Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum and Instruction: Pedagogy for knowledge, attitudes and values

This timely and accessible volume explores how our understanding of research in child development can help cultivate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes children need for informed and thoughtful participation in society by viewing the curriculum through a developmental lens.

Gordon Biddle and Garcia-Nevarez cover a range of key topics including characteristics of physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development of children; heritable and environmental influences on children’s developing self; language and literacy development; mathematical cognition; growth mindsets; and evidence-based positive behavioral interventions and supports. The expert team of contributors offers an advanced exploration of developmental science and how this applies to learning and education in order to create inclusive environments that support children with a range of abilities, including those with the most significant medical, intellectual, and developmental delays. Each chapter contains boxes exploring how the topic relates to the themes of "Promoting Social and Emotional Competence Theory," "Research to Practice Connection," "Common Core and Other Standards," and "Social Justice and Diversity," ensuring comprehensive and consistent coverage across the volume.

Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum and Instruction will be essential reading for students of child development and education, as well as educators and those in teacher training who are interested in how theory and research can be effectively harnessed to improve children’s outcomes.

Ana Garcia-Nevarez is Professor of Child and Adolescent Development in the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento. She has a double BA in psychology and Child Development from California State University, Northridge, an MA in School Psychology from Arizona State, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction (emphasis elementary education) from Arizona State University. She was a Regents’ graduate academic scholar at Arizona State University. She has more than 18 years of experience as a college professor and has numerous accomplishment and awards. She has published numerous publications and has presented at national and international conferences. Dr. Garcia-Nevarez's recent research studies have examined the attitudes of pre-service teachers toward teaching as a career and working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. Specifically, she has studied the impact of early field experiences on prospective teachers’ career goal orientations, the relationship between school classification (Title I, non-Title I) and participant outcomes, and the relationship between participants’ facility in a second language and their response to early field experiences. Previous research studies have focused on the attitudes and perceptions that foreign-trained teachers and bilingual education teachers have towards their education training and the promising prospects these teachers have in the United States.

Kimberly A. Gordon Biddle has a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Child and Adolescent Development. She is an American Psychological Association MFP Fellow. She is a retired college professor of 28 years, now Emeritus Professor at California State University, Sacramento. She is the author or co-author of over 15 peer-reviewed articles and some book chapters. She is a presenter or co-presenter of more than 35 peer-reviewed presentations. She has obtained approximately $1,000,000 in grants. She won Outstanding Teaching and Service Awards at Sacramento State. She is also the winner of one of the Stanford GSE Alumni Awards for Excellence in Education for 2018, and she won one of the Alumni Career Awards from the University of Redlands in 2019.