I created our assessment workbook (using the CA Preschool Foundations and all the assessments I've seen over the last 20 yrs- what worked, what made sense as well as reasonable for teachers) that we record all our observations in and keep track of development. I've attached the "Developmental Snapshot" that we fill out for parents that is a summary of the assessment.
There hasn't been issues using parent feedback because:
1. We're explaining how we observe and then as the parents tell us things we can ask further questions. For instance, we don't just ask "Can he count to 10?", we'd explain what we'd observe (how they do it on their own through play) and give examples. What ever answers the parents give we ask further questions to determine the frequency of the skill and how they're doing it.
2. You know how children behave one way in one place and another way in another place? It's very common for children to display a skill set at home, but not at school (and visa versa). I feel like we're getting a more complete picture of the whole child this way.
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Lorelei van Peborgh
Preschool Director
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF NORTH LAKE TAHOE
Kings Beach CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-31-2020 02:36 AM
From: Patricia Mezu
Subject: Assessment of Children during preschool closure
Thanks for the quick and detailed response. I like the idea of using the photos as anecdotal evidence. What assessments do you use? Also with parent feedback is there a potential issue with them being providing information that's not objective? Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
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Patricia Mezu
Professional Minds FZ LLC
www.prminds.org
Original Message:
Sent: 03-31-2020 01:36 AM
From: Lorelei van Peborgh
Subject: Assessment of Children during preschool closure
We had parent conferences scheduled for this week (before the quarantine was enacted) and last week we decided to go ahead with assessments and keep the conferences. It's okay if there were areas of development that we weren't sure about (because we haven't been able to observe the children for the last couple of weeks). We discussed with the parents all the areas of development that we observed. And for anything we hadn't been able to observe: we asked the parents what they've observed. The parents have also been emailing us their anecdotal observations (pictures too) related to what we've discussed on the phone as well as the results of their children doing the activities we're teaching in our classroom videos. To conduct the conferences we emailed the parents our assessments and called them on the phone. It's actually been really great as we had more time to prepare the assessments than usual and more time to talk with parents on the phone. We've been able to give more time to our parents and connect more.
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Lorelei van Peborgh
Preschool Director
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF NORTH LAKE TAHOE
Kings Beach CA
Original Message:
Sent: 03-30-2020 10:00 AM
From: Patricia Mezu
Subject: Assessment of Children during preschool closure
Hi everyone,
please how are you conducting observations and assessments during this unprecedented time?
Thanks!
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Patricia Mezu
Professional Minds MEA
www.prminds.org
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