Ramos, Joan H.

Assessment of Children's Development and Learning

“Young Hands, Immeasurable Palm”

I still believe in saying that young children are become successful individual when they has a
successful beginning. Children, even they has a young age are still important in our society. They
are characterized by small, weak and fragile human being but upon of it are the active, energetic
and lively qualities that they has. “Small but terrible” one of an inspiring quote that is remarkable
to me. Imagine children, after their young ages are the wide variety of life that they can achieve.
That is how young individuals work to attain their main goals in life.

NAEYC is one of the most assets of children. It produces a high quality of education among
children until age 8 years old that has a long lasting benefits. If children cannot understand the
lesson, teacher must also put themselves into children’s situations. Curriculum and assessment
are the guide of teacher to teach and it must be student centered, wherein children can manifest,
experience and perform knowledge and skills and can apply it in their real life situations. This
curriculum and assessment will benefits to children, it will help children to improve and develop
their physical, cognitive, social, emotional and language aspects of their life.

Even when the teacher has a curriculum and assessment to use, they still need to plan
efficiently in order to achieve the best outcomes. Plans are the most important first part to
achieve the word success. We should plan clearly, organize and concise for the betterment of
them. 3 important factors that I was get in NAEYC position paper which are to plan, make and
assess. These are very important to help children to develop their whole aspects in their life.

In additional, always consider the different teaching and learning strategies, styles and
different assessment that fit to the children’s needs. It much important to make those be
appropriate and applicable to the learners, to the best quality that we must produce to them. Most
especially appropriate to their biological and the important is their developmental ages. We
should also consider the unique characteristics of each of them and the diversity inside the
classroom.

However, in using authentic assessment as a helpful tool, we must set a criteria to become
valid and reliable and we should only focus in the learners that we want but we must focus to all
learners and not will become biased to them.
Ramos, Joan H. Assessment of Children's Development and Learning
BECED 3-1 Ma’am Mahinay
When it comes to test, we also do not make it for nothing, it has a purpose and this is to
address the learnings of them. We do test to understand and to assess the learnings of the
children. We look here if they have learned happens or no learning at all. This also help us to
look if we teach effectively or not and it will help us to cater the needs of the learners in learning.
To identify what they needs and what different teaching strategies are effective to use.

Usually we not only use photographic memories to remember all of the topics, knowledge
and information in everyday, we can also used documents like pictures, realias, experiences to
remember and understand knowledge easily. Most especially if the child has a disability so it will
help them to understand and perform the skills they need to possess easily when we use it. We
must give them an appropriate learning materials that they can use to know things. We must give
our support financially and personally in order for them to develop more.

NAEYC also include family because they has a first access to the children’s life. They are the
one who first build their trust, feel the safety and security to the children and know children
more. Family needs to help and give their help to the children. They must communicate and
cooperate to the teacher because it will benefit more to their own children. This will help
children to be improve and secured in all times by the guide, guard and support of their parents.
Children has an opportunity to be themselves with the support of their family.

Lastly, in making evaluation, we should not be biased and be fair in every ways. This is
graded

so be fair to all learners that we have. Be valid and reliable to gather and obtain the student’s
records and grades.

We, as a future educators must possess a professional qualities to manage children in a class.
We must decide a best variety of teaching strategies, styles and assessment for them. We must
also consider the effectivity of a curriculum as a teacher’s guide and plan appropriately that will
benefits to the teacher as well as to the children. As a future educator, it is not wrong to put
ourselves into the children’s situations in order to know them well, understand and help them.
We serve as the lost ingredient to complete children development and to become prepared
enough as a better individual until they getting older.
Ramos, Joan H. Assessment of Children's Development and Learning
BECED 3-1 Ma’am Mahinay

“ Oh Yes! This Is Because Of Test”

Standardized Test is one of the measuring tool to test the capacity of one’s learner in
knowledge and skills that they need to possess. From the start up to now, we use standardized
test in many different aspects like in entrance exam, diagnostic test, periodical test, aptitude test
and many more. Through that, the effectiveness of this are totally proven but as the world
became modernized and updated, many trends and issues were become arises. Standardized Test
is effective but not totally all the times. That is why interrogation in this test were easily spread.

