“Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You
This week I read many articles on the topic of attachment and the affects of positive vs negative attachment of children and their caregivers on their later development. I truly felt that this quote really spoke to what attachment is all about. Emotional interactions between an infant and young toddler has a critical affect on determining who a child will become. Through out this course I have grown so much as a professional and leader. Although I am not currently working in the field, I am still growing and learning so that I can take all of this amazing knowledge and put it to use in the near future. Thank you to all of my colleagues in this class for your honest feedback, ideas and comments to help me grow. I especially want to thank Hayiscar@wordpress.com, Playfilledlearning@wordpress.com and Sandrazugner@wordpress.com for their consistent, honest feedback! Two of these people were in my last class and groups and although they are not in my group now, continue to follow my blog (as well I have followed theirs) and it is very much appreciated! Sandra, I have learned new things from you and I look up to your experiences and have truly enjoyed sharing in them with you! I hope that I will be able to interact with you again in the future!
Month: August 2014
Assessing Children’s Learning: the authentic way!
“Aristotle was the first to describe holism: ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. In short, to be completely holistic you must see a person as more than just organ systems, mental health, sexuality, etc. You must see how all aspects of their life impact on each other and the factors that influences them”
~Ellie McClain (What is Holistic Assessment)
I have never been an advocate for standardized testing. I was actually disciplined at work when I was a Center Director of an ECE program because I refused to administer the Terra Nova testing to our kindergartners. The reason I refused was because the purpose behind the school to test our children was only for the benefit of creating mass marketing materials to show all of our competitors how great our children were. I was not having it.
I believe that children should be assessed in a holistic manner meaning we should assess the whole child including emotional intelligence’s. If school’s were to take this perspective when assessing children I would think they should begin with assessing what children already know before beginning a plan of instruction. Find out what prior knowledge children have by simply asking them, communicating with them and engaging with them on a personal level. By assessing children’s prior knowledge in a meaningful way, you can then plan meaningful instruction.
When it comes to actually assessing what one knows- I have always been a big fan of providing choices and options of assessment to meet the needs of each learning style. It’s interesting because I spent 5 years (yes the 5 year plan) studying Elementary Education from 1995-2000 in my undergrad program. The entire program was completely formatted around Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence. I loved learning about this approach and to this day I still love the theory and agree with it 100%. To learn more about Howard Gardner and his multiple intelligence’s go here: http://www.education.com/reference/article/eight-intelligences/.
Pretty much Gardner came up with 8 different ways that people learn. So if people learn in 8 different ways than doesn’t it make sense to assess children in the same way in which they learn the best? I am a very hands on type of person; I like to create things, to write and to develop. So if you were to assess me on my learning I would say have me make a PowerPoint, write a paper, make colorful index cards with everything that I know or create a mural. This would keep me interested and make me excited to show you what I learned. Children are no different!
Children should also be assessed emotionally. Teachers really need to be in tune with children’s emotions and how they are feeling. We cannot be a well-rounded teacher if we do not pay attention to our student’s emotions and adjust our teaching style based on that. Sometimes children just have a bad day. Many children come from a really bad home situation. All of these things will affect a child’s learning. We have to be able to assess these situations and adjust in order or children to learn to the best of their abilities.
During the summer of 2000, I was fortunate enough to spend 8 weeks as a student teacher in Plymouth, England. I do not recall what types of assessments were conducted on the children in the schools that I was in. So I chose England to research and find out what types of assessments they use. Not to my surprise, they also engage in National standardized testing that comes with much criticism throughout the country. They do have some tests that are optional and teachers can apply to administer yet they also have required testing that are scored and used for the sake of board review (similar to the US). It sounds like they are a little more open to teacher feedback, as from 2008-2013 they have made many changes to the testing that they administer. Although it seems like the majority still are against them. Another type of test that they use is teacher created testing which is required for the end of each school year. I believe in the United States, every school district and maybe even school by school, have their own policies about the requirement of teacher made tests. I know that in my kids school, some teachers create their own tests and some use the textbook formatted tests, other teachers use projects to assess learning.
I really feel strongly that the way in which we assess children needs to change. School is way too political and is causing serious stress on teachers and children. The stress that is being created causes harmful indicators on things such as health and emotional wellbeing of teachers and children. Learning should be fun, relaxed and child centered. Assessments should be the same way. As professionals and leaders in the field if education, we all need to do our part to advocate to our local officials about the pros and cons of all the different types of assessment. Money talks and we need to change that!
ecepassion 