Who's Who In Early Childhood Education: David P. Weikart

Who: David Weikart

Education:

B.A., Psychology, Oberline College, 1949

Ph.D, Education and Psychology, University of Michigan, 1957

Honorary Doctor of Science, Recognition & Achievement, Oberlin College, 1996

What Is He Known For?:

Creator of the internationally known early childhood model known as Cognitively Oriented Curriculum (or High Scope Research Foundation Curriculum). It is the most well-known early childhood model based almost completely on Jean Piaget's theories on child psychology and cognitive development. It is based on the concepts of (1) Active Learning (learning by doing), (2) having children plan, do, and then review their experiences, and (3) the teacher's deliberate implementation of key developmental indicators as the experiences in the class. Weikart founded the High Scope Research Foundation which serves as the curriculum's base of operations for the training of teachers and the production of curricula materials.

What Is He Doing Now?

Dr. Weikart died on December 9, 2003 from Leukemia.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS)

A superb study that is worth reading about. Check it out!

Early Childhood Quote of the Week: Tuesday, Septebmer 25, 2007

...Sensori-motor structures constitute the source of the later operations of thought. This means that intelligence proceeds from action as a whole, in that it transforms objects and reality, and that knowledge, whose formation can be traced in the child, is essentially an active and operatory assimilation.

Jean Piaget, 1969
(from The Psychology of the Child)