Researchers and experts said that it was an effective tool to measure the learnings of the
students. From Kinder to College, it was very useful. But despite of the advantages that it has,
there are also issues that it face. First, it is very unfair when children that are non-readers and
cannot write will take the test with the children that can read and write. It is very important to
mastered reading and writing skills before undergo to take examinations. Even if the child is
smart but they cannot know how to read and write, when it comes to test the outcome will
become failed.

Therefore the use of standardized test is not always applicable to meet the needs of each
students. There are so many factors why we need another ways to attain the learnings of the
students. Some researches said that it was not always helpful for the children to become
productive and active in class. That is why some experts said that this is not always an efficient
tool to measure the strength of the students because there are students who has a talent and skills
to perform and great in performing actions. Many students are easily to learn when we add
performance in their tasks. They are willing to learn when they experience knowledge. So, this
test is lack also in manifesting the student’s imagination and creativity in doing learning
activities. Test is only enhancing the cognitive domain of one’s student, it help us to read and be
prepare for taking examination but not clear to the minds of the students how important the
understanding of the concepts taught by teachers. That is why authentic assessment, performance
tasks and learning by doing or experience are been arise. It is very important to conduct both
Traditional assessment which are the standardized tests and the authentic assessment which are
Ramos, Joan H. Assessment of Children's Development and Learning
BECED 3-1 Ma’am Mahinay
the performance tasks of the students to mold them, assess and address children in order for them
to develop more individually and collaboratively.

Another issue here is when online class happened. Standardized test is not become effective
to the learners since technology innovated, we can search answers on the internet easily. Most
especially when adult guide them to easily access the answers in order to get a higher scores and
grades. So, at the end no learnings happen at all. The answers of the students are not trusted.
They can cheat easily because we are not here to watch them and reminds them that cheating is
bad. So the knowledge of the students is not valid to measure. Just like in NAT test, some
teachers tell the answer for making their school higher in ranking. This prove that it is not totally
an efficient means of measuring the learning capacity of the students all the time. We can use
performance tasks as a substitute to see if one student is really learning and if they have learn to
us. This authentic assessment will also help us to prove that we are an effective teacher and we
teach effectively.

We also need to prioritize the children with disabilities. If we give a test to the children that
have not an appropriate developmental ages, we are not become successful in measuring their
knowledge and learnings. If we give a test to the children with disabilities together with a regular
students, they will become left behind than a regular students. So many studies said that test is
not always purely applicable to the children with disabilities. In addition, it also affects the
scores of the students in a marginalized area, students that experience poverty and have a low
socio-economic status. There are a lot of factors that contributes in poor understanding the
questions and difficulty choosing the right answers. Maybe they cannot know the answer and
they cannot understand the questions because of lack of resources or having a financial problem,
they are hungry or they has a lack of sleep. These are some negative factors that contribute and
affects the learning of the children. They cannot also focus on answering test when they has a
family or personal problems, when they feel a strong negative emotions like anger, depress and
stress. Some other students might feel sadness when their parents saw their lower scores in tests
that will become a result of having a low self confidence and pressure to themselves and
discourage to learn more. They has a lot of reasons for them to does not concentrate and does not
motivate to answer the test properly given by their teachers.
Ramos, Joan H. Assessment of Children's Development and Learning
BECED 3-1 Ma’am Mahinay
Not all the times, standardized test is always appropriate to measure the student’s learning.
There are a lot of ways and tool that we may use in order to help them to learn, assess and
address their learnings. We as an adult, guardian and educator are the one who knows on how to
achieve the learnings to the students. We must be flexible, creative and be persevere to search for
the right tool for them. We must use the combination of pen and paper test and performance test
as an effective tools to measure their learnings and achieve their learnings in daily lives.