Sabrina Gutierrez

ECE 240
Amanda McPherson
11 December 2014
Reflection Paper
What are ways early childhood educators can practice responsible assessment with young
children?
Some ways that early childhood educators can practice responsible assessment with
young children is to continue to do assessments with the children. The more that you practice
responsible assessment with children the less bias the assessments will be. The teacher must also
choose the correct developmental are they want to observe so that they are capturing specific
things that they are looking for. The teacher would be able to look for their Social Behaviors,
Language, Large and Small motor skills also their physical skills. The observer must plan
enough time for themselves for the assessment process to be able to complete the whole thing.
The teacher must also make sure that they are healthy and ready for the assessment because it
can take a long time and if by any chance that they get distracted it wouldnt be a responsible
assessment because the observer needs to have the childs full and undivided attention. Also the
teacher needs to make sure they are not tired, sick, or physically hurt. If the observer is
answering yes to any of these the teacher should postpone the observation until the observer is
feeling ready and up to the assessment. This would be a good example of responsible assessment
because anything would that would interfere with the assessment process would prevent from
responsible assessment.

What are ways assessment tools can be used inappropriately or be considered harmful to
children?
There are some ways that assessment tools can be inappropriately used and considered
harmful to the child; some of the ways that are inappropriately used is when there are biased
opinions in the observation. Observations are tools that are supposed to only contain factual
information about the child and their development. The objects of assessment include a
comprehensive, developmentally, and educationally important set of goals, rather than a narrow
set of skills. Assessments are aligned with early learning standards, with program goals, and with
specific emphases in the curriculum. Another thing that an assessment tool could be
inappropriately used would be if there was an error in the observation. The different types of
errors that could be made are error of Omission, Commission and transmission. Error of
omission means that when you leave out information that is needed to fully understand the
childs behavior. Error of commission is when you include more information than what was
actually there. For an example you could write down something that was said or done when it
actually wasnt. Error of transmission is when you record the childs behavior in the wrong order
that it occurred.
What are some legal and ethical issues related to assessment?
An example of a current legal concern is for the amount of privacy and confidentiality is
taken care of. It is very important to everyone that confidential information is indeed
confidential. Parents must also understand that their childs information is not going to be
released to anyone unless absolutely necessary to release some inform someone that needs to
know certain information to help the child in any way. Some parents have a difficult time having
someone point out their childs disabilities and characteristics of their child to make them stand

out from the other children. The parents dont have the option of telling the teacher not to
observe their child because every child has to be observed since they are going to the center.
Another thing with confidentiality is to make sure that if and when you are discussing child
information that you are where no one can hear you because it could cause a lot of issues.

What are some current educational concerns and controversies related to assessment of young
children?
One current educational concern is the standardized test that children are required to pass.
The standardized test is a great way to compare children to other children who have taken the
same test and see where the class is as a whole. Some children argue that the standardized testing
is not age appropriate for children because the children do not have the attention span that is
needed to take a standardized test. There is no true way you can interpret the data from the
standardized test because the results are only comparing the children to other children who have
taken it. Children will loose interest in taking the test because they tests are not age appropriate
and the results from the testing will not be good results.
How might an early educator effectively practice assessment with diverse children (i.e., cultural,
linguistic and developmental differences)?
An early educator would be able to practice assessment with diverse children in many
ways. One important thing to do when conducting an assessment is to control our biases. Some
of the characteristic that would be important to watch is to watch for the characteristics that we
like and dislike the things that we accept and the things that we dont accept so that we dont
loose our point in why we are doing the observation. Another important thing to look make sure

you are not passing any judgments on the children because an assessment shouldnt consist of
any passed judgments.
In different cultures everything means something different to different people such as
personal space: if you sit or stand too close, some people may feel uncomfortable; smiling has
different meanings in different cultures along with eye contact, touch and also time concepts.
The effects of culture cannot be ignored or overemphasized.(Bentzen; 2009, pg.237) In order
to better understand a familys culture it is important to use of knowledge of the childs
background to help understand behavior.

Work Cited
Bentzen, W.R. (2009). An Introduction to Growth and Development. Seeing Young Children: A
guide to observing and Recording Behavior. (6th edition, pg. 237) Clifton Park, NY; Thomson
Delmar Learning.