Assessment Of The Kindergarten Classroom : An Empirical Study Of Teachers ' Assessment Approaches

Improved Assessment Literacy: Unlike the current education system that treats assessment more separated from teaching, the core teaching standards recognize that teachers need to have greater knowledge and skill on how to develop a number of assessments, how to balance use of formative and summative assessment as

Early childhood educators use a range of assessment tools to identify children’s ideas, expressions, conversations and interactions in order to make a better understanding of each child’s strengths, abilities and interests. The assessment practice has classroom assessments, which are divided into two categories, the formative assessments, and summative assessments (SCSA, 2014). Formative assessments are on-going assessments, observations and reviews in a classroom. Educators use this assessment to improve instructional methods and provide feedback to students throughout the teaching and learning

Assessment is a valuable tool to measure students learning and achievement. It is an essential element for teacher to reflect on what and how they teach. To assess students is to collect evidence of their learning. Teachers use the information to modify their lesson plans and adjust their instructional methods; students need feedback on their performance to concentrate on their vulnerable areas. Assessment is necessary for parents to reinforce their children strength and assist them where extra attention is required. The data collected will inform school

Assessing is a crucial component of education that informs teachers on individual development and understanding (Booker, Bond, Sparrow

The North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten Program, formerly known as More at Four, is geared towards bettering the lives for At-Risk 4-year-old children. Exposing children to an early learning experience that will promote a positive learning environment to ensure Kindergarten readiness is what drives the program. Upon arrival, each child is screened using the Brigance 4-year-old tool to assess and determine the child’s developmental skills and abilities. According to the text, “Classroom tests and assessments play a central role in the evaluation of student learning. They provide relevant measures of many important learning outcomes and indirect evidence concerning others” (Miller, Linn, Gronlund, pg. 139). While many educators and families

Without assessment, there is no opportunity to keep track of benchmarks of improvement and no sense of progress. Assessment provides a time for reflection for the teacher as well as the child. The teacher may need to revisit his or her approach to teaching, based upon student's comprehension and input. Also, on a very crude level, assessment can encourage students to perform to a higher level: "Whether we like it or not, most students tend to focus their energies on the best or most expeditious way to pass their 'tests'" (Scanlan, n.d.). Q2. - What are some tools and approaches that are most appropriate in assessing children's learning and development?

The names are familiar to most parents: No Child Left Behind, Common Core State Standards, Race to the Top. These initiatives and others signify the importance of education in the United States and the many ways in which the standards have been set throughout the last couple of decades. The early childhood education community has felt the pressure to meet benchmarks set forth by these initiatives just as much as elementary, middle school, and high school teachers have, often times struggling to maintain a balance between play based learning and the high-stakes assessments that are now required. So, how do the United States Early Childhood Education programs begin preparing

The main idea of “The Whole Child Podcast,” was to discuss the meaning and purpose of assessments. A look was taken at the different types of assessments and how they are used to monitor student progress and provide feedback. The result or data collected from assessments, no matter the type, help educators adjust teaching and learning activities to improve instruction. One presenter, Molly McCloskey, shared that the reality in the United States is that we “focus extensively on test scores” and not enough on the whole child. As a result, we have taken a “one size fits all approach” while “ignoring research about the ways children learn and develop.” McCloskey also shared that the true measure of student proficiency and the assurance that they

The question of assessment in the "school system, individual schools, and teachers has evoked strong and sometimes violent emotions from the educational community, the general public and their legislative representatives"(Brown & Knight, 1994). Assessment based on standardized tests has been looked at very closely over the recent years, and some people have even mentioned that they be eliminated completely. Those who feel traditional methods should be replaced by alternative methods. These people feel that demonstration, exhibition, investigation, oral response, portfolio, and written response's are all examples of

From the time we enter a preschool program or Kindergarten, our abilities, knowledge and development are consistently being assessed. Assessment has occured throughout all aspects of my education, from the spelling tests I took in elementray school, to the Connecticut Mastery tests, to the SAT’s in high school, and even to the placement tests I took for the community college I attended. These assessments may not have been the most pleasurable experiences that occurred during my education, but they were very important.

As a Middle School Language Arts teacher, I have found that assessments are a daily part of our job. Everything that my students do in the classroom ultimately ends up being assessed in some sort of way. I must admit that it can at times be overwhelming for assessments to be such a huge part of our curriculum; I understand the necessity of each one. I haven’t always been focused as intently on assessments. I really didn’t consider the importance of assessments as much. As I gained experience and knowledge I realized that assessing my students provides me with information that makes my job more successful. I believe to effectively teach my students, I must understand and implement the right assessments properly. My assessment philosophy is that to be able to ensure our students are learning and that we are teaching the right way we must include proper assessment for validation. With that being said it is very important to use different forms of assessments to gauge student performance. One of the outstanding features of studies of assessment in recent years has been the shift in the focus of attention, towards greater interest In the interactions between assessment and classroom learning and away from concentration on the properties of restricted forms of test which are only weakly linked to the learning experiences of students (Black 2015) This research supports the idea that assessments

This field experience was completed in Palm Spring Elementary School, with the cooperating teacher Barbara Saad, who has a great training experience. To accomplish the artifact's objective, I was focused on observing and recognizing the demonstration of all indicators in Instructional Delivery and Facilitation and Assessment. In a first moment, an interview with the teacher was conducted in order to determine the procedures and use of formative and summative assessments to diagnose students’ learning needs, and to inform instruction. Then, while the teacher was actively working with students, I identified procedures and use of formative and summative assessments.

This article, written by Moriah Balingit has mentioned how the kindergarten's curriculum in this generation has changed over the past decade. It also compares and contrasts opinions of different mothers and teachers from a variety of different states. The author mentions an experienced researcher named Daphna Bassok, an associate professor of education at the University of Virginia. The author briefly explains that Bassok “...believes the shift in kindergarten is rooted in a ‘trickling down of accountability pressures’ with schools under more demands to ready children for standardized tests that are used to evaluate teachers and schools.” This statement thoroughly

There are several kinds of assessment carried out during a student’s learning. These include the placement assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. Learners coming into the kindergarten class are often given a pre test or a placement assessment to evaluate what the learner may already know or think about content that is to be

Teaching kids how to take tests does not hold their interest and is taking away play time. In the past, we have believed that kindergarteners learned through play. Edward Miller and Joan Almo stated “Kindergarten has changed radically in the last two decades. Children now spend far more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to standardized tests. In an increasing number of kindergartens, teachers must