Developmental appropriate practice (DAP) is a handbook aimed at contributing to the creation of a simulative environment relevant to the needs of 21st-century pre-school education. It is intended as a teacher’s survival guide ready-to-use strategies, tools and activities for meeting the challenges of each day at the kindergarten. DAP is a handbook that prescribes a narrow set of instructions that frame the landscape of kindergartens from the perspective of great teachers. The handbook provides case material in a textbook form so that preschool educators can easily begin to use cases in their daily work. Most of the cases are problem center stories about teaching situations, developed from the actual experience during mentoring and observation at the kindergartens. The case method is a relatively new phenomenon in teacher education and it is the innovative element of this output. The added value of the case method is that it is appropriate as both a pedagogical technique and for the management of kindergartens because it is an active learning process and it requires the learner to understand and apply theory rather than receive it passively.
The expected impact of PR1 is to contribute to developing the professional expertise of pre-school educators and teachers in terms of:
a)professional organizations for teachers (becoming a valuable team player, fitting in the diversity in the workspace, preparing for observation, evaluation, and selfassessment, managing diversity in the kindergarten)
b)working well with parent and guardians (importance of keeping parent contact record, professional interaction with parents, conducting successful parenting conferences)
c)establishing routines and procedures (proactive anti-burn-out strategies, eliminating procrastination and managing time, delivery of effective instruction by applying enthusiasm, charisma, body language, so that the children will know their teacher cares for them handle behavior problems effectively by taking a problem-solving approach)
PR1 will be published on Erasmus+ platforms, and the project’s websites and will be of open access.