Theoretical Perspectives In Early Childhood Development

Introduction The way students’ learn does not occur accidentally, but the learning process occurs by the direct result that is created by teachers, schools, curriculum developers and the community. The experiences that students encounter on a daily basis bring about a diverse type of learning for each individual. Today, there are diverse ideas about how people learn, and what educators do to help students during their learning process. We have adaptive learning technologies that create much more student oriented learning environments.
Early childhood development is defined as “a set of concepts, principles, and facts that explain, describe and account for the processes involved in change from immature to mature status and functioning” (Katz,
Berk defines a theory as “an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior” (2000, p. 6). There are three broad theoretical perspectives that guide practice in early childhood development: behaviorism and social learning theory, cognitive-developmental theory, and sociocultural theory.
Skinner
B. F. Skinner is most noted for his theory of behaviorism or more specifically, operant conditioning theory, which is based on the premise that children's behavior can be increased based on the presentation of reinforcements and decreased through punishment. In his early years, Skinner researched with animals usually rats and pigeons, and invented the Skinner box, in which a rat learns to press a lever in order to receive food.
Consequently, every time the rat pushed the lever, the rat obtained food, which reinforced the behavior. Skinner’s theory was based on a positivistic approach to science, consisting of a sensory stimuli and a response (Webb, 2007). However, Skinner eventually came to the realization that human beings go beyond just responding to the environment. He found that they also react to the environment based on prior experiences (Skinner,
B.F. Skinner’s 1958 paper, Teaching Machines, provides an historical perspective on instructional design practices. The key features of teaching machines include: a focus on student recall, instead of simple recognition; promoting progress in small steps to enable student understanding; ensuring continuous interaction with the program; making certain, through shaping and fading of prompts, that the right answer is given; and reinforcing correct responding through immediate feedback. Skinner also correlates the ideas of incorporating a specific set of features while designing our instruction. Gaining an understanding of the historical evolution of teaching machine theories and concepts and their influence on Pre-K-3rd grade education is necessary in order to support teaching reform efforts to create classrooms that provide differential teaching