Task two and three
- 1. My teaching philosophy My teaching philosophy is to create a learning environment for the children which can enhance their holistic development to make them competent and confident individuals (Ministry of Education,1996). This course helped me to improve my teaching practice and go deeper to find my own teaching ways and values. I believe in creating safe and learning environment for the children where they can develop and thrive. I believe in creating learning opportunities for the children from the daily routine of the centre and looking at every challenging behavior as the learning opportunity for the children. At this age, children are learner and beginners in their path of lives, so they deserve to have sufficient time, patience and guidance from the adults (Gartrell, 2004). I put emphasis in building social competence among children as I believe that children learn through socialization with peers and adults. Also they become more confident in making their own decisions and creating their own learning through interactions.
- 2. Reflective practice According to me, Reflective practitioners in early childhood education are the one who analyze their practice and try to make a positive change in their practice to make it better throughout their teaching career. Reflective practitioners think critically about their teaching practice and reflect back to see how it aligns to their own philosophy of teaching or different theoretical perspectives. This way they keep improving and modifying their practice and philosophy to make it better and more effective. Reflective practitioners improves the quality of their performance as reflection helps them to listen to their inner voice and to see if they are practicing according to the way they want to practice. They try to reflect on the daily basis to minimize the gap between their practice and theory (Ngatipa, Mcclew & Kambata, 2012).
- 3. References Gartrell, D. (2004). Power of guidance: Teaching social-emotional skills in early childhood classrooms, New York, NY: Delmar Learning. Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood education. Wellington,.New Zealand: Learning Media. Ngatipa,J. , McClew,J. & Kambata, K. (2012). Introduction to reflective practice in early childhood education: A study guide and workbook. Auckland,New Zealand: Manukau Institute of Technology.