6.5 Chapter Conclusion
Brenda Boyd Brown, Ph.D.
Summary
Authentic, naturalistic observation has been a part of early childhood education since its inception. Increased pressure for standards and accountability in education has impacted early childhood education, but efforts to ensure assessment in ECE remains developmentally appropriate and have mainly been successful.
Observation and assessment remain essential skills for productive early childhood educators. Although risks exist if observation and documentation are not objective and unbiased, high-quality documentation of objective observation is a critical tool for responsive teaching. An educator’s toolkit should contain a variety of methods of documentation and skill in reviewing, summarizing, and synthesizing observational data for periodic assessment of a child’s development. The information provided by this assessment assists in the creation of responsive curricula. Assessment done in this manner results in essential information for responsive teaching that meets the needs of children.
Review Questions
- Have observation and assessment always been a part of early childhood education?
- How did changes in educational philosophy (such as the No Child Left Behind Act) influence the use of assessment in early childhood education?
- What is the most crucial purpose for assessment in early childhood education, according to the authors of “Principles and Recommendations for Early Childhood Assessment”?
- Define assessment and describe how it is used in early childhood education.
- Define observation and describe how it is used in early childhood education.
- How are assessment and observation related?
- Do assessment and observation mean the same thing?
- What is formative assessment?
- What is summative assessment, and how is it different from a formative assessment?
- What is authentic assessment? Describe what it would look like in an early childhood classroom.
- Provide an example of a formal assessment.
- What is norm-referenced assessment? How is it applicable in early childhood education?
- What is a standardized assessment?
- Define objective and subjective documentation.
- Provide an example of subjectively written documentation. Improve it by making it more objective.
- Why is objectivity in documentation critical?
- Describe the cycle of assessment. How is it iterative?
- Describe anecdotal records or notes.
- Describe running records. How are they different from anecdotal records? Why would you use a running record?
- Describe work samples.
- What is a portfolio?
- Describe checklists and rating scales and their similarities and differences.
- Describe the process of interpreting collected documentation. Include the idea of synthesizing various pieces of documentation into a summary.
- Describe how assessment results can inform curriculum planning and teaching.