a team approach to teaching a developmental point of view

A T e a m A p p r o a c h t o T e a c h i n g a

D e v e l o p m e n t a l P o i n t o f V i e w

Mary Daniels* Lila Finck Nancy Woodruff

Schoo l o f Social A d m i n i s t r a t i o n Temple Universi ty

The growing awareness that quality child care depends on trained personnel and professional standards is reflected in the number and interesting variety of training programs that have emerged. Many educators are involved in teaching people of diverse backgrounds how to work sensitively and effectively in child care settings. An indication of the varied efforts to give status to child care personnel can be dem- onstrated by a brief review of some of the names assigned to the role: enablers, child care workers, client care givers, play ladies, big broth- ers, life managers, child development associates, and even scientists of rearing.

Although training programs undoubtedly differ as widely in their content as they do in the titles chosen for the individuals they train, certain core questions inevitably confront the educators responsible for planning them. What knowledge is essential? Can basic warmth and nurturant attitudes be taught or are they factors of personality and temperament to be relegated to the selection process? Can attitudes of punitiveness and authoritarianism be changed?

In designing the curriculum to teach a developmental point of view, we have tried to find our own answers to some of these core questions. In the process of several years of team teaching the first semester of a 2-year preservice training program for child care workers, we have evaluated and revised our curriculum many times. It has been influenced by research on the relationship between affective be-

*Requests for reprints should be sent to Mary Daniels, Child Care Training Program, School of Social Administration, Temple University, Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania 19122.

Child Care Quarterly VoL 5(3), Fall 1976 181

182 Child Care Quarterly

havior and teacher performance and studies on at t i tude change. Most stimulating of all have been the changes, at times dramatic, we have observed in our own students. Included in this summary of our curriculum is a report on measuring change in student attitudes in the significant areas of warmth and of freedom for children.

The Developmental Point of View

Our premise is that a developmental point of view is fundamental to the education of potential workers with children, that it is an ap- propriate and necessary beginning for entry-level child care personnel and a basis for others who intend to pursue more specialized training in child development and related fields. We are suggesting that a curriculum can be specifically designed to teach a developmental perspective and that it must be organized not only to provide information about children's growth and practice in child-caring skills, but to facilitate att i tude change as well.

Essentially an atti tude about the nature of growth, a developmental point of view assumes respect for personal autonomy, the unique- ness of individual patterns of unfolding, and an understanding of the principles of maturation. With this atti tude, change in behavior becomes an expectation and the active inquiry into the multiple causes of behavioral change is an explicit, on-going process.

Related Research

The behaviors associated with nonauthoritarianism and warmth are repeatedly mentioned in descriptions of training programs and selection criteria. Punitiveness and authoritarianism have been cited by Stone and Church (1973) as major barriers for untrained assistants, who tend to be overly afraid that children will get out of control. Si- gel, Starr, Secrist, Jackson, and Hill (1971) also stress punitiveness in a discussion of the way aggressive behavior in children is handled in day care centers. They report that " the less training and education child care workers have, the more likely they are to be punitive and authoritarian."

Training in itself, however, does not always affect an authoritarian stance. Moscovitz (1973) in comparing credentialed teachers with Head Start trained assistants has noted that the Head Start trained assistants showed significantly more evidence of a child-development individual-actualization orientation, whereas the credentialed teachers seemed to represent a skills-and-control atti tude.

Warmth and affection for children are discussed by some investiga-

Daniels, Finck, and Woodruff 183

tors as aspects of temperament that cannot be created by training and must therefore be part of the selection criteria. Sherman (1966), for example, writes, "What cannot be taught is the capacity to relate with depth and warmth and this, of course, increases the importance of criteria for selection." Maier (1963) also notes, "Behavior patterns can be taught, as can the influence that various attitudes have on behavior, but anything beyond this, especially the worker 's basic attitudes, adaptability, and sense of self-awareness depends upon the worker 's personal qualifications." In their description of a training program for mothers in day care homes, Rauch and Crowell (1974) have reported measurements that correlate children's progress with caregiver interaction. Warmth, praise, and affection are identified as significant variables throughout, from the process of selection to all aspects of the training sequence.

