BEE 3208 Chapter 1 Assessment of Young Children PDF

FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF BASIC EDUCATION AND CHILDHOOD BACHELOR OF EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN (BEE 3208) Chapter 1: Conceptual analysis Learning Outcome: Describe the nature of asse...

FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF BASIC EDUCATION AND CHILDHOOD BACHELOR OF EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN (BEE 3208) Chapter 1: Conceptual analysis Learning Outcome: Describe the nature of assessment, measurement, evaluation and testing in the content of assessment of ECE in Botswana Assessment Introduction Assessment of young children is important both to support the learning of each individual child and to provide data at the district, state, and national level for improving services and educational programs. At the level of the individual child, teaching and assessment are closely linked. Finding out, on an ongoing basis, what a child knows and can do, helps parents and teachers decide how to pose new challenges and provide help with what the child has not yet mastered. Teachers also use a combination of observation and formal assessments to evaluate their own teaching and make improvements. At the policy level, data are needed about the preconditions of learning such as the adequacy of health care, childcare, and preschool services. Direct measures of children’s early learning are also needed to make sure that educational programs are on track in helping students reach high standards by the end of third grade. Page 1 of 10 Definition of Assessment Assessment is the process of collecting useful and relevant data and information from various sources to develop insights into learners’ understanding, knowledge, and takeaways from the educational experience. Assessment: The process of collecting data to measure the performance or capabilities of a student or group. Brown (2004) defined assessment as “any act of interpreting information about student performance, collected through any of a multitude of a means or practices” (p. 304). According to Brown, (1990) assessment refers to a related series of measures used to determine a complex attribute of an individual or group of individuals. This involves gathering and interpreting information about learner level of attainment of learning goals. Assessment is the process of gathering information to monitor progress and make educational decisions if necessary. As noted in my definition of test, an assessment may include a test, but also includes methods such as observations, interviews, behaviour monitoring, etc. Assessment is the act of determining the extent to which the learning objectives (target) are on their way to being achieved and to what extent they have been achieved. It is an umbrella term for the use of many methods of gathering evidence that students are meeting the learning objectives. Assessment is operationally defined as a part of the educational process where instructors appraise learners’ achievements by collecting, measuring, analysing, synthesizing, and interpreting relevant information about a particular object of interest in their performance under controlled conditions in relation to curricula objectives set for their levels, and according to the procedures that are systematic and substantively grounded. In the classroom, assessment considers learners’ performances on tasks in a variety of settings and contexts”. It should serve as a form of communicating feedback both to learners’ learning and teachers’ teaching. Educational assessment involves gathering and evaluating data evolving from planned learning activities or programs. Page 2 of 10  Developmental assessment: Measurement of a child’s cognitive, language, knowledge, and psychomotor skills to evaluate development in comparison to children of the same chronological age. Dynamic assessment: An interactive mode of assessment used to evaluate a child’s ability to learn by providing a structured learning situation, observing how the child performs, and evaluating how well the child can learn new material under various conditions of supported learning. Classroom assessments are not run in void. They are governed by the purposes, uses and functions to which they are put. 1. Assessing to promote children’s learning and development. The most important reason for assessing young children is to help them learn. ▪ Assessments also are used to identify individual learner weaknesses and strengths so that educators can provide specialized academic support educational programming, or social services. ▪ It provides feedback on the effectiveness of instruction and gives learners a measure of their progress. ▪ Brown (1990) maintains, two major functions can be pointed out for classroom assessment: i. To show whether the learning has been successful. ▪ Assessment helps to improve teaching effectiveness; thus, teachers have to find out whether instruction was effective in terms of achieving the objectives of the lesson and also identify/rectify barriers to learning. ii. To clarify the expectations of the teachers from the learners. ▪ It provides teachers with an opportunity to explain to learners what is expected of them. ▪ To communicate with and involve parents. ▪ Assessment is a process that includes four basic components: Measuring improvement over time. Motivating students to study. Evaluating the teaching methods. Page 3 of 10  Ranking the students' capabilities in relation to the whole group evaluation. 2. Assessing to identify children for health and special services. ▪ Screening or a referral procedure should be in place to ensure that children suspected of having a health or learning problem are referred for in-depth evaluation. ▪ Given the potential for misuse of cognitive screening measures, states that mandate screening tests should monitor how they are used and should take extra steps to avoid inappropriate uses. ▪ IQ-like tests should not be used to exclude children from school or to plan instruction. 3. Assessing to monitor trends and evaluate programs and services. ▪ The kinds of assessment that teachers use in preschool and the early grades to monitor children’s learning are not sufficiently reliable or directly comparable for uses outside the classroom. ▪ Before age 5, assessment systems designed to gather data at the state or national level should focus on social indicators that describe the conditions of learning, e.g., the percentage of low-income children who attend quality preschool programs. ▪ Beginning at age 5, it is possible to develop large-scale assessment systems to report on trends in early learning, but matrix sampling should be used to ensure technical accuracy and at the same time protect individual children from test misuse. 