Principle Ideas Surrounding the Developmental Interaction Approach

The developmental interaction approach encompasses the following three ideas in how we approach curriculum delivery.

Experiential Education – carefully designed and executed educational experiences that are reconstructed and reflected upon in a variety of ways such as talking, drawing, building, acting;

Constructivism – the idea that a child makes discoveries from observation, explorations, and experiences and uses all of these to construct understanding.  Constructivist believe that the child is the “maker of meaning”.

Ownership of Learning – because a student is directly involved with the environment and the assorted learning experiences, he/she is more invested and excited about learning.

This philosophy demands that we organize our classroom environments in a way that encourages a child to explore learning opportunities, use teaching strategies that engage children to make discoveries and “make meaning” of their learning. We encourage children to investigate their own questions and their own realities.