A Nonauthoritarian, Child-Centered Approach

A major contr ibution to understanding teacher behavior has been made by Prescott and Jones (1972). Extensive observations of teacher-child interaction in day care centers were objectively coded and analyzed. Two constellations, "child centered" and "adult centered," were defined by three different measurements: teacher att i tude, teaching techniques, and content of the interaction. Att i tudes char- acteristic of the "child-centered" approach were identified as nonauthoritarian, nurturant, warm, sensitive, and relaxed. Lessons taught included consideration of others, creativity, and experimentation. Teaching techniques involved encouragement, suggestion, and ap- proval. The "adult-centered" approach was defined by at t i tudes described as authoritarian, cold, and uncommunicative. Physical needs, conformity to social roles, and cognitive skills were the lessons taught. Restriction, guidance, and a minimal amount of encouragement and praise were the teaching techniques used.

The research of Prescott and Jones defines precisely and empirical- ly the "child-centered" as opposed to the "child-centered" approach. Clearly, one of the goals of the curriculum to teach a developmental point of view is that the student adopt the "child-centered" approach. Equally important is the necessity of recognizing that authoritarianism and punitiveness are not compatible with this point of view.

Facilitating Attitude Change

Atti tude change is approached in several different ways in the training curriculum: through the study of group dynamics, by providing


students with opportunit ies to experience and analyze group interaction, and by modeling nonauthoritarianism in the teaching team itself. The team functions as a cooperating unit and shares the philoso- phy that learning is facilitated by nonthreatening, nonauthoritarian modes of communication, and that significant learning (Rogers, 1969, a, b) occurs when the s tudent is self-motivated, involved, and actively participates in the learning process. Creating a favorable emotional climate is essential. Withall (1968) in discussing learning as change in behavior makes the point that learning is most likely to occur "when there is a nonthreatening situation, when the learner interacts in a wholesome social milieu."

Field Work

The laboratory.experience, the opportuni ty to work with children in a group setting, is an integral and necessary part of the training. In addition to the twice-weekly classes, every s tudent is assigned to work in a child care agency 15 hours a week. This experience enables the student to test out acquired knowledge of child development in a direct and personal way, to work with fellow staff members and with parents. There is continuing opportuni ty to develop and practice the skills and techniques required for competent work with children. The student not only becomes involved with the center's daily routine and planned activities, bu t also with the many spontaneous occur- rences and emergencies that describe a typical day working with children in a group setting.

Core Concepts

Weekly classes in child development and group dynamics include the traditional content areas: physical, social, emotional, and cognitive growth, as well as group process. Observation skills are the basis of all s tudent assignments. Most important, every effort is made to establish the relationship between concepts, insight, and behavior. The best core concepts found to integrate child development and group dynamics are role, socialization, and interaction analysis.

Role

The concept of role brings together the study of children's role play, personal insight through an analysis of the student 's own role- identity relationships, and the process of acquiring a new professional


role. As students study role-taking skills in relationship to the differ- entiation of self, they also role play situations devised for the group dynamics class. Role analysis promotes student awareness of stereo- typed thinking. It helps them focus on how subtly this kind of thinking can influence expectations for children and affect the student 's own personality formation.

Socialization

It is in the context of understanding the socialization process that students analyze the nature of discipline and punitiveness. Students study the structure of children's groups and analyze them as norm- setting environments. They are required to observe children's charac- teristic patterns of relating to a group and to consider each child's ability to comprehend the expectations of the group, its norms, and its limits. Students are asked to be particularly aware of the child's behavior when he finally chooses to accept group limits in order to become a member of the group. Nonpunitive discipline depends on the many forms of the " if . . . . then . . . . " kind of statement. For example, " I f you want to hear the story we are reading in our group, then you will have to leave your hammer at the workbench and come join us now."

Students gaih insight into patterns of group leadership or member isolation as they begin to see parallels between the children's and their own ways of relating to their respective groups. Through an understanding of socialization, many aspects of authoritarianism, per- missiveness, competitiveness, and dependence become more meaningful as explanations of behavior.

