Presented By: Lillian Vania, MEd November 10, 2010

Williamstown Community Preschool November 10, 2010

Name:

2 hours: Observation, Assessment, and Planning for Individual Need

Presenter: Lillian Vania, MEd

Observation and Assessment:

We observe to learn about the whole child.

The environment affects how, when, where, and what we observe.

We observe to provide information for assessment.

The end result: Understanding of the whole child

Assessment and Evaluation

Communication with parents and caregivers

Understanding your Audience:

Perspective 1: The Arena

How you are viewed by others and what you know about yourself.

Friendly, approachable, patient, sociable, professional, hardworking, adaptable, dependable, skilled, multi-talented, educated

Perspective 2: The Blind Spot

How you view parents: what you know, but they do not know about themselves

Needy, rushed, lack of interest in teacher expertise, tunnel vision, unrealistic demands, defensive, lack of discipline

Exploring the descriptive review process.

Historical Perspective:

This is approach was developed at the Prospect School in North

Bennington, Vermont.

The teachers of Prospect School were committed to an examination of

the children through observing, recording, and describing what

happened in the classrooms on a daily and continuing basis.

The goal was simple: to have those observations fold directly into

practice.

This process came about because teachers were trying to answer the

following questions:1. How could a teacher both teach and observe?

2. How would she/ he keep track of all that happened in a day?

3. What would the format look like?

The following answers came about over a period of time:1. Each teacher could develop their own format.

2. Yet there was a standard: the writing was to be descriptive which in

practice means to stay clear of judgmental language.

The school closed it’s doors in June of 1991 due to financial woes.

Patricia Carini, a founder of the school & teacher at the school, wrote a

book: From A Different Angle.

This book is the reference point and guide to this workshop.

Exploring the descriptive review process.

The Elements:

1. Participants and their roles

2. Preparing for the review

3. Setting the stage

4. Framework of the review

5. Reflection of the process

Participants and Their Roles

1. Teacher- Presentera. The teacher-presenter is the teacher of the child being reviewed.

b. The teacher-presenter does the preparation for the review including gathering all notes, narratives, school work, pictures, and all other relevant information to present at the review.

c. The teacher–presenter will work with the chair to create the flow of the review

2. Chair of the Reviewa. The chair introduces the teacher-presenter, the process, the child, and the focusing

question of the review.

b. The chair will also be the timekeeper.

c. The chair will maintain the focus of the review.

d. The chair will emphasize confidentiality and respect and that the participants will speak about the child from a strength based perspective.

3. Note-takera. The teacher who keeps a record of main themes from the description of the child

and the recommendations that are made as the descriptive review draws to a close.

4. Listeners, Questioners, Reflectorsa. The teachers, educators, and parents, who have been asked to participate in the

descriptive review of the child.

b. The participants who will bring different perspectives, insights, and expanded ideas for building on the child’s strengths and capacities.

c. The participants come prepared with paper and pencils/ pens to take notes.

Preparing for the Review

This is the teacher-presenter’s responsibility. He or she is in the position to make regular observations and chart

strengths, capacities, behavior, and learning over time.

The teacher-presenter will meet with the chair to review all materials. This meeting is called the pre-conference.

Together they will decide on the focus of the descriptive review.

This focus may be the teacher’s opportunityto get know a child better or

to understand a child’s behavior more clearly.

What a teacher-presenter might bring to the descriptive review:

Anecdotal records

Creative Curriculum Reports

Art Work

Pictorial Documentation

Writing Samples (If age appropriate)

Completed Projects that demonstrate skills or areas of concern

Setting the Stage

This is the chair’s responsibility.

The chair will:

1. Set up the physical space to conduct the descriptive review.

2. Introduce the teacher-presenter, the process, the child, and the focusing

question.a. Participants are introduced if more than the usual staff members are present

b. The process can be outlined in a handout.

c. The following information is given about the child: Pseudonym, if appropriate

Classroom Age Names of family members and other caregivers Birth order Length of time at Williamstown Community Preschool Ethnicity Languages spoken

d. The focusing question: After reading the question the teacher-presenter takes over

Step 1Introduction: Chair

Child’s name or Pseudonym

Classroom

Age

Names of Family Members and/ or

other Caregivers

Birth Order

Length of Time at Williamstown

Community Preschool

Ethnicity

Languages Spoken

Focus Question

How can I capture what I need to discover about this child?

