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Early Childhood Education: ECCE 227

Education Theory and Practice in the Early Childhood Education Setting (ECCE 227)

6 Education Theorists That All Educators Should Know

Name Theory
Lev Vygotsky *Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - The range of skills that are a little bit more difficult than what a student can do independantly. *Scaffolding - Change in the level of support to meet the ability of the child.
Jean Piaget *Schema - The things a child already knows. Sudents connect new knowledge to an existing schema. *Constructivism - Students learn by doing, rather than by being told.
B. F. Skinner *Behaviorism - Positive reinforcement (praise, rewards, etc. strengthens behavior or increases likelihood that the behavior will be repeated. Negative reinforcement (punishment) pushes child away from a behavior.
Jerome Bruner *Spiral Curriculum - Children can tackle challenging topics in age appropriate ways. These topics can be revisited and expanded upon year after year.
Benjamin Bloom *Bloom's Taxonomy - A hierarchy of learning objectives starting with knowledge and growing in complexity to evaluation.
Howard Gardner *Multiple Intelligences - Humans have several ways of processing information (musical, visual, verbal, logical, etc.) 

Ebooks Available on Education Theory and Practice

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Step 1: Background Research

Step 2: Find Books and Ebooks

Screenshot of advanced onesearch HVCC catalog

To search for books, begin by going to the library's OneSearch (https://onesearch.hvcc.edu) next select Advanced Search to the right of the search box. To search only for print books and ebooks:

  1. Select HVCC Catalog
  2. Enter name of Education theorist or Education theory (search terms)
  3. Select Books/ Ebooks under Material Type

Enter Search

Step 3: Find Journal Articles

Begin by searching in the research database Education Source, if you struggle to find articles, you may need to look in additional research databases. The below databases are also recommended for this assignment.

Search multiple databases at the same time by selecting Choose Databases.

Screenshot of article search in Education Source

Step 4: Find Documentary or Educational Videos

When searching for videos, enter brief searches. Enter the Education theorist's last name or simply the theory.