Interaction Analysis

The third integrative concept, interaction analysis, is based on the Flanders (1968) scheme for classifying teacher-child interactions as either predominantly "direct" or "indirect." The Flanders instrument is designed primarily to measure teacher style rather than s tudent behavior. Characterization of interaction patterns is arrived at by care- ful analysis of each incident of verbal exchange between teacher and student. Observations are coded in one of the eight categories labeled "teacher talk." Two categories are reserved to record students ' verbal behavior to teachers, with a final slot designed to cover silence, con- fusion, and other nonspecific or nonverbal interchange. When the individual incidents are tallied, patterns of interactions become discern-


ible to both teacher and student. As part of their training, students practice applying this scheme to various situations presented in class, participating alternately as either "interactors" or "coders." Studies on democratic, laissez faire, and authoritarian leadership styles (Lip- pit & White, 1960) offer additional content for analysis of group climate and verbal interaction. These studies support the Flanders hypotheses and provide the basis for designing exercises used in class as insight learning tasks. The hypotheses used by Flanders (1968) to establish principles of teacher behavior relevant to teacher influence specifically are:

Hypothesis One: Indirect teacher influence increases learning when a student's perception of the goal is confused and ambiguous.

Hypothesis Two: Direct teacher influence increases learning when a student's perception of the goal is clear and acceptable.

Hypothesis Three: Direct teacher influence decreases learning when a student's perception of the goal is ambiguous. (pp. 256-257)

Observing Behavior

Observation skills are central to acquiring a developmental perspective and are presented to students in several ways: as prerequisite for meaningful records on children, as a way of documenting change in behavior over an extended period of time, as a basic method of sci- en'ce, and as a corrective for sentimental or moralistic thinking.

All classroom assignments depend on direct observation of the children in the agency to which the student is assigned. A consistent and continuous effort is made to help students become objective observ- ers, to learn to separate fact from opinion. Students are asked to be alert to the tendency we may all have to deny, idealize, or smooth over children's socially unacceptable behavior. This may often be an indication of the student 's lack of assurance or misperception about what we (as educators) may find acceptable. It is necessary to con- vince students that studying behavior means accepting all ranges of behavior, the extreme and the bizarre, and to understand that child development theory is neither selective nor judgmental.

The experience of being the subject of an observation in the group dynamics class also helps to increase the student 's awareness of the discrepancies between behavior as perceived by the observer and the behavior as experienced by the subject. Although personal insight occurs as a result of this exchange, student observations of one another are always directed toward the task of understanding a specific concept being analyzed by the group as the primary goal of the experi-


ence. In structuring these learning tasks, we have found very useful the distinction made by Chambers and Foster (1966) between the encouragement of maturation and personal insight, and therapeutic intervention.

The Coordinating Process

Our experience has shown that the integration of classroom content of the curriculum with the student 's agency work requires a significant amount of planning and attention. It cannot be left to chance. The field coordinator, as a member of the teaching team, has the responsibility of insuring the learning experience by maintaining frequent communication with students and agency teachers.

We chose the name "field coordinator," rather than "supervisor," because we consider it a less threatening title. As a number of educa- tional writers and researchers (Goldhammer, 1969; Gwynn, 1961; Curukian & Cryan, 1972) have pointed out, the role of the supervisor has traditionally been associated with authoritarian, administrative functions. Often the supervisory role is assumed by a principal, head teacher, or supervisory consultant who visits classrooms to observe, rate, and judge a teacher's or a student 's one-the-job performance. For teachers, the final judgments that are rendered may directly affect salary increases, promotions, or tenure. For students, there is the ultimate threat of a failing grade. By contrast, the nonauthori tarian field coordinator is identified as a'liaison person, someone who pro- vides resource information both to agency personnel and to students, and who functions as a facilitator of learning.

Communication is maintained by the field coordinator through personal visits to the agency, by telephone, and by frequent mailings forwarded from the university. Conferences with individual students and teachers in the agency allow for the exchange of various kinds of information. Students often request assistance in locating resource material for developing special activities for the ci~ildren in their group. Experience has also shown us that students need a considera- ble amount of encouragement and reassurance when they discover that their motivation to succeed with the children may not always be quite equal to their skill. Teachers often use personal conferences with the field coordinator to share important observations about a student 's work, or to ask questions about some particular aspect of the training curriculum. Occasionally, a personality conflict will arise between a student and a teacher, and a visit from the field coordinator can provide a way of resolving it. It has proved helpful to discuss


the problem openly with someone who is not directly involved, but who is very much concerned with maintaining a favorable learning climate.

