Chapter 6

Traditional assessment

Assessment done with standardized tests or teacher-created tests, where students typically select an answer or recall facts measuring how well children have learned specific information.

Mandated requirements made by IDEA

Children with disabilities must be included in state- and district-wide assessments unless alternate assessments are more appropriate.

There are children both with and without disabilities that will require accommodations to those assessments. Some accommodations that will help assess all children are:

Format, response, setting, timing, and scheduling accommodations.

What does the acronym IDEA stand for?

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Interviewing

Informal assessment tool by which observers and researchers obtain information about children by asking questions and engaging them in conversation. Allows children to explain behavior, work samples, or particular answers - gives an eyewitness account and lets the students describe more visible information than through written records such as portfolios or checklists.

Event Sampling

Informal assessment tool that focuses on a particular behavior during a particular event. Only used as a cause and effect type of observation. Observer looks at what happened to cause the behavior and what happened as a result of the behavior occurring.

Anecdotal Record

Informal assessment tool that gives a brief written description of a student's behavior during a single incident. Record only what is being observed or heard, deal with the facts and include the setting, and record what was said and done by the subjects being observed.

Running Record

Informal assessment tool that provides a more detailed narrative of a child's behavior focusing on a sequence of events that occur over a period of time. Help to obtain a more detailed insight into behavior in general rather than specific events like the anecdotal record. Maintain objectivity and include as much detail as possible.

Time Sampling

Informal assessment tool that records particular events or behavior during specific, continuous time intervals, such as 3 or 4 five minute periods during the course of the morning. The purpose of this method is to help identify when a child demonstrates a specific behavior - you must only observe only during the specified time period.

Rating Scales

Informal assessment tool, usually a numeric scale, that contains a list of descriptors for a set of behaviors. Enable a teacher to record data when they are observed.

Observation

Informal assessment. The intentional, systematic act of looking at the behavior of a child or children in a particular setting, program or situation; sometimes referred to as kid-watching. An authentic means of learning about children - what they know and are able to do, especially as it occurs in more naturalistic settings such as classrooms, child care centers, playgrounds, and homes.

Blurring the line between assessment and teaching

Thought that the emphasis on assessment leads to teaching children how to fill in the bubble on a response sheet but not necessarily really understanding the content or skill - the fear that the emphasis on accountability is creating an educational culture that puts tests scores ahead of intellectual growth.

High-stakes testing

Using assessment tests to make important and often life-influencing decisions about children, such as whether to admit children into programs or promote them from one grade to the next.

Screening Measures

What you and other professionals use when you gather information and make decisions about procedures such as small-group placements, instructional levels, and so forth.

State standards and testing

While there is no national curriculum in the U.S., states are required to develop standards to receive federal assistance. Each state is also entitled to determine what is taught in its public schools - which means that assessments vary between not only from each class within a school but also between states.

Portfolio

A compilation of children's work samples, other artifacts, and teacher observations collected over time.

Response Accommodations

Allows children to respond in different ways such as using an assistive communication device, typing, sign language, or pointing.

Work Sample

Also known as Student Artifact. An example of a child's work that demonstrates what the child authentically knows and is able to do.

Student Artifact

An example of the children's work - an art example, writing sample, science journal, and so on.

Characteristics of Authentic Assessment

Assess children based on their actual work. Access children based on what they are actually doing. Assess what each individual child can do, and make assessment part of the learning process.

Considerations when assessing children with disabilities

Assessment and evaluation of children with special needs must be fair and equitable for all children, and teachers must adhere to the mandates required by IDEA.

Authentic assessment

Assessment conducted through activities that require children to demonstrate what they know and are able to do. Also referred to as performance-based assessment.

Informal Assessment

Assessment of students' learning, behavior, and development using means other than standardized tests. Allows teachers to evaluate their children's progress and follow it throughout the children's learning experiences.

Formal Assessment

Assessment utilizing standardized tests that have set procedures and instructions for administration and have been normed, thus making it possible to compare a child's score with the scores of children who have already taken the same exam.

Performance-based pay

Certain school districts give their teachers extra compensation or bonuses if their schools meet certain student achievement goals, which means more testing for students of all ages - it's part of a district's incentive to improve educational outcomes of students.

Timing Accommodation

Changes the allowable length of the testing time and provides students with the time and breaks they need.

Scheduling Accommodation

Changes the particular time of day, the day of the week, or number of days an assessment is given.

Checklist

List of behaviors or other traits used in informal assessments to identify children's skills and knowledge. Powerful tool for observing and gathering information about a wide range of student abilities in all settings.

Public concerns

Many states now require that students pass a reading test by 3rd grade and if they don't they are held back- and because of this, states adopted laws that require schools to identify, intervene, and retain students who fail the reading test. There is pressure for teachers to teach children, regardless of socioeconomic status, culture, gender, or race, how to be ready on a grade level and make progress academically.

Rubrics

Performance and scoring guides that differentiate among levels of student performance.

Screening Procedures

Procedures that give a broad picture of what children know and are able to do, as well as their physical and emotional status.

Assessment

Process of collecting information about children's development, learning, behavior, academic progress, need for special services, and attainment of grade-level goals through observing, recording, and otherwise documenting what children do and how they do it in order to make effective decisions.

Format Accommodations

The assessment directions or content is altered to include visual, tactile, or auditory presentations depending on the needs of the child.

Setting Accommodation

The location of an assessment is changed so it is free from distractions and other interruptions.

Screening

The process of identifying the particular physical, social, linguistic, and cognitive needs of children in order to provide appropriate programs and services. Formal assessment.

Current Issues associated with the assessment of young children

The public, including politicians and legislatures, see assessments as a means of making schools and teachers accountable for teaching the nation's children. Assessments are also seen as playing a critical role in the reform of education: the results of assessments are used to make decisions about how the curriculum and instructional practices can increase achievement.

Interpretation

Three-step process that includes examining the information that has been gathered, organizing and drawing conclusions from that information, and making decisions about teaching based in the conclusions.

Importance of Assessment

helping you understand what children can do, what they have learned and what their specific needs may be.

Purposes of Observation

1. Determine the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical development of children. 2. Identify children's interests and learning styles. 3. Plan. 4. Meet the needs of individual children. 5. Determine progress. 6. Provide information to parents. 7. Provide self-insight.

Advantages of Gathering Data Through Observation

1. Enables professionals to collect information about children that they might not otherwise gather through other sources. 2. Ideally suited to learning more about children in play settings. 3. Allows you to learn a lot about children's pro-social behavior and peer interactions. 4. Provides a basis for the assessment of what children are developmentally able to do. 5. Useful to assess children's performance over time. 6. Helps you provide concrete information for use in reporting to and conferencing with parents.

Steps For Conducting Observations

1. Plan for Observation: Ask the questions "who, what, where, when, and how?" 2. Conduct the Observation: Be objective, specific, and as thorough as possible. 3. Interpret the Data: Examine gathered information, organize and draw conclusions from that information, and make decisions based on the conclusions. 4. Implement a Plan: Commit to do something with the results or findings of your observation.