Procedures for Implementation of the Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum lessons

One Bright Start lesson was delivered daily by each experimental teacher in the morning for 30 to 40 min. using the mediational teaching style approach, please refer to Appendix E for a sample of the Bright Start lesson plan. Each lesson was conducted according to the following features:

119 -Main activity, where the cognitive functions are being taught;

-Variation where the alternative activities for teaching the cognitive functions are presented;

- Generalizing activity, where the application of cognitive functions are encouraged in a general way;

- Bridging discussion and other bridging discussion where discussions were focused on how cognitive principles, concepts and strategies can be applied to different contexts and content.

The teacher was required to carry out all the components stated in the lesson.

In the later part of the day, when the experimental teacher conducted the regular integrated thematic curriculum, she emphasised the cognitive functions that were being taught in the earlier part of the day. The emphasis on the cognitive functions stems from the idea that these are better learned by applying them in other content learning areas. According Haywood (1988), this concept, where the cognitive functions and strategies are applied to other contexts, is also known as bridging. It is in these applications that the concepts are learned and made secure to the extent that it is examined, tested, applied and tried in a variety of contexts. At the end of each day, the teacher was required to evaluate the children‟s learning and her teaching of the daily Bright Start lesson and the integrated thematic curriculum lesson.

Next, further examination on how the Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum was woven into the daily schedule of curriculum implementation. The ABC curriculum integrated the various disciplines such as mathematics, environmental awareness, language, self and social studies, aesthetics and creative expression, and physical skills were embedded into the thematic curriculum. This stems from ABC Childcare‟s belief that children learn from everything that happens to them and do not separate into „subjects‟. Learning from one domain leads to learning in another domain. Hence, the children‟s learning experiences should therefore be integrated as a whole where possible. The integrated thematic learning helps children to understand that knowledge and skills are linked together rather than being

120 segregated in the teaching and learning process (Ministry of Education, 2003). Hence, learning these domains become more meaningful to children when they are embedded in the context of themes. For example, from May to October 2009, there was a unit on plants in the integrated thematic curriculum, where the children used comparison skills to compare the physical features of plants and another unit on animals required children to use classification skills to classify animals in their various categories. Both the experimental and control groups of children would have acquired comparison and classification skills as they learnt about the plants and animals in the integrated thematic curriculum. With the experimental group, the comparison and classification skills were taught explicitly in small group teaching and being considered as cognitive functions. The children from the experimental group had the advantage of having these skills further reinforced when participating in the thematic curriculum topics such as plants and animals.

3.5.2.1 Adaptations of the Bright Start lessons with the use of local materials

In the initial stage, the experimental teachers followed closely the Bright Start lesson plans. However, as they went along, the teachers felt that the Bright Start lesson plans offered guidelines and more was needed to help further enhance the children‟s cognitive functions and the application of cognitive functions. The experimental teachers made some adaptations as they delivered the Bright Start lessons. They introduced materials that were used in the local context. One such example is the Congkak board, a traditional game played by the Malay ethnic group (See Appendix K). It is made of wood and shaped like a boat with fourteen holes in two rows of seven. With the use of marbles dropped into the holes, this equipment was used by the teacher to teach estimation and counting. Another local traditional play material is Kuti- Kuti (please refer to Appendix K), these are small colourful transparent plastic pieces in shapes of animals and the teachers used them to teach counting and classifying skills. The children were learning to play “traditional games” which used to be played by their parents. It gave them an interesting insight to the early experiences of their parents, Gestwicki (1999) suggests that the knowledge of age-related developmental information about how children learn,

121 knowledge of individual children‟s abilities, characteristics and needs for support and knowledge of the cultural context from which each child comes from, must be given attention in planning truly developmentally appropriate programmes.

On the other hand, the curriculum that the control teachers used appeared to be prescriptive in nature. They followed a detailed manual of lesson plans with materials provided which were deemed to be adequate to cover the learning of the children for the whole school year.

3.5.2.2 Supplementary tasks to meet the developmental needs of the children

To meet the learning needs of the children, the experimental teachers supplemented the lessons with relevant tasks that required children to apply the various cognitive functions. For the cognitive unit on Self Regulation, the children were given the tasks of solving hidden pictures puzzle (See Appendix L) where they have to pay attention to details, develop figure-ground perception, establish object constancy and explore systematically in order to solve the puzzles.

For the unit on Number Concept, the children did some activities where they had to make reasonable estimates of quantities, such as pumpkin seeds, marbles etc. and check for accuracy. These activities require the children to use counting as a strategy in solving problems.

For the unit on Classification, the children‟s concept of classification was further challenged when they were asked to explain the specific attributes of a group; example, living and non living things and their reason for grouping items under the categories. One such classification activity was carried out using a matrix task (Stachel, 1973) (See Appendix L). The children had to keep in mind two properties of an object and search for it, thus children develop an understanding of the concept of classifying objects simultaneously based on two dimensions (Caruso & Resnick, 1972)

122

3.5.2.3 Problems encountered during implementation of the Bright Start cognitive curriculum in the setting of my research study.

There were a few problems encountered during the implementation of the Bright Start in the setting of my research study.

Firstly, the teachers in the experimental groups were relatively new to mediated learning teaching techniques. Although they have received a 50-hour of training in mediated learning teaching techniques and the Bright Start cognitive curriculum for young children, they were still considered as beginners in the use of the mediated learning teaching techniques and they would have benefited from more opportunities to practice. Hence, they experienced difficulties in reinforcing the cognitive functions in the integrated thematic lessons consistently and they were also not consistent in the use of meditational teaching approach except during the Bright Start cognitive curriculum small group lessons.

Secondly, the daily Bright Start lessons were disrupted towards the end of the research study because the children had to take time for their year end concert rehearsals. As a result of this, the Bright Start lessons were carried out twice or three times per week instead of daily in the month of October 2008.

Finally, there was an outbreak of hand -foot- mouth disease in April to June period of 2008 and this has disrupted my pre-tests schedule, which in turn, has caused some delay in the implementation and completion of Bright Start cognitive curriculum.

In the following sections of this Chapter, each research question will be stated, followed by description of the instruments, the validity and reliability of each instrument with reference to previous research studies, rationale for the choice of instrument for my research study, procedures used for data collection.

123

3.6 Cognitive Functions

Question 1) Which cognitive functions, if any, have been enhanced by the Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum?