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RESPONSE 1
Katheryn Gonzales
RE: Discussion 1 - Module 4
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Assessment data is used for many different reasons in education to plan instruction and identify students who may have special needs or need particular interventions. Assessment data can be used to monitor progress and document Response to Intervention progress (Banergee & Luckner, 2013). Assessments can offer teachers, speech therapists, special educators, physical therapists, and parents valuable information as they plan ways to assist students in achieving academic goals.
Scenario:
Khalil is a five-year-old boy who attends a Title 1 school. He came to kindergarten with no prior preschool or pre-kindergarten experience. Khalil is a charming and sensitive boy. He loves music, and he is always smiling. Khalil’s teacher noticed that when asked to sit for circle time, Khalil could not sit with his legs crisscrossed. He would try to sit as the other students, but he struggled to figure out how to crisscross his legs. Khalil’s teacher would have to move his legs to show him how they should look. During circle time, Khalil is very interested in storytime. However, he cannot keep his body still even though he appears engaged in the story. During handwriting practice, Khalil struggles to hold a pencil and is not writing on the lines, and is unable to form letters correctly but can describe precisely how the letter should be written. For example, when writing the lowercase a, he might say, “circle back around, push up, pull down.” Khalil is also remarkably absent-minded at times. Khalil’s teacher is concerned with his ability to follow one or two-step directions. What assessment can the teacher perform to decide what interventions Khalil will need to support him in the classroom?
Banerjee, R., & Luckner, J. (2013). Assessment Practices and Training Needs of Early
Childhood Professionals. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 34(3), 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/10901027.2013.816808
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REWSPONSE 2
Angel Winslow
RE: Discussion 1 - Module 4
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Why this is The Best Assessment for This Child
The proposed assessment exercise is ideal for this child since it evaluates performance through different lenses, such as intellectual, cognitive, social, and emotional development. It also goes beyond mere children learning to incorporate efficacious teaching practices. This is especially the case since it adopts both formative and summative evaluation models. It is formative in the sense that it can be implemented in a continuous fashion, thereby facilitating easy monitoring of a child’s progress across different learning periods. Its enrichment also occurs when the instructors are actively involved in the teaching process (Ebbeck et al., 2014). The proposed assessment method also enables educators to recognize the process of evaluation as a critical tool for learning. Such a procedure entails discussions with learners, writing down the process of learning together, and allowing the children to acknowledge that they themselves are learners. In so doing, it develops the understanding of how they gain and retain knowledge.
Another reason for selecting this assessment model is that it encourages the analysis and identification of children’s learning needs. This can in turn inform education practice and policy. It also contributes a crucial piece of feedback since these measures offer information regarding both students’ learning requirements as they enter kindergarten as well as the forms of experiences that they have prior to joining learning institutions. Moreover, it complies with the modern authentic assessment protocols in that it can meet the assessment needs of individuals with learning disabilities. Central to facilitating the success of young children towards the accomplishment of state standards is ensuring that the assessment is linked to the process (Ebbeck et al., 2014). Children are likely only to make progress on assessments that reflect the goals of the learning program and the curriculum. As a result, it is an effective assessment that aligns with the recommended standards and guidelines at both federal and state levels. To ensure that the child is making progress, the assessment instrument evaluates behaviors that are linked to such standards.
Most importantly, the assessment method helps to promote developmental learning outcomes. An ideal assessment tool should be developmentally appropriate. In that connection, developmental learning outcomes are instrumental in linking specific components of children’s learning achievements to different domains of development. This includes monitoring a wide range of physical development in the age range of birth to three years. As part of this exercise, it examines the outcomes of gross motor skills and helps to inform a caregiver of the ongoing development of the child. Caregivers can, in turn make judgments regarding such outcomes through focused and ongoing observations, watching how the child utilizes some materials, and how the skills and understandings are interrelated.
The Information that the Assessment provides
The above assessment technique seeks to gather and provide data about a child’s development in different learning domains. More importantly, it identifies a set of developmental benchmarks and expectations that must be met for a child to be deemed as progressive in his educational program. These include data on physical health or motor skills, social and emotional growth, approaches towards learning, condition and general knowledge, as well as progress in the area of language, literacy, and communication (Banerjee & Luckner, 2013). These benchmarks correspond to the K-12 standards, and offer a collection of expectations that frame general learning continuum or all young children. They can be disseminated as a printed document for use by educators, parents, and policymakers who are keen to provide a positive learning environment for children. In light of the above, the proposed assessment procedure is built on a concrete framework of standards for early childhood development, and promotes continuity for learners across early opportunities. In so doing, it encourages consistency in the identification and measuring of the child’s outcomes to be aligned with early learning standards.
References
Banerjee, R., & Luckner, J.L. (2013). Assessment practices and training needs of early childhood
professionals. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 34(3), 231-248.
Ebbeck, M., Teo, G., Tan, C., & Goh, M. (2014). Relooking assessment: A study on assessing
developmental learning outcomes in toddlers. Early Childhood Education Journal 42(2),
115-123
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