

was also talking about the theme of his birthday celebration which was monsters truck. The

children articulated very well their feelings and ideas. Another example of social/cognitive was

during circle time. When the children were singing along and dancing, they grabbed props to

create instruments and had a dialogue.

I was also able to observe physical development. During circle time Teacher Nicole had

the children do some gross motor skills activity. When she noticed that the children were getting
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up during circle time she then told the children Lets dance she allowed them to jump and run.

After this activity the children started asking to go outside and play. Teacher Nicole then says to

me play is an important factor in a childs learning experience and physical development.

Teacher Nicole, Teacher Iris and Teacher Cindy facilitated an environment for the

childrens language, cognitive, social and emotional development through the curriculum. An

example of this is when Teacher Cindy introduced a team activity. Another example is when

Teacher Iris encouraged children to sing while they were eating allowing them to

social/cognitive develop. I was also able to see similarities and differences in the private and

public funded programs. In the private programs they had every possible toy, book and resources

versus the public there resources were limited. I also noticed that the environment in the private

program there was natural light, big windows; classroom was very spacious with its own

playground. The public program space was very small; teachers were really creative with their

space. The children ratio in the private program is less than the public. The public program is

more structured versus the private program elaborated more on emerging curriculum. These were

some observations I made of the overall sites.

Relevance to Class

During my observations I was able to see theory in action. One of the theories is Multiple

Intelligence. Howard Gardner in his theory of Multiple Intelligence has eight abilities that held to

meet the criteria of multiple intelligences (Ogunnaike, 2015). In one of my observations I was

able to notice the Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence. Children with high verbal-linguistic

intelligence display a facility with words and languages. They are typically good and enjoy
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reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates (Ogunnaike, 2015). An

example is when McKenzie and Herb chose to go to the writing area. Teacher Cindy

mentioned that one of their favorite areas is the writing center. They both made letter collages

and were telling stories about their letters.

In these observations I also had the opportunity to see Erik Erikson Psychosocial Theory.

Erik Erikson believed that we all go through certain stages during specific ages (Baltra, 2013).

An example of a developmental stage I was able to observe was Initiative vs. Guilt. In

observation six McKenzie and Herb were at the writing center and they were having a dialogue

of what materials they wanted to use for their writing assignment. This interaction demonstrates

that they were asserted their power and control over the world through directing play and social

interaction (Baltra, 2013).

In observation six and three displayed, Sara Smilansky theory of children learning

through three types of play (Weinsberg, D.S., Zosh, J.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K.,& Golinkoff, R.M.,

2013). Observation six is connected to dramatic play (Weinsberg, D.S., Zosh, J.M., Hirsh-

Pasek, K.,& Golinkoff, R.M., 2013). Dramatic play is when children imitate the world around

them through their role play. This leads to cooperative dramatic play (Weinsberg, D.S., Zosh,

J.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K.,& Golinkoff, R.M., 2013). In the observation when McKenzie and Herb

where at the explore area they both were imitating dinosaurs and having a dialogue learning

through dramatic play (Weinsberg, D.S., Zosh, J.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K.,& Golinkoff, R.M., 2013)

In observation three, Teacher Cindy provided a salsa dance activity to the children. Through
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dance children are allowed to express themselves through movement and dramatic play. Some of

the dramatic play took place when the children chose scarfs while dancing salsa.

Reflection

During these six observations I was able to reflect on important factors that I need to consider as

an educator. These factors revolve on what Sonya Shoptaugh once said To enter into a style of

teaching which is based on thinking about how theory is translated into practice and how practice

informs theory, is to enter into a way of working where professional development takes place

day after day in the classroom. I have been able to understand this main theme said in this quote

through the observations, books read, videos, discussions and handouts we have been given in

this course. During my observations I was able to reflect on the importance of keeping records of

the children developmental progress or learning challenges. When observing it is important to

bridge theory into practice, as it provides supportive factors into our teaching style.

These observations were really challenging for me. One of the challenges was having

time to go observe centers and writing the assignment. Since Ive been a student at Pacific Oaks I

have not had a multiple choice test, it is all written assignments. I have always had a challenge

with writing and reading. I feel that this course has pushed me to grow academically. I have

always been really shy and I dont like to ask for help. But this course has been really critical in

the grid format of the assignments. Therefore I saw a need to reach out to the writing center and

have been going there for several tutoring session which have been really helpful.
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References

Ogunnaike, Y. A. (2015). Early Childhood Education and Human Factor Connecting Theories
andPerspective. Review of Human Factor Studies, 9.
Tertell E.,Klein S.& Jewett J. (1998). When Teachers Reflect: Journey's Toward Effective,
Inclusive Practice. Washington DC: National Association for the Education of Young
Children.
Weinsberg, D.S., Zosh, J.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K.,& Golinkoff, R.M. (2013). Talking it up: Play,
language development, and the role of adult support. American Journal of Play, 39-54.

Ballenger, C. (2009). Puzzling Moments, Teachable Moments: Practicing Teacher Research in

Urban Classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.
Baltra, S. (2013). The Psychosocial Development of Children: Implications fo Education andr
Society. Comtemporary Education Dialogue , 249-278.
Carter, M. & Curtis, D. (2008). Learning Together with Young Children A Curriculum
Framework for Reflective Teachers. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf PRESS.
Douvan, E. P. (1997). Erik Erikson: Critical Times, Critical Theory. Child Psychiatric and
Human Development , 15-21.