"How People Learn", The IRIS Modules

Learner centered instruction should:
1. Contain subject-related problems or challenges.
2. Ask for students thoughts and ideas about how to solve the problem.
3. Ask students to explain reasons behind their thinking.

At Easter Seals/UCP Cape Fear Children's Center, I work in the infant room. Their ages are from 6 weeks to 1 year. A Learner centered activity I use with them is, "Find the Animal". I will show them one of the small soft plastic animals we have and say over and over to them, the name of that animal. Then I will put it on the carpet and lay a recieving blanket over it and ask them, "Where is the (example) dog?" I will pick up the blanket and say, "There is the dog". After a few month's of doing this with different animals, I will see one of the children take the blanket off of the animal and try to say the name of the animal or say something like, "Der is".
Elements that knowledge-centered instruction should contain is:
1. Subject matter aligned with relevant standards.
2. Organized around ideas that matter to students.
3. Focused on information and activities that help learners develop an understanding of a subject or discipline.
4. It promotes learning about available resources and how to use them.
5. It produces knowledge and skills that are organized and connected.
Two types of assessments that should be included in assessment centered instruction is formative assessment and summative assessment. Formative assessment measures learning progress in order to encourage reflection and revision. Summative assessment is designed to measure the results of learning.
Community centeredness is important to student learning because it fosters values and norms that promote lifelong learning and it contributes to the aligning of students and instructors course expectations.
A community centered activity I've been involved in the past was the Cumberland Oratorio Singers. Often, the music we performed was in another language. We performed in the community.
Once a year the Educational Coordinator of our center evaluates the teachers. She will discuss with us at length about our evaluation. Throughout the year she guides us and comments on our instruction. The children I care for are not old enough to become self evaluative. I can assess their skills by observing them and writing the observations down. I put them in the Creative Curriculum online and I make new goals for them based on the observations.

Much of my information for my blog was found in our IRIS modules.