When I Think Of Child Development

Testing For Intelligence?

Testing For Intelligence?

As having experience as teacher assessing children in a center-based, play-based programs the assessments measured more so milestones in the child's learning process. There were two types of assessments which were naturalistic including observation which should be ongoing and intentional, documentation including teacher's notes, children's work and portfolios which shows what children are able to do and documentation of their development over a period of time. When doing these assessments, I thought they were pretty good. They were not as academically focused as I have heard some others to be. These assessments actually allowed us to see how children grow socially, how they think critically and how and how much they have learned. My thoughts on what should be measured or assessed when it comes to the whole child is I think we should take a better look at the environment that they may be living in. Take into consideration the community and family that are all involved in their lives. This in turns affect the child's social skills, ability to learn, behavior and more. 

I decided to research Africa to see how they're school aged children were assessed, what I came upon was quite interesting. In doing my research I found that they actually do a more holistic assessment in a way. Whey they do their assessments of school aged children, they assess issues such as anxiety, stress related problems, social problems, conduct problems, just more of a behavioral assessment.  They also have a Multicultural Family Assessment Module which, "If users deem it appropriate, they can show parents the bar graphs to help them understand variations among reports by different informants regarding their child's functioning and their own functioning." These assessments will not help teachers at school but will also help the parents at home to see what the root of the issue could be. I also believe they have assessments like this based on the environment in which the children are being taught and raised in. 

In addition to my thoughts and what I have learned I believe we do have to begin to look at the big picture now. We cannot just assess what we see at school on a day to day basis. Culture, communities and families all play a big part in how a child builds a relationship with the education process. 

Resources:

Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment http://www.aseba.org/preschool.html

Goddard School Approach to Assessment https://blogs.goddardschool.com/Hanover-MD/tag/pre-k/