4. Assessing academic achievement to hold individual students, teachers, and schools accountable. ▪ There should be no high-stakes accountability testing of individual children before the end of third grade. ▪ Instructionally relevant assessments designed to support student learning should reflect a clear continuum of learners’ progress that leads to expected standards of performance for the third and fourth grades. ▪ Teachers should be accountable for keeping track of how well their students are learning and for responding appropriately, but the technology of testing is not sufficiently accurate to impose these decisions using an outside assessment. Page 4 of 10 Importance of assessment First and foremost, assessment is important because it drives learners learning (Brown 1990). In addition, good assessment can help learners become more effective self- directed learners (Darling-Hammond 2006). Well-designed assessment strategies also play a critical role in educational decision-making and are a vital component of ongoing quality improvement processes at the lesson, course and/or curriculum level. The purpose of assessment is to provide reliable, valid and fair measurements of the achievements of a learner in a specific subject. Assessment guide and motivate learners by giving positive reinforcement, and creating a stimulating environment that encourages learners to learn while guiding their progress. Kellough et al (p. 418-419) characterizes seven purposes of assessment: To assist student learning. To identify students’ strengths and weaknesses. To assess the effectiveness of a particular instructional strategy. To assess and improve the effectiveness of curriculum programs. To assess and improve teaching effectiveness thus, teachers have to find out whether instruction was effective in terms of achieving the objectives of the lesson and also identify/rectify barriers to learning. To provide data that assist in decision making. To communicate with and involve parents. Types of assessment There are major types of assessment namely, formative, summative and diagnostic 1. Formative assessment Formative assessment refers to tools used throughout a class or course that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps, while assessing ways to close such gaps. Formative assessment can help students take ownership Page 5 of 10  of their learning when they understand its goals to be about improving learning, not raising final marks (Trumbull and Lash, 2013). Formative assessment, measures progress and functions as a diagnostic tool to help specific students. Formative Assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies: i. Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout term. ii. Encourage students’ self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer’s work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion. iii. Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes. iv. Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around midterm evaluations and small group feedback sessions, where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus. v. Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more likely to find motivation and engage when they are assured that an Page 6 of 10  instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions. vi. Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed. 2. Summative assessment Summative assessment is an appraisal of learning at the end of an instructional unit or at a specific point in time. It compares student knowledge or skills against standards or benchmarks. Summative assessment evaluates the mastery of learning. Summative assessment evaluates student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment. Summative assessments are usually higher stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of instruction. i. Use a rubric or table of specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and “summarize” expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion. ii. Design clear, effective questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honour how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Page 7 of 10  iii. Assess comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course’s content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course’s ideas and content. iv. Make parameters clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support. v. Consider blind grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student’s term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider blind grading 3. Diagnostic assessment All students bring prior knowledge, skills, and experiences with them to school, and they are dependent on this prior learning to make sense of new learning. To be effective, teachers need to find out just what it is that their students already know and can do. When teachers know their students, they can select contexts, content, and strategies that will engage them and facilitate their learning. Both the focusing and teaching inquiries in the teaching as inquiry cycle rely on knowledge of students. Find out about the backgrounds and experience of your students before you start developing programmes for them. Experienced teacher, consider how their teaching has changed in response to the changing ethnic makeup of their classes. The purpose of diagnostic assessments in education is to: help identify problems with a certain instruction style and provide insights into improvement that can be done in the quality of delivery. help educators understand their students’ strengths, weaknesses, knowledge level, and skillset prior to beginning instruction. Diagnostic assessment Page 8 of 10  examples include pre-assessment tests that give you a snapshot of or diagnose knowledge to screen learners. For instance, if a teacher wants to start a lesson on two-digit multiplication with young pupils, they can use diagnostic assessment to make sure the lesson is delivered well. They will want to understand if the students have grasped fact families, number place values, and one-digit multiplication before moving on to more complicated questions. Diagnostic assessments collect data on what the students already know about a specific subject or topic. ADVANTAGES OF DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION There are various advantages of different types of diagnostic assessment in education that help achieve the purpose of diagnostic assessment, which is to improve quality. These are: They provide insights to educators to create customized instructions. They are usually informal and easy to use. They don’t require high-level training and don’t have standardized protocols to follow. Teachers can further refine or change their methods at any time. For instance, a teacher can start with easier diagnostic assessment examples like MCQs and then move on to journals or audits. Such assessments show quick results once you’re used to them. Instructors can easily share their learnings with their peers. DISADVANTAGES OF DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT They don’t take into consideration anything that needs to be done post the delivery of a lesson. The importance of diagnostic assessments also diminishes in large groups. A teacher may develop inaccurate assumptions about the student’s knowledge of a subject and overlook that particular topic during the unit. Page 9 of 10  Students new to this kit can become anxious. Generally, for this assessment to be administered correctly and executed reliably, special training may be required. Plus, this whole process is quite time-consuming. Page 10 of 10