Reflective Analysis of Portfolio Artifact

Rationale/Reflection
NAEYC Standard:
STANDARD 1. PROMOTING CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING
Candidates prepared in early childhood degree programs are grounded in a child development
knowledge base. They use their understanding of young childrens characteristics and needs, and
of multiple interacting influences on childrens development and learning, to create environments
that are healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging for each child.
(NAEYC, 2010)
Brief Description of Evidence:
As part of my ECED 235 Preschool Practicum class, in the fall of 2013, I developed a child case
study portfolio that compiled evidence of a specific childs developmental progress throughout
the semester. Throughout the allotted time I worked with one child on assessing his skills at the
beginning of the semester, setting goals that we wanted him to be able to achieve by the end of
our time together, and then did a final assessment to see the progress that was made. I assessed
through documentation of observations during play based learning.
Analysis of What I Learned:
With this artifact I learned how to assess children and document the information that I observed.
I learned how to utilize multiple types of assessments that allowed the child to engage in physical
activities such as jumping, running, climbing, and hunting for certain objects while documenting
the observations using checklists. I also learned how to set goals for individual children and how
to work with them on achieving those. I saw how they progressed throughout the semester and
how their needs and characteristics changed as we worked together on developing the skills that
they were lacking. Finally, I learned how to take all the information I had compiled and place it
into a form of document that would be able to be accessed and shared with families at any point
in time.
How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the NAEYC Standard:
This artifact demonstrates my competence by showing that I was able to utilize the knowledge I
have gained from previous early childhood education classes and am able to take it into the
classroom in order to assist with furthering childrens developmental progress. It proves that I
used my understanding of the childs needs to collaborate with his parents in setting goals and
achieving them by working together on the skills that the child was lacking. I was able to assess
the progress of this child by observing where he was starting from and continuing to follow their
progress before I did a final assessment to see what changes had occurred. Finally, I was able to
create an environment that was healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging by allowing one
on one time to assist in areas that my child needed more guidance in which in turn gained their
trust.