Assessment is an important part of our teaching, instruction, and learning. It is based on the goals of our program and is used to benefit children and be child-centered. Its function is to improve instruction and communicate progress, and it will provide me with the information to best inform my teaching and my work with each individual child. As the classroom teacher, I am accountable for planning instruction and outcomes to meet the standards set by organizations such as NAEYC and state departments. I will use developmentally appropriate assessment strategies using knowledge of age-appropriate, individually appropriate, and culturally appropriate expectations, and this will help me refine how I teach and implement my activities. I will differentiate the curriculum for individual needs as well as the assessments to the needs and interests of each child, and methods will include accommodations for children with disabilities, as well as being culturally sensitive. Moreover, I will be ethical in my assessments, and these will be carefully aligned with objectives, both program and instructional.

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Assessments will address key goals in all developmental domains- physical, social, emotional, cognitive; and in the areas of physical education and health, language and literacy, mathematics, science social competence, and creative arts. It will be clearly written, well-organized, complete and comprehensive. It will be done throughout the year on an ongoing basis, during daily activities and a variety of domains (detailed below), and it will include what children say and do during play and other classroom experiences. It will be consistent with the developmental and learning goals identified for children in the classroom. It will involve teachers and parents (more on that below) so that children’s behaviors and abilities can be understood in various contexts and cooperative relationships among families and school staff can be fostered.

There will be two forms of assessment in the classroom- informal and formal.

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Informal Assessment

These assessments will be ongoing and include a variety of techniques:

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*Observation-Based: Observation is one of the best measures of children’s needs, success, and development. It will consider the whole child, not just the child’s academic abilities. It will be collected during daily instructional activities on an ongoing basis. Such an observation-based assessment will help me learn the most about what children know, do and feel, as I notice their behavior and comments in our day-to-day interactions.

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*Documentation through Technology etc.: Documenting and providing evidence and artifacts expands informal assessment by including technologies such as video and audiotaping. For example, children can be interviewed and that allows an understanding of what they understand and can do. It will include photographs, drawings, audiotape transcriptions, and videotapes. Work samples will be included, as well as anecdotal observations of events, experiences, and development. This will enable me to verify that learning outcomes are met and that children master knowledge, skills, and dispositions expected.

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*Anecdotal Records: These are notes that describe events that occur in the classroom, such as comments, responses, expressions, or body language, dispositions or social sketches that describe specifically the child’s behaviors or reactions. With time, patterns emerge that will help me learn more about the child’s development.

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*Authentic or Performance: This is an opportunity to appraise what a child can do or apply rather than what they know. It focuses on the children’s experiences, thinking, ideas and memories. Through this type of assessment, I will gather information by organized observation to make decisions about a student, and it will be conducted in the meaningful context of that child’s work and play environment.

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*Portfolios: This is a purposeful collection of the child’s work, and it tells the story of that child’s efforts, progress, or achievement in any given area. It allows children the opportunity to see their own progress and tell stories that are associated with their learning. Through the process of creating the portfolio, we can chart progress, recognize achievement, and show work in various areas, and therefore it will focus on potential and not just performance. This also creates an opportunity for the child to reflect on their work, share it with other classmates, and involve their family with the making of it. It can also create a longitudinal system to demonstrates the process leading to the products (in the portfolio) and to allows me to design evaluative rubrics for program accountability.

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*Journals: These are children’s own record-keeping and insights relating to growth and achievement. This will help me learn what most interests the child at hand.

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*Self-assessments, self-evaluations, and self-monitoring: Children get to evaluate their own work and performance, with support from me as they learn to accept responsibility for their own goals and achievements. It can be done with the help of a “quick check”.

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*Checklists: The checklist is used to identify and document children’s needs and interests while taking into consideration the chronological and developmental age of the child. It helps me plan classroom instruction and learn more about each child’s interests, abilities in limited areas, and developmental characteristics.

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*Rubrics: This can help me, as well as parents, determine a child’s interests and feelings about many different aspects of the school environment.

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It is important to mention, the multi-method assessment strategies/tools will take place as explored above, as well as through different settings, such as in small groups, as well as individually, and in large groups. Aside from collecting specific information about each child through these methods, such diversity of contexts will allow me, the teacher, to get a larger understanding of areas of the curriculum that need further articulation. These will all meet reasonable standards of demonstrated reliability and validity.

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Formal Assessment

A developmental screening will take place in order to consider if a child is needing additional supports, as in the case of children with special needs. In the case that I (the teacher), the parents or other professionals suspect a problem, a developmental screening will take place with additional support of professionals in the field of special education, to assess what kind of learning or developmental problem a child may have. Thereafter there will be a referral to a specialist for diagnostic follow-up or other interventions.

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Partnerships With Families

It is important to keep the channels of communication with families open and ongoing. That way, decisions can be made together regarding learning goals and approaches to learning that are suitable for the individual child. Families are therefore informed on an ongoing basis about how their child is doing in all developmental domains. Throughout the year, partnerships will be built with each of the families, built on mutual understanding and trust to ensure that the children’s developmental and learning needs are met. After all, we both have the same goal in mind which is how to best support the child’s development and learning and how to handle problems or differences as they arise. I will make an active effort to speak with parents and ask for their understanding, goals, and concerns about their children so I can incorporate that into my ongoing assessment, evaluation, and planning. At any time, parents will be welcomed with prior scheduling into the school, through volunteering, or in order to directly observe their child.

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One specific method that will be offered to the parents is “Parent Ratings”, wherein they will have a way to organize their perceptions of their child’s development into scales for which reliability and validity can be assessed. It can help them feel a partner in the teaching of their child, as well as inform them about kinds of behaviors and milestones that are important in their child’s development.

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Additional efforts will take place with parents who do not speak English, such as hiring bilingual staff for school or being assisted with a translator ahead of time for scheduled meetings such as parents-teachers conference days. Moreover, it will be highly important to be culturally respective to other cultures who find communication with teachers intimidating or inappropriate. I will practice patience and be more sensitive with such families as they get more comfortable with sharing information and collaborating on behalf of their child’s interests.