Part I. Philosophy of Education
Personal Identity
The element of philosophy of education that reflects my identity as an early childhood educator aligns with Bruner’s (1966) concept of Constructivism theory. In this concept, the learner transforms, selects information, and make decisions by focusing on constructing the knowledge itself. These knowledge are constructed through beliefs, personal experiences and previous knowledge (Bruner, 1966). As an educator, I encourage the student to present any form of information that they have previously learned and create an opportunity for them to develop prior knowledge into new discoveries.
Central Issues and Professional Values
The central values and issues involve in my philosophy is for me as an educator to open the students to discover the meaning of the principles behind the knowledge they have learned through practical applications (Shaw, N. D.). For example, if the students learned about subtraction, it would be better to allow them to apply the knowledge and discover the way the principles of subtraction works within their environment. This will enable an in-depth understanding of the knowledge being taught and professional values of an educator that shapes the students for future greatness through discovery. The only issue in this principle is the encompassing differences among the students in terms of ability to cope with the principles of the knowledge and difficulty in practical applications.
Professional Codes of Ethics
The professional code of ethics in teaching involves striving to create a learning environment for the students to hone their potentials. My constructivist teaching philosophy embodies the opportunity for students to discover their potentials and help them nurture those potentials. For example, students that are good in arts, but not fairing in Math don’t mean that they lack the academic potential. My teaching philosophy is central to self-discovery, if the student is good in arts, it would be best to use that potential in teaching math. This way, the students are able to use their strength to learn other things and it is important they use utilize such strength in developing other potentials.
Part II. Professional Development Plan
Collaboration
Collaborating with peers and students enhanced my learning in such a way that working together with other professionals enhanced learning initiatives through shared goals, develop collective responsibility (Moller et al, 2013). This means collaboration improved my selection and implementation of appropriate strategies to achieve the common student learning goals. For example, I though that personal approach in teaching practices would enable me to get the students to learn faster, but through collaboration, I learned that appropriate strategies should be applied and implemented to engage student more towards learning.
Ongoing Professional Growth
Engagement in professional development greatly impacts my on-going professional growth. I was presented with vast opportunities to put into practice and experience most of what I have learned from the academia. The diversity of experience during engagement in professional development creates more option for me as educator to remodel my practices to according to the approach that will best work for the needs of the students. Professional experience is detrimental to all on-going professional learners because they will get to taste the difference between learning and applying what has been learned.
Short and Long Term Goals
Because of the actions, I created a short-term goal to establish the path for my long-term initiative and that is to further my knowledge about teaching practices and elevate my expertise on the field by getting a masters degree. In terms of long-term goal, I will development performance measurement tools that will gauge teaching quality and integrate the benchmark in professional development and training of future educators (NAEYC, 1993). The importance of this goal is to ensure that education and teaching practices are constantly evolving and continuously adapting to the changing needs of learners.
Part III. Advocacy Action Plan
Part of the advocacy action plan is to utilize the use of technology. One of the steps employed in this project is to encourage the students to use available technologies such as computers in elevating the learning experience. As an educator, we should make ourselves available to our students when they need assistance, coaching, and mentorship. Conveying knowledge within the confines of the classroom inhibits the opportunity of the students to reach out to their educators in times they need it the most. Technology made it possible for students to connect with their teachers in real-time even outside of the classroom and teaching the student to optimize the potential of technology will enable them to be connected with the teachers to share materials and gain access to other learning resources.
Central Issues in Early Childhood Education
Central issues involved in early childhood education include scrutiny in a contemporary society exacerbated by technologies and ideologies. The drafted advocacy action plan encompasses a central issue in early childhood education because of the wide utilization of technology that may either improve or impede effective learning (Moller et al., 2013). It is apparent that technology revolutionizes the way children play and learn. At some point, the presence of game applications easily accessible to the children during learning time presents risk of interrupted focus. For example, if a student was asked to read the do a learning game application, they might enjoy it too much to the point of leaving the learning objectives and look for more interesting, but non-educational game applications.
Policy Implications
The issue of technology in learning practices involves implications to policy such as managed technological skepticism, which means that the quality of life arises more out of social intuition than emerging technology (Arizona State University, 2006). This encompasses notions about public policies related to overdependence to technology and lack of social instinct employed in early childhood teaching.
Positive Social change
Walden’s mission towards positive social change relates to this activity in terms of seeking improvements of human and social condition (Yob et al,, 2009). The created plan constitutes positive social change because the use of technology to improve learning and professional learning experience is likely to improve efficiency. Allowing the students and even peers to utilize technology in creating better learning environment for the students create a consortium towards progressive learning and adaptability to the fast changing social conditions.
Part IV. Critical Reflection
The apparent connection between the adopted philosophy in education, professional, and advocacy plan can be described in one word, innovation. Constructivism as philosophical principle insinuates discovery of the new and a professional plan that involves collaboration will enhance the weak aspects of constructing knowledge by integrating appropriate learning practices, which can be made more efficient with the use of technology as indicated in the advocacy plan. There are several new ideas emerging in the completion of this project, one of those is the role of innovation in changing the way educators teach students, and the way students learn in this technology-driven society. This project will effectively guide me through my work as an early childhood educator because the plan in general sets the right objectives, initiatives, and sense of direction in performing my duties as educator.
References
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction (p. 176). Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University.
Moller, S., Mickelson, R. A., Stearns, E., Banerjee, N., & Bottia, M. C. (2013). Collective pedagogical teacher culture and mathematics achievement: Differences by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Sociology of Education, 86(2), 174. doi:10.1177/0038040712472911
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). (1993). A conceptual framework for early childhood professional development: A position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Retrieved September 20, 2011, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PSCONF98.pdf.
Shaw, L. (n.d.). Educational Philosophies. Retrieved November 17, 2013, from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/LShaw/f95syll/philos/phintro.html
Tob, I., Brewer, P., Ferraro, A., Lange, L., Sanders, M., Stoodt, G., & Tallman, J. (2009). Perspectives on social change at Walden University. Walden University.
