Updated Learning through Student-Centered Teaching
Davidson Community Day School uses many educational psychology methods in their kindergarten and second-grade classes. They emphasize analogical reasoning through their writing exercises. Analogical reasoning tasks the children with making connections across separate and different concepts beyond the surface level (Vendetti et al. 2015). Media and classroom teaching such as the Cosmic Kids yoga videos to the Hungry Caterpillar story were combined for the children to learn in all learning styles. Exposure to all types of sensory information such visual, kinesthetic or auditory stimuli ensured that all students were taught to their hidden strengths. This inclusive practice is necessary because learning styles are a spectrum of skills with limited strict nominal categories (Gutiẻrrez and Rogoff 2003). Teachers asked more open-ended and wh-questions than yes-or-no questions to encourage the students to think for themselves. These types of questions are more common in hierarchial methods of problem-solving in Western society giving the children practical skills (Chavajay 2006). Separation of students through tracking allowed students in the same classroom to help each other, but also caused unintentional divisions among the class. Teachers encourage children to keep trying when they get an incorrect answer through gentle correction and support rather than strict dismissal.
