DISCUSSION: DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENT PRACTICES
Criteria:
Write a 2-3 sentence position statement (format for position statement below) for each of the five areas of the NAEYC developmentally appropriate approaches stated in the Instructor Guidance (initial post)-samples highlighted in green below
*Five areas of the NAEYC Developmentally Appropriate Approaches:
1. Creating a community of learners
What you may want to include:
• Each member of the community are valued
• Relationships are important
• Each member of the community respects and is accountable to others
• Practitioners design and maintain physical environment to protect the health and safety of the learning community members,
specifically in support of children's physiological needs
• Practitioners ensure members of the community feel psychologically safe
2. Teaching to enhance learning and development
What you may want to include:
• Responsible for fostering the learning community through their teaching
• Know each child and the most significant people in their life
• Responsible to know the curriculum goals
• Plan for learning experiences to attain goals across the domains and disciplines
• Plan daily activities to promote learning and development
• Possess skills and strategies they are able to draw on
• Know how and when to scaffold children's learning
• Know how and when to use the various learning formats
• Provide extended learning experiences
• Make experiences in classrooms responsive to ALL children and their needs
3. Planning curriculum to achieve important goals
What you may want to include:
• Desired goal that are important in children's learning and development have been identified and clearly articulated
• The program has a comprehensive, effective curriculum that targets identified goals
• Teachers use the curriculum framework in planning to ensure there is attention to important learning goals
• Teachers make meaningful connections in the learning experiences
• Teachers collaborate with those teaching in preceding grades and share information
• Practitioners plan curriculum for infant and toddlers
4. Assessing children's learning and development
What you may want to include:
• Ongoing, strategic and purposeful
• Focus on children's progress towards goals that are developmentally and educationally significant
• System in place to collect and make sense of assessment information (formative assessment)
• Methods are appropriate to the development status and experiences of young children
• Look at what children can do independently and with the assistance of others
• Input from families and children's own evaluations of work
• Tailored to a specific purpose
• Decisions have a major impact on children (enrollment, placement, etc.)
• Appropriate follow-up to screenings that identify special needs
5. Establishing reciprocal relationships with families
What you may want to include:
• Mutual respect, cooperation, shared responsibility and negotiation of conflicts toward achieving shared goals
• Practitioners work in collaborative partnerships with families
• Family members are welcome in classroom
• Teachers acknowledge a family's choice and goals for child
• Teachers and families share knowledge of child to understand child's development and learning
• Practitioners involve families as a source of information about child
• Program links families with a range of services
NAEYC Format for Position Statements
1. State topic
2. Pick a side
3. Provide evidence that supports your side (research, opinion) using at least 3 supporting pieces.
4. If problem, provide an alternative solution and why you believe it could work.
Sample Position Statement for ONE area (Created by Instructor): According to the NAEYC (2009), developmentally appropriate practices to assessment include creating a community of learners. I agree with this area of focus:
• Each member of the community are valued (school personnel, students, families, and the community)
• Teachers must establish a classroom environment that is safe for learners (including physical and psychological safety)
Because I support ideas stated for creating a community of learners, I will create a classroom management system to ensure community members are valued and a classroom environment is structured that promotes physical/psychological safety. (Jaruszewicz, 2013 and ASCD, 2015)
Sample Position Statement from ONE area (From Instructor Guide): The school administration wants to implement a school uniform policy because so many students are dressing inappropriately for class. I am against the school implementing such a policy.
• School uniforms will take away student rights.
• School uniforms are expensive.
• One hundred kids were surveyed and 85% were against uniforms.
I understand the issue that high school kids are wearing inappropriate clothes to school. However, instead of implementing a formal
uniform, a less drastic suggestion should be considered first. One solution could be to make the current dress code stricter.