Cognitive style, a psychological construct, characterizes individual differences in styles of perceiving, remembering, thinking and judging. Originally published in 1990, this volume explores important findings emerging from contemporary research on cognitive style in young children and the implications for classroom practice at the time. Suggestions are provided for using knowledge of cognitive style in classroom settings to match learning tasks to cognitive style and to develop cognitive flexibility. Educators can use knowledge of young children’s and teachers’ cognitive styles to improve the quality of education and educational opportunities for all children.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Originally published in 1976, here is a comprehensive account of the role of cognitive styles in early childhood. The author considers the possible precursors of these styles in infancy, and offers a new classification scheme that helps to clarify the relation of cognitive styles to ability and intelligence. In separate chapters, field independence–dependence, reflection–impulsivity, breadth of categorization, and styles of conceptualization are examined, along with a chapter on the interrelationships between these styles. The final chapter integrates and critically summarizes the significance of cognitive styles during the early years of life. Throughout the volume the author attempts to link cognitive styles with other theoretical constructs (for example, unilinear versus multilinear models of development, Inhelder and Piaget’s studies of classification stages), and finally, the author advances a set of seven conclusions to reflect the contemporary state of knowledge in regard to the character and function of cognitive styles during the early years of life. This volume provides information about the beginnings of cognitive styles in infancy and the course of their development in preschool years. Research is examined both from the viewpoint of developmental change and individual differences among children. The role of sex differences in cognitive styles is thoroughly examined, and, contrary to earlier claims of ‘no difference’, the author convincingly demonstrates that females manifest clear-cut superiority across a wide band of cognitive functions during the pre-school years.

Over the years, educational scholars have proposed different conceptions of the curriculum. It is as if each scholar, researcher, university educator, and practitioner has developed her or his own personal definition. Unfortunately, there is no one single definition that everybody has agreed upon. Table 1 presents a sample of these definitions. A universal definition for curriculum may continue to be elusive and may even change through the years to address changes in the social forces and changes in related school goals. Nonetheless, the approach in curriculum development is consistent. Curriculum developers establish goals, develop experiences, designate content, and evaluate experiences and outcomes. Most curriculum developers consistently use such terms as curriculum planning, curriculum development, curriculum implementation, and curriculum evaluation, and many others to describe curriculum related activities. Unfortunately, without a consistent definition of curriculum, it is difficult for the curriculum developers to identify what it is that needs to be planned, developed, implemented, or evaluated. If curriculum developers rely on the curriculum experts’ definitions, they will find that their definitions identify a product, a program, determine goals and objectives, and learner experiences. However, its heterogeneity may be inspiring if curriculum developers rely on the components of each definition that depict the richness of the field, which in turn, can provide a foundation for contemporary content, concepts, and creativity. A curriculum is an anthology of learning experiences, conceived and arranged based on a program’s educational goals and the community’s social forces. Each curriculum manifests an image of what children "ought to be and become" (Biber, 1984, p. 303) grounded on the awareness of social values and a system that interprets those values into experiences for learners. The concept of curriculum, as a distinctive domain of study within education, arose from the demand to arrange, organize, and translate such awareness into educational programs of study. It integrates the historical study of the goals and content of schooling, analyses of curriculum documents, and analyses of the children’s experiences in school. The first formal curriculum text was published in 1918 (Bobbit, 1918), although in the United States contemporary curriculum study goes back to the early 1890's, when lead committees challenged the form and structure of public schooling. Presently curriculum development is fundamental at all educational levels.

While teachers value children's play, they often do not know how to guide that play to make it more educational. This volume reflects current research in the child development and early childhood education fields.