Assessment Portfolio

Focus of the Final Project:

As you have learned throughout this course, assessments are used for many purposes. As professionals working with children, we must look at assessment as a driving force behind planning instruction, maximizing growth and development, and developing goals for children in our care. We must begin to understand the relationship between how children are assessed and how assessment data is used. This is a multistep process of gathering data, determining goals for instruction, and then implementing those goals into our work with children. For this Final Project, you will develop a partial portfolio for the child you observed, and, with that information, you will develop instructional goals for that child. This assignment has three parts:

Step 1: The first part of this assignment requires you to develop a cohesive statement of purpose, which will serve as the introduction to this assignment. Using information gained from all five weeks of this course you will provide an overview of assessment and state how it applies specifically to your future work with children.

Your statement of purpose must include the following:

• The purpose of assessment.
• How you will utilize assessment when working with children. Make sure to include how this plan for utilizing assessment aligns with your future work.
• How you can use assessment to document children's work.
• How will you use children's interests and ideas when assessing.
• How you will use assessment to differentiate instruction and intervention for children who may have a special need. Refer back to your Week Three Assignment to assist with this.

Step 2: The second part of this assignment requires you to create an assessment portfolio for the child you have been working with. It is imperative to maintain the confidentiality of the child you are working with, so make sure to only include the child's first name. For this assessment portfolio:

• Describe the child that you are creating this portfolio for. Include, in paragraph form, the information you provided to your instructor in the week 1 learning activity (remember not to include any identifying information about the child (e.g. last name).

• Observe the child you have been working with using the screening document "Developmental Checklists Birth to Five" from The Early Childhood Direction Center. Make sure to use the appropriate age range for the child.

• After completing the Developmental Checklists Birth to Five, create a diagnostic activity for the developmental area where the child scored the lowest. Make sure to include a statement explaining the purpose of the assessment.

• You will also need the information you compiled on this child from the Week Two Observation Assignment. (Be sure to make any changes recommended by your instructor.) This includes both observation forms: Running Record or Anecdotal Record and Time Sampling or Event Sampling forms.

Step 3: The final part of this assignment requires you to create developmentally appropriate instructional goals for this child (based on the age of the child you are working with and all of the data you have gathered).

• Create at least three objectives (goals) for each developmental domain: cognitive, physical, social and emotional, and language for a total 12 objectives. If you need assistance with how to create effective learning objectives, please view the Objectives section of the ECE/CD Lesson Planning Handbook that is available with your Constellation materials for the course or review section 7.1 of the course text.

o Along with each objective, provide a corresponding classroom activity that will be used to help this child reach this objective.

• You will also create a recommendation plan, which you will share with the child's family, for helping this child to continue with his or her growth and development at home.

o Summarize how you will communicate with families about the assessments and the information gained from them. Your summary should include how you will connect with the family as well as the type of information you will share with the family. Refer back to your Week One Discussion Two, Week Three Discussion One, Week 4 Discussion One and Week 5 Discussion 2 for ideas to use in your summary.

o Identify three activities that the families of this child can work on at home. Include instructions for completing each of the activities.

• Discuss the next steps (intervention plans, referral for further evaluation, etc.) that you would take after connecting with the child's family about their strengths and areas of need. Make sure to explain how these next steps align with the instructional objectives you created.

o This part of the assignment should be at least a page in length.

Written Expectations

• Content Development: Use appropriate and pertinent content to address ideas within the context of the discipline, shaping the work as a whole.

• Context and Purpose for Writing: Demonstrates application of organization and presentation of content. The writing is should be clear and easy to understand.

• Assignment Length: Your written paper must be at least ten pages (not including title and reference pages); Along with your paper, you must include both observation forms and your title and reference page as one document. Make sure to include a table of contents so that each component of the assignment is easy to locate.

• Title Page:Inclusion of a separate title page with the following:

o Title of presentation
o Student's name
o Course name and number
o Instructor's name
o Date submitted

• Source Requirement: Reference three scholarly sources in addition to the text. All sources included in the reference list must be cited in the portfolio.

• APA Formatting: Use APA formatting consistently throughout the assignment, which includes citations in the body of the assignment, the title page, and references list as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

• Syntax and Mechanics: Display meticulous comprehension and organization of syntax and mechanics, such as spelling and grammar.