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Conclusion

The document discusses the importance of early childhood education and assessments. It begins by explaining the author's interest in early childhood education stemmed from a belief that young children are highly receptive to learning before kindergarten. It then discusses how taking an early childhood assessment course revealed the importance of assessments for understanding student development and tailoring instruction. Assessments allow teachers to evaluate what students are understanding and address gaps. The document advocates for play-based assessments, which involve observing children at play to evaluate developmental milestones, as play is how children naturally learn. The conclusion restates the author's view that children learn through hands-on experience and play, and that teachers should facilitate learning but also allow independent discovery, testing theories through play and social

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643 views4 pages

Conclusion

The document discusses the importance of early childhood education and assessments. It begins by explaining the author's interest in early childhood education stemmed from a belief that young children are highly receptive to learning before kindergarten. It then discusses how taking an early childhood assessment course revealed the importance of assessments for understanding student development and tailoring instruction. Assessments allow teachers to evaluate what students are understanding and address gaps. The document advocates for play-based assessments, which involve observing children at play to evaluate developmental milestones, as play is how children naturally learn. The conclusion restates the author's view that children learn through hands-on experience and play, and that teachers should facilitate learning but also allow independent discovery, testing theories through play and social

Uploaded by

api-284384069
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Conclusion:

I decided that I wanted to become a teacher for many reasons. I


have always known that I love being around and working with children,
I wanted to have some sort of career that involved helping people, and
I just felt as though teaching fit my personality really well. However,
the reason that I became so interested in child development and early
childhood education really boiled down to one thing: I believe that child
are extremely susceptible to retaining information before they enter
kindergarten and that time in their lives is very important for them to
begin the learning process. We learn in many of our classes, not just
education related courses, that our brains and bodies grow and
develop a great amount during the earliest years of our lives so it
would only make sense that this is when children should begin being
immersed in educational environments that support their
development. A lot of times people do not realize the importance of it,
which has always intrigued me to have a passion for the importance of
early education.
This idea of the importance of education at an early age led me
to see the importance of assessing children throughout their education
after taking this course. Now I know that using assessments in the
classroom is one of the most important parts of being a teacher.
Assessments are how we learn about where children are physically,
cognitively, and overall developmentally. They allow us to find out what

children are understanding or not understanding from the things we


teach them so that we can adjust our activities and interactions to
better help them succeed to the best of their abilities. It is hard to
know how much students are absorbing from the things we teach, so it
is our job as educators to come up with ways to find out how much
each individual student is absorbing.
There are many ways to create a successful assessment that
might include, observing using tally assessments based on behaviors,
checklists, or language samples. Students learn an abundance of
information through experience and experimenting with materials and
ideas as they play naturally. This is not limited to academic curriculum,
but also basic life experiences as well. While reading the textbook
Alternative Approaches to Assessing Young Children, I came across
the Play-Based Assessment. The book states, Play is seen as a window
for assessing childrens knowledge and development of cognitive,
language, and communication skills. I feel like this type of assessment
best fits my ideals on childrens learning because it involves observing
children in a natural environment during their play to assess for
developmental milestones and because I believe that children learn
best through play and experience, I also believe it is best to assess
them during that free play as well. That is why creating assessments
that allow the teacher to observe children in their natural environment
are ones that can be beneficial to use. Observations allow us to assess

different things such as, behavioral stages, language and literacy, and
cognitive development.
As a teacher, I firmly believe in the concept of play and experience. I feel
as though I am there to interact and help my children to learn to the extent of my
ability. However, on the other hand, I feel as though children learn many things by
experiencing them on their own as I have stated previously. As stated in the text
Assessment of Young Children with Special Needs, Children develop theories
about how things are and test those theories in social exchanges, physical play,
and thinking (Benner & Grim 63); which is also part of the constructivist
approach. I want my students to try to figure out situations or conflicts on their
own if possible, but be there in when my intervention is needed. My goal is allow
my students to reach their potential for success while in my classroom and I am
there to cater to their needs.

Works Cited

Losardo, A., & Syverson, A. (2011). Alternative approaches


to assessing young children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes
Pub.

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