The Importance Of Informal Assessment

The causes are one of the many complicated aspects of the autism disorder. Trying to decide how to diagnosis or make a decision on how to assess ASD is another aspect that can be complicated.

As a practitioner our main responsibility is to monitor and assess children’s learning and development so

In the first three years of primary school, educators are required to use a number of assessment categories to assist them to evaluate and monitor children’s progress. This allows educators to understand where students are in their learning (School curriculum and standards authority [SCASA], 2014). The purpose of these assessments is to gather and analyse information about children from a large range of contexts, including written, pictorial, audio as well as children’s interactions with others, including their families and communities, this can be known as pedagogical documentation (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett, & Farmer, 2015). Assessment purposes and assessment principles allow for educators to guarantee that a student’s achievement is measured in a meaningful way using the

Provides a Systematic Method for observing children. It assists teachers, and parents in assessing individual skill development.

The reliability of an assessment in a perfect situation should produce the same results if marked by another tutor or if that examiner unknowingly receives the same paper again. If different marks are given the assessment is consequently unreliable and proves that this assessment is subjective.

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

The NAEYC’s Code of Ethical Conduct gives professionals an insight into the guidelines they must follow to ethically assess young children. This Code refers to the core values of early childhood professionals and their responsibilities to children, families, colleagues, and the community. The NAEYC Code says that “Above all, we shall not harm children. We shall not participate in practices that are emotionally damaging, physically harmful, disrespectful, degrading, dangerous, exploitative, or intimidating to children. This principle has precedence over all others in this code” (National Association P-1.1 pg. 3). The NAEYC Code also gives specific considerations regarding the assessment of young children. Children should be cared for, protected, and assessed in a way that effectively benefits their learning and development. P-1.2 says “We shall care for and educate children in positive emotional and social environments that are cognitively stimulating and that support each child's culture, language, ethnicity, and family structure” (National Association pg. 3). Teachers should get to know the child and their family personally to achieve understanding and trust within the assessment process. If the teacher is trusted, she has the opportunity to reach out to the families. In doing so, if the family has trust toward the teacher they have trust toward her teaching strategies and may become eager to be involved within their child's education. Teachers are obligated to provide a positive learning environment for each individual child that will support them in their decisions, growth, and individuality. This Code gives teachers ethical guidelines to provide information to and for the families, enhancing the learning and development of the

The observation of children is performed by teachers and educators, to help understand each child, and their characteristics. Along with assessment and evaluation, educators are able to understand each child’s development, and make decisions about appropriate activities and experience to offer each child, to help foster their individual development. (Veale, A. and Piscitelli, B. 1988) This essay will discuss the Value of the Observation Process in Planning for early childhood settings, and the role of each teacher in facilitating children’s individual learning and development.

I selected my Family Collaborative Project as an artifact that represents my competency to assess the ongoing learning of children (including those with disabilities) birth-to-three in a collaborative manner with paraprofessionals and families. I used two different screening tools based on a systematic approach of assessment: Developmental Screen Ages & Stages and the Assessment, Evaluation and Programming System (AEPS). The Family Collaborative Project encompassed my ability to collect screening data, assess and record children’s on-going development, use developmentally appropriate learning outcomes that align with Kentucky Early Childhood Standards. Further the results of the assessment provided me the opportunity to work as a team with families, paraprofessionals and teachers to design learning outcomes and plan future services and instruction.

The assessments that she used are teaching strategies Gold and Summary of Developmental Progress and Planning Report.

For the science and nature lessons, the children will add a variety of seeds with pictures of fruits on Monday on scales for measuring. On Tuesday, the children will match numbers in math exercises with half apples. On Wednesday, they will number flip pancakes with spatula with an aim of learning numerical. On Thursday, the children will predict the items in the boxes and list them in charts. On Friday, the children will review their predictions and open the boxes to find out who got them correct.

The early childhood are the most vital time for learning, therefore observations, assessments, planning and evaluation are an important part of the curriculum for children’s

Each session, I observe students being assessed on their behavior; all students attending the alternative program are identified as having emotional/behavior disorders. The teacher uses informal assessment to evaluate student’s ability to express emotions and to complete student’s individual daily behavioral sheets. Students begin the day by completing the “high low” activity; the activity requires students to share their high and low emotions of the day and the reason(s) why. The teacher assesses the student’s ability to identify their feelings (student’s record their feelings on the whiteboard) and their capability to express reason for each of their feelings during class discussion. Both elements of the “high low” activity are assessed through teacher observation and class discussion. In Addition, the daily behavior sheets are individualized for each student, correlating to each student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP); the student’s are assessed on their behavior each hour based on a score of 0-5. Students are aware of all the items on their behavior goal list and the scores they receive each day. The co-teacher evaluates each student on how well they complete the items on their daily behavior sheet (i.e. proper use of coping skills, engagement, on-task, and

Every year, I have the opportunity to teach an elementary summer school program. Although this program only last for a month and a half, parents want to see some type of learning progress with their child; rather big or small. I believe given informal assessments throughout this program will help show the parents and students how they are making progress or what extra help can be provided for them to make the progress that they need to make.

Informal assessment allows students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways which can benefit all students. It can include group or individual projects, presentations, essays, experiments, or demonstrations. Each of these can allow for “knowledge that transfers from one situation to another [which] is based on students’ abilities to understand central principles, see connections and make distinctions, and be strategic in attacking problems and analyzing information” (Darling-Hammond, p. 285). A variety of assessment methods allow for this to happen and for students to use their personal strengths to demonstrate understanding of the information. “Research into students’ preferences for alternative assessments shows that the assessments that have been positively evaluated by students were more authentic and thus made learning more realistic and powerful” (as cited in Brown, Irving, Peterson, and Hirschfeld, 2009, p. 99). Students should be able to think creatively and take hold of their own education and learning because they must ideally be prepared for a rapidly changing society where they must be able to adapt and formulate their own solutions. Teachers are able to provide feedback to the children so they know what was done effectively and what needs to be modified. Rather than teachers pressuring students to show understanding through a single examination, they will have opportunities to confidently demonstrate knowledge with less