Define early learning environment as anywhere that young children might have an opportunity to learn something.

Assignment Checklist

Doing the Observation:
1.Choose an early learning environment. Please note that for this assignment, I loosely define early learning environment as anywhere that young children might have an opportunity to learn something. Thus, parks, playgrounds, childrens museums, homes, childcare centers, and pre-schools all count as early learning environments.
2.Pick a time when children are likely to be present and you can focus for a half-hour.
3.Observe, and as you are observing take field notes. Do NOT collect video or audio data! However, taking a picture of the setting is encouraged (preferably without children present).
a.First, describe the setting. Whos there? Whats there?
b.Next, pick one child to focus on. Subtlety is key to naturalistic observation. If you stare intently at a child you dont know, nervous (and possibly angry) parents may accost you with questions and/or leave.
c.Observe your focal child for at least 20 minutes. As you are observing your child, take notes. What is s/he doing? What is s/he saying? Who is s/he interacting with? How long does s/he engage in an activity? Focus on what you see and hear. Try to suspend judgment. Take notes on anything that seems relevant to you. Keep in mind that as you write up your paper you will likely want a lot of details.
d.As you are observing, do your best not to disrupt the childs natural activity. If you become involved in the childs activity, youll need to document your interaction in your notes.

Typing Your Notes:
First describe the setting and your focal child. MAKE SURE TO USE PSEUDONYMS for all people and places! Next, break up your notes into multiple episodes. It is likely that your child did several different things over the course of 20 minutes. For example, she went down a slide, and then went to her mom and got a cracker, and then played in the sand. Describe each of these things as separate episodes. Again, focus on separating your objective observations (what you see and hear) from your subjective judgments. When typing up your field notes, you should follow the format below.

1.The Setting: Describe the setting (short paragraph)
2.My Focal Child: Describe the child including your best guess of the childs age (short paragraph)
3.Episode 1: What did the child do first? (objective and subjective)
4.Episode 2: What did the child do next? (objective and subjective)
5.Keep describing each episode. If you have more than 10, just stop at 10.

Writing the Paper:
Write a brief paper (about 3 pages) that links your childs behavior with the Washington State Guidelines and an empirical research article.

1.Pick one episode from your notes to focus on for your paper. If a few episodes are clearly on the same topic, it is OK to reference multiple episodes in your paper. However, the key thing to do here is focus on 1 major topic.
2.Pick 1-3 of the WA State Guidelines that relates to your episode. It is good to have a clear focus!
3.Find an empirical research article that is related to the episode and the Guideline(s) you have chosen. In empirical research articles, the authors describe how they collected data, and present the results. There are several resources for finding empirical research articles including your text, other articles, research databases, and librarians.
4.Write a paper that analyzes your focal childs behavior in light of the Guideline(s) and the empirical research article.
5.Your paper should contain the following:
a.An introductory paragraph that informs the reader about the topic of the paper. You should move from broad to specific. What general domain are you focusing on? What specific behavior are you focusing on? Conclude with a thesis statement that discusses your childs age. Is your childs behavior consistent with an age range in the Guidelines and an age range in an empirical research article?
b.A paragraph describing the episode that you are going to analyze. What did the child do?
c.A paragraph relating the episode to your chosen Guideline(s).
i.What is/are the Guideline(s)? Be specificprovide page numbers.
ii.What did the child do that relates to the Guideline(s)? Is your childs behavior consistent with the Guideline(s) or not? Be explicit in making connections between the childs behavior and the Guideline(s). Do not assume that because you stated the behavior in the previous paragraph and then stated the Guideline(s) in this paragraph that the reader will make a connection that seems obvious to you. Instead, be very clear and direct about how you are relating the childs behavior to your chosen Guideline(s).
d.A paragraph or two relating the childs behavior to an empirical research article.
i.What did the empirical research article say? Try to summarize the main points of the article in your own words (be sure to parenthetically cite the article even if you do not quote the article!). In your article summary include: the main question addressed by the study, the age group of the participants, the methodology used for the study (what did the participants do?), and a summary of the key results. If the study did a lot of different things, focus on the results that are most pertinent to your paper.
ii.How does the empirical research article relate to the childs behavior? Is your childs behavior consistent with the empirical research article or not? For this section, discuss similarities and differences between the behavior you observed and the findings of the research article. Again, be explicit in making connections and discussing similarities and differences. Do not assume that because you stated the behavior in the previous paragraph and then stated the research findings in this paragraph that the reader will make a connection that seems obvious to you. Instead, be very clear and direct about how you are relating the childs behavior to your empirical research article.

e.A concluding paragraph linking the childs behavior, the Guideline(s), and the empirical research article. This paragraph will likely take one of two directions. If your childs behavior, the Guideline(s), and the empirical research article are all in alignment, then you can talk about how your childs behavior appears to be in accordance with the Guideline(s)s and the research. However, if the three sources of information do not align, then your job will be to provide an explanation for why this is so. For example, your child does something different than suggested in the Guideline(s)s, and you find an article describing cultural differences for this behavior that better reflect your childs behavior.
6.Regarding formatting:
a.Your paper should be double spaced.
b.Please proof-read your work.
c.Provide a full reference for your empirical research article. For examples of APA style references, see the last page of the syllabus and the class handout. There are also several websites that provide guidance on APA style.