Early Childhood Education: Zifa's Learning Experience and Evaluation

This assignment centers on creating and evaluating a learning experience for a child named Zifa within an early childhood education setting. The task involves analyzing provided observations of Zifa's behavior and interactions, particularly focusing on her concentration, turn-taking skills, respect for others, interest in letters and numbers, and auditory processing. Based on these observations, the student is required to design a learning experience that promotes inclusion and addresses one of Zifa's specific goals. The assignment requires detailed planning, including the rationale behind the chosen activities, considerations for inclusivity, and an evaluation of the expected outcomes, along with potential extensions for future learning. The student is also expected to reflect on how the experience aligns with the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework and other relevant educational approaches like Reggio Emilia and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, while also linking to the EYLF outcomes. This assignment highlights the practical application of early childhood education principles and the importance of individualized learning plans.

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
Child’s Name: Date:
Observation ( what happened)? ( what you did?)
The child was observant and eager about the play. She wanted to participate but was
unsure of initiating. However, aided by the teacher, she took active part in the play and
adopted a character that was both relevant to the narrative and familiar to her. Engaging in
act of eating food or dressing up shows that the child understands the importance of details
in socio-dramatic contexts.
The child was comfortable and confident in exchanging conversation with her peers and
teacher. The least restrictive environment was maintained to facilitate independent
engagement (La Salle, McGrath and Roach, 2013). She was tolerant when her questions
went overheard. While the teacher made a point to make sure everyone hears her questions,
she started addressing her issues to the general crowd so that everyone could hear her.
Planned Experience based on observation (based on knowledge of infants from my 2
weeks placements)
There are a variety of infants with specific behavioural traits. While some of them are
extremely demanding of love and affection, some show hostile tendencies by pushing,
grabbing hair and nose or stepping on others. There are also infants who help the educators
maintain cleanliness in the area, while some preer to be in the company of only those
people they trust.
The experience is developed in a manner which would be inclusive of all children to
maximise participation and prevent segregation based on individual differences (Hornby,
2015).
Indoor:
- Educational and linguistic : Use colourful books on objects to teach the
children about animals, objects, professions, colours and shapes and basic
mathematics.
- Art/music/movement : Using crayons and colours help the children explore
their creativity and express their artistic tendencies. Complex creative
activities like modelling, dancing and singing develops the overall
expressive skills of the child and helps them find a hobby that they can
engage in.
- Socio-dramatic situations – engage in community role-play activities,
adopting a different genre of character every time.
Outdooor:
- Educational and linguistic - : Books placed in the canopy outside about
animals and birds to make children talk about them.
- Art/music/movement : balancing on a seesaw, encouraging children to
explore the idea of balance, also helps children build overall motor skills.

2EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
- Socio-dramatic situations: Encourage children to put plastic stackers
together and build a tower, communicating when necessary.
Evaluation ( What is expected to happen?)
The experience explores various aspects of the child’s development through her interaction
and engagement. Inclusivity helps develop a multitude of skills in children than segregated
experiences (Gupta and Henniger, 2014). The child is expected to benefit from the
experience in the following manner :
- Her overall knowledge and linguistic abilities should improve through
engagement with the educational tasks and conversational activities.
- Her motor and mobility skills should improve owing to the outdoor physical
activities.
- The child should be able to communicate freely with others without
hesitation. She should be able to iterate her issues and respond to queries by
her peers.
- Her creative and problem solving skills should improve.
What next (how will I expand this in future) …..
The experiences recorded will provide an in depth analysis of the child’s progress in
correlation to her special requirement which can be used in school to build a more
personalized learning system (Rotter, 2014). Certain aspects of the experience will be
modified to accommodate the changing requirements of the child as she grows. Social
communication tasks would be modified to public speaking and oratory skill development
to monitor linguistic progress and research and analytical skills.

3EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
References
Gupta, S. S. & Henninger, W. R. (2014) How Do Children Benefit from Inclusion? First Steps to
Preschool Inclusion: How to Jumpstart Your Programwide Plan, Brookes Publishing.
Hornby, G. (2015). Inclusive special education: Development of a new theory for the education
of children with special educational needs and disabilities. British Journal of Special
Education. 42. 10.1111/1467-8578.12101
La Salle, T. P., Roach, A. T., & McGrath, D. (2013). The Relationship of IEP Quality to
Curricular Access and Academic Achievement for Students with Disabilities.
International journal of special education, 28(1), 135-144.
Rotter, K. (2014). IEP Use by General and Special Education Teachers. SAGE Open, 4(2),
215824401453041. doi: 10.1177/2158244014530410