Date of Award
5-2017
Document Type
Action Research Project
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Education
Department
Education, Montessori
First Advisor
Alisha Brandon
Department/School
Montessori Early Childhood
Abstract
The research was conducted to determine if grace and courtesy lessons could increase the peer to peer reliance in a new community of 12 children ranging in age from thirty-three months to four years old at a private Montessori school in a metropolitan area. It is rare to experience starting a new community and only having 12 children of the same relative age in a Montessori school. The study was conducted with grace and courtesy lessons, given an average of three times a week, on how to ask other peers for help and how to offer help to others. Data was collected over a six week period. The collected data showed whether or not the language from the grace and courtesy lessons was being used between the children. The results showed that the children were not yet functionally independent in many of the tasks that they were being asked to help with and therefore still had to ask an adult for assistance. Future research could repeat this process in a year's time when there is a broader age range of children or could focus on grace and courtesy lessons on how to resolve conflicts and encounters with children through practiced language.
Recommended Citation
Kuhn, Sienna D.. (2017). Building Peer Independence among Children. Retrieved from Sophia, the St. Catherine University repository website: https://sophia.stkate.edu/maed/217