Vermont Core Teaching Standards

Standard 6.

The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.

6.2 The teacher uses assessment to engage learners in their own growth.

Evidence 1:

What is Developmental Monitoring and Screening?, Workshop, 1.5 hours, VAEYC Conference, 2016, Professional Development Certificate

Description:

This training introduced Vermont's policy on Universal Developmental Screenings. Through a PowerPoint presentation, pamphlets, and hands-on activities we discussed how to monitor children's development. Specific information on the CDC's "Learn the Signs Act Early", Help Me Grow, and Ages and Stages 0-3 were introduced and discussed in detail. This training was for children ages birth to five years.

Analysis/Reflection:

Monitoring and documenting a child's development is an essential piece to any program. I have many different ways to document a child's development. The more I know about different types of screening processes, the more I am able to catch signs of delays or red flags. I am fully aware of the different types of monitoring and screening resources out there for educators to utilize in their programs. I have used, in the past, Ages and Stages Questionnaire. This questionnaire pinpoints the child's developmental progress from one month to 5 and a half years. Each questionnaire is divided into many separate stages of ages. Assessing children earlier in their development can give that child a greater chance to reach his/her potential.

6.2

6.2

Evidence 2:

Observation and Documentation: Training, 2014, 2 hours, Professional Development Certificate

Description:

This workshop, presented by Gerri Barrows and Muffy Kashkin-Grollier, covers the ways in which observation and documentation provide ongoing assessment of children's development, ways observation and documentation provide the basis for curriculum, ways to expand on children's learning and development, and ways to share information about children's development with families. This training focused on children birth through age 5.

Analysis/Reflection:

This workshop reinforced my understanding of observation and documentation in early childhood programs. We discussed how becoming knowledgeable about child development milestones and understand typical and atypical development helps in understanding how to tailor my program to benefit the children in it. In understanding that every child is unique and special in their own way through observations, I can then share this information with parents, and community services if needed. I recognize that parents are my partners in my ongoing observations of the children, and that they can provide many pieces of information that I may not observe in my program that would be vital to their learning when they are with me.

I keep a couple different ways to observe and document observations. One way, is on sticky notes of documenting a specific observation on a specific child, and I have a notebook that I document daily observations of the group as well.

6.2

6.2

Evidence 3:

Developmental Monitoring: Strategies, Resources and Tools to Inform Practice, Improve Early Identification of Developmental Concerns and Autism, and Share Concerns With Families, Workshop, 1.5 hours, 2015, VAEYC Conference, Professional Development Certificate

Description:

This one and a half hour training discussed ways an educator can discuss development with parents and resources they can use. We discussed the importance of an educators role in monitoring and early identification of early childhood development in children, and also developmentally appropriate strategies for working with young children with developmental delays and children on the autism spectrum.

Analysis/Reflection:

This workshop was of great interest to myself, as I had at that time a school-age child - with Asperger's syndrome, and just recently had a three year old child in my care diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. It was in the early stages of detection for this child, and he was going through extensive screenings to determine what level he was at developmentally. Having taken many previous trainings on "red flags" in concerns with development, I was one of the first educators to pick up on some of his behaviors and symptoms, such as, for this child, his obsessive interest in trains. In conducting parent/teacher conferences with the family, and bringing in the Child Integrated Services team, we were able to obtain specialists to assess further for this child to receive the services he needed.

6.2