1 Assessment & Instructional Strategies A Position Statement by Kate Olden InTASC Standard #6: Assessment The teacher understands

s and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teachers and learners decision making. NAEYC Standard #3: Observing, Documenting, and Assessing to Support Young Children and Families 3a: Understanding the goals, benefits, and uses of assessment 3b: Knowing about and using observation, documentation, and other appropriate assessment tools and approaches 3c: Understanding and practicing responsible assessment to promote positive outcomes for each child 3d: Knowing about assessment partnerships with families and with professional colleagues ______________________________________________________________________________ InTASC Standard #8: Instructional Strategies The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways. NAEYC Standard #4: Using Developmentally Effective Approaches to Connect with Children and Families 4b: Knowing and understanding effective strategies and tools for early education 4c: Using a broad repertoire of developmentally appropriate teaching/learning approaches

In teaching there must be a consistent, balanced, and reciprocal relationship between assessment and instruction. Instruction informs what is to be assessed, while assessment informs instructional choices. The National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC] calls on practitioners to implement instruction that is thoughtfully planned, challenging, engaging, developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically responsive, comprehensive, and likely to promote positive outcomes for all young children, as well as to make ethical, appropriate, valid, and reliable assessment a central part of all early childhood programs

2 (NAEYC, 2003, p. 1). In my practice with young children, both assessment and instruction share certain distinct characteristics, namely that both are intentional, meaningful, objective, and realistically implementable within the classroom. Instruction needs to fit both the learner and what is being learned, and in my own practice I try to keep these two elements tightly interconnected, linked to each other like a braided rope. With young learners, the strength of this rope is based on the relationship I develop with the students. Developmentally Appropriate Practice (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009) makes clear that a solid, respectful, and caring relationship is important for childrens learning. This is why I am intentional about building a strong relationship with each of my students from the very beginning. Intentional teaching requires that an educator choose instructional strategies based on the intended learning outcomes (Epstein, 2007). Epstein emphasizes that the intentional teacher balances teacher-guided and student-led experiences. This balance is informed by ongoing assessments of student learning, helping me to know when I need to guide student learning to help students grasp difficult concepts and when children need to explore something on their own for practice and/or exposure. Assessment also informs my balanced use of large group, small group, and individual learning experienceseach of which are vital to my instructional practice. Instruction must be meaningful, and assessment must be formative, informing the ongoing classroom learning, and authentic, taking place within a context that children understand. This is an extension of intentional teaching, which stresses the use of activities and ideas connected to childrens own experience (Epstein, 2007, p. 5). This also agrees with the position of NAEYC (2003) that assessment be tied to childrens daily activities (p. 3).

3 Assessment, the measurement of learning, should be scientific, by which I mean it should be objective. Childrens learning is shown through what they say, what they do or make, and how they behave. These must be documented objectively, rather than on my feelings about the child or my assumptions about their knowledge. In order to effectively intervene in behavior or learning patterns, I use charts to record details and rates of incidence that help me to describe it more objectively or identify which strategies result in positive changes. For academic assessment, I also rely on anecdotal records of childrens interactions and conversations as well as documentation of their work. Just as I balance my instructional strategies between teacher and student leadership and between group and individual work, I balance my assessment between the widely held expectations for childrens development and each childs own individual growth. Amongst the instructional strategies I focus on are several that are emphasized by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System [CLASS]: concept development, quality of feedback, and language modeling (Teachstone Training, 2013). The CLASS assessment looks at the quality of teacher-child interactions, organizing these to help make sense of the complexity of the classroom. Am I providing children opportunities to develop concepts? Am I using feedback appropriately and effectively to deepen learning? Am I modeling language that helps children to learn more and express more of what they have learned? Finally, critical to both my instructional practice and my use of assessment is reflection, which is my own self-assessment of my planning and practice. I must consistently ask myself if I see the learning I expect, if I see the elements of instruction that will result in children achieving that expected learning. Reflective practice allows me to create and follow a road map of where my students are, where we are going, and how to get there.

4 References Copple, C. & Bredekamp, S. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs: Serving children from birth through age 8 (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Epstein, A. S. (2007). The intentional teacher: Choosing the best strategies for young childrens learning. Washington, DC: NAEYC. National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC]. (2003). Early childhood curriculum, assessment, and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8. Washington, DC: NAEYC. Retrieved from http://naeyc.org/positionstatements Teachstone Training. (2013). The CLASS tool. Retrived from http://www.teachstone.org/aboutthe-class/