LibGuides: OER: Open Educational Resources: Education & Child Development

Textbooks

Child Growth and Development by Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, & Dawn Rymond (2019): College of the Canyons.

A ZTC (Zero-Cost Textbook) published by College of the Canyons in California. Covers development and growth in children from birth to adolescence. Includes physical, cognitive, and social aspects of each development stage.

Observation and Assessment by Gina Peterson and Emily Elam (2020): College of the Canyons.

Covers topics including observation styles and skills, documentation, recognizing biases, qualitative assessment of preschool practices and curricula, tools and techniques for effective observation, special needs children, and family conferencing.

College of the Canyons

Introduction to Curriculum for Early Childhood Education by Jennifer Paris, Kristin Beeve & Clint Springer (2018)
College of the Canyons.

This text begins with foundations of early childhood curricula, theory and practice. The textbook covers play-centered teaching, developing curricula to support different learning styles, and guiding behavior and managing the classroom.

Child, Family, and Community by Rebecca Laff & Wendy Ruiz (2019): College of the Canyons.

Over the years researchers have found the necessity to develop theories of behavior that are specific to family settings. These theories have been developed by people with a variety of areas of emphasis, from family therapists to gerontologists to child development specialists. In this chapter we will briefly discuss six such theories: Bioecological Model, Family Systems, Functionalism, Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, and Psychological Perspectives.

Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French (2017): Martha
Lally/Suzanne Valentine-French.

Discusses human development over a full human lifetime, from birth to death. Includes sections about heredity, birth, early childhood, adolescence, early, middle and late adulthood, and a chapter on death and dying.

Role of Equity and Diversity in Early Childhood Education by Krischa Esquivel, Emily Elam, Jennifer Paris and Maricela
Tafoya (2020): College of the Canyons.

Covers topics including diversity, equity, inclusion, culture and cultural differences, children's identity development, anti-bias and equitable educational methods, social justice curricula, resolving conflict related to diversity, language, immigrant and refugee populations, diversity in family structures, gender, religion, foodways, special needs, and the history of systemic oppression.

College of the Canyons

Educational Learning Theories by Molly Zhou and David Brown (2015): Education Open Textbooks.

Topics covered include behaviorism, cognitive development, social cognitive theory, experiential learning theory, human motivation theory and information processing theory.

Galileo

Music and the Child by Natalie Sarrazin (2016): Open SUNY.

This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children’s lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.

Comprehensive Individualized Curriculum and Instructional Design... by Sennott and Loman (2015): PSU.

This open textbook addresses the population of individuals with disabilities that experience complex lifelong needs across multiple areas in their lives. Drs. Sennott and Loman drafted this book (along with the help from some friends) with the hope of providing pertinent, practical, and current resources to future special educators who plan to serve individuals with complex disabilities.

PDF and Online (via PDX Scholar)

Developmental Psychology by Neil Walker & Fredrick Bobola (2017): College of the Canyons.

Describes, from a psychological standpoint, human growth and development, with a portion of the text dealing with childhood development. The book includes topics such as developmental theories, heredity and prenatal development, infancy, early childhood, then covers each portion of lifespan development, including adolescence, stages of adulthood, aging, death and dying. For this reason, only portions of this book will be suitable for childhood development courses.

College of the Canyons

Courses

Child Development (Lumen)
An overview of child development all the way through stages of growth to early adulthood.
Foundations of Education (Lumen)
A course outlining the foundations of education, roles and responsibilities of a teacher, multicultural education, learning styles and differences, educational law, political influence on education, and more.
Lifespan Development (Lumen)
Lifespan Development examines the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional changes that occur throughout a lifetime. This course covers the essentials in understanding human development, psychological research, and theories of growth and development. Students will come to understand the lifespan perspective and to analyze growth through each of the major stages of development: prenatal development, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood (including emerging adulthood), middle adulthood, and late adulthood. The course covers key topics in each of these stages, including major developmental theories, genetics, attachment, education, learning, disabilities, parenting, family life, moral development, illnesses, aging, generativity, and attitudes towards death and dying.