Progressive Education

What is Developmental Learning?

Based on Child Development

Knowledge of age-related human characteristics that permits general predictions within an age range about what activities, materials, interactions, or experiences will be safe, healthy, interesting, achievable, and also challenging to children.

Implemented Individually

Based on what is known about the strengths, interests, and needs of each individual child in the group to be able to adapt for and be responsive to inevitable individual variation.

In Context:

Presented in the social and cultural contexts in which children live to ensure that learning experiences are meaningful, relevant, and respectful for the participating children and their families.

How the Brain Learns

• Movement facilitates cognition
• The brain never stops learning
• Seeks connections and searches for meaning
• Is attracted to novelty
• Emotion drives attention -> Attention drives learning
• Will repeat intrinsically pleasurable activity
• Is affected negatively by stress

What the Brain Needs

• When the brain reacts to stress and perceived threat, its capabilities are MINIMIZED.
• Maintaining an emotionally SAFE and SECURE, and a physically HEALTHY environment is vital for learning!
• For POWERFUL LEARNING to occur, the brain must be stimulated in multi-sensory, ENRICHED ENVIRONMENTS.
• To assure long-term retention, the brain must ACTIVELY PROCESS new learning.
• Using preferred learning styles and intelligences, the learner can REFLECT, COLLABORATE and MAKE CHOICES.
• Learning cannot take place until the bottom line need for safety is met.

PACT Students Receive