Curriculum Models

BANK STREET CURRICULUM


The Bank Street Curriculum is a method of teaching that involves a child in different kinds of child-care programs. They are given a chance to develop emotionally, physically, socially and also cognitively. This curriculum generally includes more than one subject and is imparted in groups. It gives the children the scope to learn at various levels through different methods. Bank Street’s Developmental Interaction Approach is based on the theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, John Dewey and Lucy Sprague Mitchell, among others. The Developmental Interaction Approach stresses that the optimal educational process maximizes children’s direct and rich interactions with a wide variety of materials, ideas and people in their environment.


The Bank Street Curriculum ensures that children become lifelong learners and continue their learning process by interacting with their social, political and geographical environment. They are taught with the help of a myriad ways like playing and learning with blocks, solving puzzles, going for field trips and engaging in other practical work in the labs. This theory believes that school can be satisfying, sensible, and stimulating. A school is an important part in the life of a child, the place where a child begins to learn, ask questions and experiment with the things around him. As the kids grow up a little, they learn to exchange ideas with each others and thus increase their limit of knowledge




MONTESORRI CURRICULUM


The Montessori Curriculum is an integrated thematic approach that ties the separate disciplines together into studies of the physical universe, the world of nature, and the human experience. In this way, one lesson leads to many others.


Each material isolates one concept or skill that has been specially designed in a way that children are naturally drawn to want to work with it with little or no nudging from adults. Each material has also been designed so that a child can normally check his own work; we cal this a built-in "control of error." The intention of the materials is not to keep the children dependent on these artificial learning aids forever; they are used as tools to help children work and learn at their own pace, to see abstract ideas presented in a very concrete, three-dimensional way, and to help them grasp and understand what they are working on.
Montessori students learn not to be afraid of making mistakes. They quickly find that few things in life come easily, and they can try again without fear of embarrassment.




WALDORF CURRICULUM


The curriculum at a Waldorf school can be seen as an ascending spiral: the long lessons that begin each day, the concentrated blocks of study that focus on one subject for several weeks. Physics, for example, is introduced in the sixth grade and continued each year as a main lesson block until graduation.
As the students mature, they engage themselves at new levels of experience with each subject. It is as though each year they come to a window on the ascending spiral that looks out into the world through the lens of a particular subject. Through the main-lesson spiral curriculum, teachers lay the groundwork for a gradual vertical integration that deepens and widens each subject experience and, at the same time, keeps it moving with the other aspects of knowledge.
All students participate in all basic subjects regardless of their special aptitudes. The purpose of studying a subject is not to make a student into a professional mathematician, historian, or biologist, but to awaken and educate capacities that every human being needs. Naturally, one student is more gifted in math and another in science or history, but the mathematician needs the humanities, and the historian needs math and science. The choice of a vocation is left to the free decision of the adult, but one's early education should give one a palette of experience from which to choose the particular colors that one's interests, capacities, and life circumstances allow. In a Waldorf high school, older students pursue special projects and elective subjects and activities, nevertheless, the goal remains: each subject studied should contribute to the development of a well-balanced individual.


REGGIO EMILIA CURRICULUM


The Reggio Emilia Approach is an educational philosophy focused on preschool and primary education. It was started by Loris Malaguzzi and the parents of the villages around Reggio Emilia inItaly after World War II. The destruction from the war, parents believed, necessitated a new, quick approach to teaching their children. They felt that it is in the early years of development that children form who they are as individuals. This led to creation of a program based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community through exploration and discovery in a supportive and enriching environment based on the interests of the children through a self-guided curriculum.


HIGHSCOPE CURRICULUM


Adults and Children — Partners in Learning
In HighScope's vision of preschool education, children are doers and problem solvers, and adults are partners who share in children’s discoveries and gently guide their learning.


Active Learning
We call this approach active participatory learning. In it, young children build or “construct” their knowledge of the world — finding out how the world works through their own direct experience with people, objects, events, and ideas.


Curriculum ContentThe HighScope Preschool Curriculum is built around 58 developmental milestones called key developmental indicators (KDIs) in 8 curriculum content areas that are closely aligned with state and professional standards. The KDIs define what we teach; the hows are provided by our teaching practices for the classroom learning environment, daily routine, and adult-child interaction.
The Classroom and Daily Routine Teachers set the stage for learning through a carefully planned physical environment and consistentdaily routine. Within this structure, children are secure and self-reliant learners.


The centerpiece of the day is HighScope's unique plan-do-review process, in which each child has a daily opportunity to make and carry out a plan and then reflect on what happened. This process strengthens the child's executive function — their ability to regulate and organize themselves so they can stay focused on what they have chosen to do and solve problems that arise.


Relationships: Central to Learning Adult-child interaction is emphasized in the HighScope approach. HighScope resources and trainings give teachers a toolbox of strategies for building a learning partnership with each child. These how-tos range from scaffolding learning in each content area to helping children work out conflicts with peers.


Monitoring and Maintaining QualityTeachers and supervisors monitor the effectiveness of their program through ongoing evaluation with HighScope's child and program assessment tools. Because these tools collect information on what is happening daily in the classroom, assessment contributes directly to teachers' lesson planning rather than being a burdensome, unrelated chore. A range of staff development options are available to help teachers and administrators make improvements based on identified needs.


Outcomes
HighScope programs get results. Research that validates the curriculum includes the internationally known HighScope Perry Preschool Project, whose results show that the HighScope model prepares preschool children for long-term success both in school and in life. These research findings are confirmed by the experiences of thousands of teachers in the US, Canada, and in many other countries who have watched their preschoolers grow as engaged and successful learners in HighScope programs.