1. Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP)

2. Developmentally Appropriate Practices
Social and cultural
Age
Individual

3. Guidelines for Practice
Creating a caring community of learners
Teaching to enhance development and learning
Constructing appropriate curriculum
Assessing children’s learning and development
Establishing reciprocal relationships with families

5. Teaching to Enhance Development and Learning
Teachers respect, value and accept children
Teachers get to know each child and establish positive relationships with families
Teachers create intellectually challenging, responsive environment
Teachers make plans to enable children to attain key curriculum goals across disciplines

6. Teaching to Enhance Development and Learning
Teachers foster children’s collaboration with peers
Teachers develop, refine and use wide repertoire of teaching strategies
Teachers facilitate development of responsibility and self-regulation

7. Constructing Appropriate Curriculum
Provides for all areas of development
Includes broad range of content areas
Builds on what children already know
Curriculum integrated across subject matter divisions to make connections

8. Constructing Appropriate Curriculum
Promotes development of knowledge and understanding, processes and skills
Supports children’s home culture and language
Curriculum goals are realistic and attainable

9. Assessing Children’s Learning and Development
Assessment is ongoing, strategic, and purposeful
Assessment content reflects progress toward learning and developmental goals
Assessments are appropriate to age and experience
Decisions are based on multiple sources of information

10. Assessing Children’s Learning and Development
Developmental assessments and observations used to identify children who have special learning or developmental needs
Assessment recognize individual variation
Assessment address what children can do independently and with assistance

11. Establishing reciprocal relationships with families
Relationships require mutual respect, cooperation, shared responsibility, negotiation
Teachers work in collaboration with families
Parents welcome in program, participate in decisions
Teachers acknowledge parents’ choices and goals, are respectful of parent preferences and concerns

12. Establishing reciprocal relationships with families
Teachers and parents share knowledge of child and continue to communicate
Teachers involve families for assessing and planning
Teachers link families to social services
Teachers share information as children move from one program to another

13. Activity
List concrete activities that you do in your programs to address your star point (guideline for practice).

14. Activity
Individually or with a partner, please complete the DAP quiz!