At the Institute of Child Development we provide a quality early childhood education experience for your child. We believe two major goals of early childhood education are to help children achieve autonomy and self-control through:
- Self-selected center learning experiences and projects.
- Encouraging children to be responsible for their personal needs, wants, actions and behaviors and examining the consequences of their actions.
We also seek to develop children's understanding of the physical characteristics of objects in their world. In so doing, we hope to foster an understanding about the relationships among these objects.
The teacher's role at the Institute is to serve as a facilitator, guide, resource,, and researcher alongside the child.
· The teacher acts as a facilitator as they provide a child-centered environment by initiating activities and projects for children which are developmentally appropriate, purposeful, meaningful, based on the child’s interest, and foster learning through self-selected play. We believe that children learn best through a process of discovery, enabling them to build theories about how their world operates.
· The teacher acts as a guide when they question the child, encouraging them to think more deeply about a problem or situation.
· The teacher acts as a resource person for children, offering suggestions as needed, yet encouraging children to develop ways to solve problems for themselves and to take responsibility for their actions.
· The teacher acts as a researcher alongside children as they discover new things about the world and learn the multitude of ways that materials can be used as well as the many paths a project can take.
We believe peer interactions are critical in helping children develop socially, creatively, physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Through peer interactions children construct cognitive and social knowledge, acceptance of others, and an appreciation of individual/cultural differences.
