Lois C. Johnson Johnson 1 ECED & 190 Professor Roswell September 29, 2014 Chapter 2: Assessing and Guiding Young Children’s Development and Learning (5th ed.) by Oralie McAfee and Deborah J. Leong A child’s emotions can affect the reliability of an assessment. This can include external and internal factors: family problems, fatigue, the lack of nourishment, how they are approaching their day, their frame of mind (whether they want to sit for the assessment and if they like their teacher or caregiver), etc. More than one measurement over a period of time is needed for a reliable assessment. Teachers must stress validity in their assessments. This includes not just in their assessment yet also within their conclusions and interpretations of the information they have compiled. Fairness is uppermost when viewing samples of work, test results and observations. Teachers should have enough samples of the children’s work to give a true validation of an assessed outcome. Children’s samples should be balanced and cover many aspects of their learning plus exemplify several different or various measures of assessing that teachers use when compiling or concluding their results. Teachers need to make sure that they are assessment pertains to what they are evaluating. Johnson 2 Children with disabilities may on occasion fall prey to bias. Teachers must stress fairness when assessing their work and not ‘over-identify’ nor make too many assumptions nor make allowances for or with regards to their disability. Guidelines for addressing these issues must be in place. Teachers need to work in teams and implement IEP’s when assessing children with disabilities. Each child can be impacted by the time of day or the arrangement of the classroom environment- such as seat arrangement. My son for example forgets his glasses on occasion. His seat assignment is in the back row. In his class binder as a way for him to remember and not to fall back on the excuse of (I could not see the board)-he has written into his study schedule as a way to remind himself to ask to be move to the front row when he forgets his glasses because he has trouble seeing the board and also cannot hear what his teacher is saying. All children should be assessed fairly regardless of disability, learning challenges, language barriers (speech delays), ethnicity, social, cultural or language backgrounds. Teachers must remain objective, avoid labeling or classifying and be sensitive to the needs of the student and their family. Assessments should remain confidential. They should also be reliable through the use of non-threatening questions. Teachers should not put the student on edge nor have them made to feel uncomfortable or uneasy. Teachers should always remain supportive and encouraging. They should give clear, concise questions and directions. They should always make sure they are understood. They must make sure their results align within the child’s developmental level and capabilities
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 08:37:29 +0000