Clarify ing Roles

Role clarification, the student 's perception of the role of the agency teacher and the teacher's perception of the student 's role, is an essential area of communication often initiated by the field coordinator. For students, a clearer perspective of what the teacher's professional role may involve can be extremely important. Students need to know that teachers are not only responsible for each child in the group, as well as for the student in training, but also to parents, di- rectors, boards of trustees, funding source representatives, and others who make significant demands on their time. Equally important, the guiding teacher must not only tolerate beginner's mistakes, but come to expect them. The student must not be perceived as "an ex- tra pair of hands," but as someone who has come to the agency to learn, someone who will require opportunities to assume gradually more responsibility for the children and the agency program. Time must be set aside during the working day to allow students to com- plete observation assignments and for student-teacher conferences. Curriculum outlines (the example on page 189 is an excerpt from a unit on cognitive development) also help keep teachers involved with the training process and informed about course content and provide a basis for the student-teacher conference.

Experiencing Change

Although patterns of behavior are highly individual, we have identified four particular areas in which behavioral change seems to occur for the student in the training program. Students perceive change in themselves first, and probably most significantly, as a result of their agency work. In the process of developing skill and competence working with the children, they begin to see themselves as increasingly able to assume more responsibility in the program. The perception of this change in themselves is a source of confidence and self-esteem. Second, students observe change in individual children they have stud- ied and worked with over a period of time. Third, they see change in children's behavior in brief episodes when, as a result of their own intervention, they help produce change in a child's behavior, a change of mood, for example, or a specific shift from fearfulness to feeling


Curriculum Outlines to Guiding Teachers

In class we have been reviewing the developmental processes related to how a child thinks, develops communication skills, and acquires and uses knowledge.

Suggestions for Discussion Self-concept and motivation in learning. Discuss with students how you ac-

cept and encourage a child's curiosity. How do you help children feel motivated to continue to try to seek ways to solve problems? How can you help children feel successful and capable? Discuss some of the possible effects on learning of shaming, humiliation, or punishment.

Concept formation. What are some of the on-going processes of helping children formulate and clarify concepts? Describe for the student how you teach a specific concept such as "roundness" or "twoness."

Language development. How do you encourage children to talk, express their feelings, and discuss their ideas? What kinds of situations.provide maximum opportunity for verbal communication? Discuss the importance of the role of the adult as an attentive and interested listener.

Answering children's questions. Give some examples of answers to typical questions asked by children. How do you phrase an answer to a child in a way that would encourage him to continue to think, reason, analyze?

more secure, or f rom being isolated f r o m the group to b e c o m i n g a group member . Group simulat ion tasks provide a fou r th way in which s tudents observe and analyze behavioral change. This level of change focuses on the s tudent group itself, as s tudents par t ic ipate in simulat- ed si tuations and then ask each o ther what happened and why .

Measurement o f Change

Did the curr iculum produce significant a t t i tude change in our students? In order to answer this quest ion, several objective measurements were adminis tered to the group at the beginning and end o f the 3 -month semester: an At t i tude Toward F reedom for Children Scale (Koch, Dentler, Dysart , & Streit, 1967) and a c o n t e n t analysis of the responses to open-ended quest ions a b o u t wa rmth and author i - tarianism (adapted f r o m Prescot t , Jones , & Kri tchevsky, 1972) . The a t t i tude scale consists of 33 s ta tements of the type "Chi ld ren should be given reasons for the restr ict ions placed u p o n t h e m " or "A chi ld 's playthings are no t his to do with as he pleases." The r e s p o n d e n t indi- cates agreement or disagreement. Results were ana lyzed by means o f a t test for dependen t samples, compar ing the before and af ter attitude scores. The difference in the responses indicated a s ignif icant shift in the direct ion of favoring more f r eedom for chi ldren (t = 3.61; p > .005, d f = 21).


