Approaches to Learning Standards and Interest Areas for Exploratory Play

Approaches to Learning Standards and Interest Areas for Exploratory Play

Approaches to Learning (ATL) standards are grounded in research on brain development. They emphasize the importance of a particular set of skills and mental processes that constitute executive functioning, which is necessary for effective problem solving and higher-order thinking (Berk, 2001). Central to executive functioning are self-regulation, attention, and memoryskills that prove highly valuable later in life for such tasks as completing homework assignments independently or planning, researching, and writing a report. The extent to which a child exhibits these characteristics may actually be a better predictor of future success in school than intelligence measures (Berk, 2001; Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Academics, 2015; McClelland, Cameron, Wanless, & Murray, 2007). Figure 7.1 displays key elements of executive functioning.