Remember: Questions should be strength based!

Step 2Description of Child: Teacher-Presenter

Brief description of classroom setting

Highlight important features of the daily

schedule

Begin the framework of the Descriptive

Review of the Child Presentation

Physical Presence and Gesture

Characteristic gestures and expressions:

1. How are they visible in the child’s

face, hands, body attitudes?

2. How do they vary, and in response to

what circumstances?

Characteristic level of energy:

1. How would you describe the child’s

rhythm and pace?

How does it vary?

2. How would you describe the child’s

voice?

It’s rhythm, expressiveness, inflection?

Disposition and Temperament

1. How would describe the child’s

characteristic temperament and its

range?

Intense, even, up and down?

2. How are feeling expressed?

Fully, rarely

3. How do you “read” the child’s

feelings?

4. Where and how are they visible?

5. What is the child’s emotional tone or

“color”?

Vivid, bright, serene?

Connections with Other People

1. Does the child have friends?

2. How would you characterize those

attachments?

Are they consistent or changeable?

3. Is the child recognized within the

group?

How is this recognition expressed?

4. Is the child comfortable in a group?

5. How would you describe the child’s

casual, day-to-day contact with

others?

6. How does this daily contact vary?

7. When there are tensions, how do

they get resolved?

8. How would you describe the child’s

relationship to you?

9. How would you describe the child’s

relationship to others?

Strong Interests and Preferences

1. What are the child’s preferred activities?

2. Do these reflect underlying interest that are visible to you?

For example, does drawing or story writing center on recurring and

related motifs?

Fairies, superheroes, danger, rescue

3. How would you describe the range of the child’s interests?

4. Which interests are passionate, intense?

5. How would you characterize the engagement with projects?

Quick, methodical, slapdash, thorough?

6. Is the product important to the child?

7. What is the response to mishaps, frustrations?

8. Are there media that have strong appeal

for the child?

Paint, blocks, books, imaginative play?

Modes of Thinking and Learning

1. What is the child’s characteristic approach

to a new subject, process, or direction?

2. In learning, what does the child rely on?

Observation, memory, trail and error, step and sequence, context?

3. How does that learning approach vary from

subject to subject or theme to theme?

4. What is the child’s characteristic attitude

toward learning?

5. How would you characterize the child as a

thinker?

6. What ideas and content have appeal?

7. Is there a tendency toward:

Speculation, problem solving, analogy and metaphor, imagery, reason and logic, fantasy, imaginative leap?

8. What skills come easily?

9. What skills are difficult?

At this point, the teacher-presenter sits back from the group, listens and

takes notes.

This round of the protocol is intended to be

descriptive rather than evaluative.

Participants practice reflective listening by restating

something specific from the teacher-presenter’s

description that seems important.

Participants are not to analyze, interpret, or

explain the information at this point in the

protocol.

NOTE: This may create some discomfort. It is

quite possible that participants will hear things

the teacher-presenter did not intend. This is

perfectly acceptable and potentially

educative.

1. What are your burning questions? What do you need answered so you can continue with this process?

2. Based on what you heard, what are this child’s particular

strengths?

3. What did you hear (or not hear) that stands out as significant? (Be

as specific as possible.)

This opens up multiple perspectives and generates new information

that may enhance the teacher’s insights, expectations, or approach.

After the facilitator restates the focusing questions, participants

discuss what they have heard and offer recommendations.

The recommendations should focus on:

1. Implications for classroom practice

2. How to deepen a child’s strengths and interests (not

to change the child)

3. How to support and enhance the child’s school

experience.

They may be drawn from both the foregoing description

and participants’ own experiences and knowledge of

other children; they may contradictor build on each

other. They serve as a resource for all present.

The teacher-presenter rejoins the group and responds to the discussion by

speaking to the comments/questions/suggestions that he or she found

particularly intriguing.

The teacher-presenter may share any new insights he or she has gained.

The chair asks participants to reflect on the discussion by responding

to the prompt: How has our/your thinking changed as a result of this

process?

The chair leads a debrief of this experience in both content and

process.