LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS and DEVELOPMENTAL DOMAINS
ECE101 Introduction to Early Childhood Education
September 19, 2014

Introduction
A teacher’s classroom environment is an ultimate concern in the beginning of each school year. This is in addition to designing an effective learning environment for reading, science and art projects among many subjects. Another important concern is arranging a generous amount of physical space with learning goals, while ensuring that each student adapts to all instructional requirements and needs. The first step to a well-equipped classroom setting providing sufficient reading and writing materials promoting an ultimate learning environment. This paper will provide a classroom designed for preschoolers between the ages of two to five years old in a daycare center. “Paraphrasing Loris Malaguzzi, founder of Reggio Emilia, it all starts with the environment – the entrance, the space, the walls (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998)” (Roskos, K., Neuman, S. (2011).
Not only learning will occur, social interactions, friendships and other encounters among the teacher and students will transpire daily. The classroom environment also maps out emotions, thinking, behaviors, and qualities which will effect these preschooler’s lives forever. The classroom can either be a negative or positive environment. This all relies on the teacher’s shoulders.

Physical Domain
The classroom learning environment design supports the children’s physical development such as growth motor skills, perpetual motor skills as well as brain development. The skills included are small fingers, feet, toes, face, and mouth muscles. These muscles are also known as the fine motor skills.
Cognitive Domain
Other areas of development include self-help skills such as eating, dressing, combing hair, and bathing. As these skills are mastered; a child learns to independently perform these tasks. Since children are still increasing their vocabulary and how to hold a conversation, drawing behaviors are supplemental ways of expressing themselves. So, children start focusing on drawing. As they continue to grow these activities include schoolwork and sports. For example, both old and recent Gesell studies reflect 4 ½ year olds are able to draw rectangles but they do not know what a triangle is and they are not able to draw one until they are 5 ½ years old. The child has to be able to perceive angle lines in order to draw a triangle. For example, if they cannot understand the angles in a letter, then they can write it (Pappano, 2010, p. 2) (Estes, L.S., & Krogh, S. L. (2012).

Affective Domain
My classroom design is configured to will promote emotional, social, and moral development. The configuration of the furniture is designed to encourage interaction between each child to help them develop and grow together. Between the ages of 3 and 6 years old, “children are in Erickson’s Stage 3, Initiative versus Guilt. Erikson spoke of children’s “surplus of energy” and a “pleasure in attack and conquest” (p. 255) (Estes, L.S., & Krogh, S. L. (2012) section 3.3 para 13). The unique play areas and group settings will make it easy to observe these features of development in each child. The classroom is inviting and promotes calmness helping the children to adjust to the environment; making it a smooth transition from their home (parents) environment to the classroom. The room is equipped with a refrigerator, sink, and clothes racks etc. It is as close to a home environment as possible. Contentment promotes learning as well. Moral development is a huge part of this stage as well. Preschoolers must learn that they must adhere to class rules and the consequences if they do not comply.
Development Theories
Per Piaget’s (1932) Theory of Moral Development preschoolers develop their own understanding of rules when playing as well as telling the truth and fairness.
For example, when playing with a ball; they adapted rules in accordance to their fantasies and what they should do with the ball. Preschooler’s often mimic the actions of older children thinking that those actions are truly the rules even though had no clue of the rules of a game (Estes, L.S., & Krogh, S. L. (2012).
An American psychologist named B. F. Skinner (1904- 1990) conceived what he called the operant conditioning theory of human development of how we learn at any age. He believed that learning is just a change in behavior. He also believed that one’s environment is the main factor contributing to one’s learning, and that our environment (nurture) is responsible for our behavior. Skinner believe that reinforcement influences one’s behavior. In other words a child learns when they are rewarded with something (Skinner 1953). It is further a psychological process of adding a positive reward after a required behavior to escalate the good behavior (Estes, L.S., & Krogh, S. L. (2012). For example, Jenny is a two year old in Mrs. Barnes’s class. She exhibits aggressive behavior often. Mrs. Barnes decides to document each time that Jenny is aggressive including the times that she is not. Mrs. Barnes decides to reward Jenny when she exhibits good behavior and ignore the bad behavior as long as Jenny does not harm herself or others.

After 3 weeks of documenting the outburst, Mrs. Barnes is excited as she notices that Jenny has only had 2 aggressive incidents due to Jenny being rewarded for her positive behavior (Charleworth, 2014) (Zaur, J., Irwin, J., & Phillips, J. (2014).
Conclusion
Commitment to Early Childhood Education is crucial as it is vital that we appreciate it as a unique and valuable stage in the human life cycle. A teacher’s work is based on their knowledge of the development of a child as well as how they learn. As educators we must also appreciate the role of the parents throughout the process while respecting diversity among the students and their families. We must also realize that children achieve their highest potential based on their development of relationships, trust and respect (Naeyc (2011).

References
Roskos, K., Neuman, S. (2011). The Classroom Environment, First Last and Always.
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Estes, L.S., & Krogh, S. L. (2012). Pathways to teaching young children: An introduction to early childhood education. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Retrieved from: Constellation™ course digital materials (CDM) title.

Atkinson, D. (2012). Cognitivism, adaptive intelligence, and second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics Review, 3(2), 211-232. doi:10.1515/applirev-2012-0010
Retrieved from: EBSCOHOST
Zaur, J., Irwin, J., & Phillips, J. (2014). ECE101 theorist gallery tour [Interactivity]. Ashford University, College of Education, San Diego, CA.

Retrieved from: https://bridgepoint.equella.ecollege.com/curriculum/file

Naeyc (2011). Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment
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