The measures o f w a r m t h and au tho r i t a r i an i sm were deve loped f r o m a c o n t e n t analysis o f the responses to the ques t ions " H o w do y o u feel a b o u t a t eache r ho ld ing a child, hugging, and showing a f f e c t i o n ? " and " H o w i m p o r t a n t do y o u feel i t is for a child to o b e y ? " S tuden t s were given an un l imi ted a m o u n t o f t ime to r espond . An exp l ana t i on of the codes used is given below.

Respondents who advocated a teacher holding a child, hugging, and showing affection as natural, often-present aspects of teacher-child relationships were coded 1 (high) for "warmth." These respondents expressed awareness of a child's need for affection and the role that a teacher could play in sat- isfying this need. Respondents who advocated restricted affection were coded 2 (low) for the "warmth" variable. These respondents indicated that hugs and similar expressions of affection were actions that should occur only in special-need classroom situations.

Respondents who were coded I (permissive) for the variable "authoritarianism" indicated that an explanation of why a child was being asked to act in a specified manner should be given to the child; understanding and communication were described as important factors in children and adults relating to one another. Respondents who were coded 2 (conservative) advocated the idea of importance of a child's obedience and tended to stress safety factors rather heavily. Respondents who described the importance of obedience in terms of a child mechanically obeying a person because the person is an adult were coded 3 (authoritarian). These respondents indicated that obedience should be a factor of life style for a child; they reported that a child who fulfills adults' demands learns "right" from "wrong."

The p re -pos t analysis of var iance used for the r anked da t a on the w a r m t h ques t ion y ie lded a s ignif icant change in the d i rec t ion o f attitudes ref lec t ing greater w a r m t h (Q = 3.96; p > .05; d f = 21). In the m e a s u r e m e n t of au thor i t a r i an i sm, a s ignif icant change occur red in the d i rec t ion of m o r e permissive a t t i tudes (Q = 21 .60; p > .001; d f = 1). These f indings lead us to specu la te on which variables, author i - t a r ian i sm or w a r m t h , for e x a m p l e , m a y be m o s t responsive to change. I n f o r m a t i o n of this k ind could be very useful in dis t inguishing be- t w e e n character is t ics t h a t can be a f f ec t ed by t ra in ing and those t ha t are d e p e n d e n t on the select ion process .

In p resen t ing the cu r r i cu lum to teach a d e v e l o p m e n t a l po in t o f view, we have o f fe red it as an e x a m p l e of a p r o g r a m of ins t ruc t ion t h a t was designed and i m p l e m e n t e d as a t e a m ef for t . We have de- scr ibed an intensive, mu l t i f ace t ed , i n t r o d u c t o r y t ra in ing sequence t ha t coord ina te s classes in child d e v e l o p m e n t t h e o r y and g roup dynamics wi th a l a b o r a t o r y exper ience in an agency sett ing. N o n a u t h o r - i tar ian a t t i tudes are emphas i zed n o t on ly in the t e ache r - s tuden t rela- t ionsh ip and open-eva lua t ion process , b u t in the coopera t ive , equali-


tarian functioning within the teaching team. Significant changes in student attitudes in the direction of greater warmth, more freedom for children, and less authoritarianism are indications of the success of the training curriculum. Hopefully it contributes to the broader questions of curriculum design and criteria for the selection of child care personnel.

References

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Curukian, G., & Cryan, J. Interpersonal perceptions as a factor in teacher perceptions o f supervisory style. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Research Association, Chicago, Ill., April, 1972.

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Lippitt, R., & White, R. Behavior and member reaction in three social climates. In D. Cartwright & A. Zander (Eds.), Group dynamics, research and theory. New York: Harper & Row, 1960.

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Rogers, C. The interpersonal relationship in the facilitation of learning. In C. Rogers & W. Coulson (Eds.), Freedom to learn. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1969. (a)

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Sigel, I., Starr, R., Secrist, A., Jackson, J., & Hill, E. Social and emotional development in young children. In E. Groteberg (Ed.), Day care: Resources for de- cisions. Washington, D.C.: Office of Economic Opportunity, Superintendent of Documents, 1971.

Stone, L., & Church, J. Childhood and adolescence. New York: Random House, 1973.

Withall, J. The development of a technique for the measurement of social-emotional climate in classrooms. In R. Hyman (Ed.), Teaching: Vantage points for study. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968.