Developing a Portfolio

pplication: Child Observation Project: Part 4—Developing a Portfolio Plan

In your Week 3 Application, you conducted two observations as a part of your Child Observation Project. As you have been learning, the purpose of this project is to help you better understand and develop knowledge and skills related to effective observation and assessment strategies. Therefore, the project does not provide a holistic picture of the development and learning of the child whom you have been focusing your project on. Additionally, observation and assessment knowledge, skills, and data have little meaning in isolation—it is only when they are a part of ongoing assessment that they truly can be used for the intended purposes of supporting development and learning.

Portfolios represent “organized, purposeful compilation of evidence documenting a child’s development and learning over time” (McAfee & Leong, 2007, p. 100). Building portfolios requires careful planning that takes into account appropriate expectations for children’s learning and development and children’s unique developmental patterns and preferences. For this Application, you will have an opportunity to develop a plan for building a portfolio, by describing additional data and related strategies that you would need in order to complete a comprehensive assessment that covers all the developmental areas of one child’s development and learning.

Note: You will not be collecting the data that you identify in your plan.

Plan

• Review Pages 97–101 of Assessing and Guiding Young Children’s Development and Learning, and begin thinking about the required evidence and individualized samples you might include in your portfolio plan.
• Download and print the form:
• • Portfolio Plan

Implement

• In the left-hand column, list the following areas of development and learning you will be including in your portfolio plan. These include:

• • Large Muscle Development
  • Small Muscle Development
  • Basic Concepts of Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Cognitive Development – Thinking
  • Language Development—Oral Language
  • Language Development—Literacy Development
  • Personal-Social Development—Personal Development
  • Personal-Social Development—Social Development

Note: You can use more than one row for each area of development and learning.

• Review Figure 6.1, and identify the types of items that you will select for each area of development and learning.

• In the right column, indicate your plan for selecting items. Include when items will be selected and who decides what items should go into the portfolio.

Reflect

• Review your Portfolio Plan and relate your development of the plan to what you have learned about planning for effective assessments by considering:
• • How implementing the Portfolio Plan could contribute to your knowledge of the child whom you selected for your Child Observation Project.
  • Any additional information, not covered in the Plan, that you feel would add to your growing knowledge of the child whom you selected for your Child Observation Project.

For this assignment, submit:

• Your Portfolio Plan

• A summary of the Reflection citing examples from your Learning Resources to substantiate your ideas and thinking.

Assignment length: 2 pages

Note: As your Application Assignment for this week, you will submit your Reflection and your Portfolio Plan at the end of Week 4.