Integrating Assessment Throughout the Day: One Teacher’ s Experience
When teachers treat assessment as an ongoing part of instruction— something that happens with students, not to them— it becomes a powerful act that deepens children’ s learning, helps them understand their own progress, and guides them in setting their own learning goals( Black & Wiliam 1998; Earl 2012; Kidd et al. 2019; NAEYC 2020; Scott-Little & Reschke 2022). Consider the experience of one of the educators in our program:
Instead of collecting data strictly for compliance purposes, she integrated different assessment tools to gather specific information to inform her next instructional steps, which is part of developmentally appropriate practice( NAEYC 2020, 2022). Carmen was able to support Ava’ s growth and learning by identifying and removing specific barriers to her engagement, thereby tailoring instruction to meet her needs.
Carmen, a first-grade teacher, watches as Ava sits quietly during math instruction. All around her, children are using linking cubes to complete an addition activity, but Ava looks confused and does not participate. To determine why, Carmen decides to use two observational tools: A frequency tracker allows her to record how often she observes Ava’ s behavior, and event sampling helps her identify the causes, triggers, and consequences of Ava’ s behavior. Carmen uses these tools multiple times over two weeks at different times during the day. When she examines her collected data, she notices that Ava becomes more withdrawn when confronted with multistep directions.
“ That was an‘ aha’ moment for me,” Carmen says during a professional development meeting.“ I started breaking tasks into smaller chunks and checking in more often, which gave Ava clarity and support. Just that little change helped her feel empowered in her learning and made her feel confident in completing the work on her own.”
Carmen’ s experience illustrates a shift in how she viewed assessment— not as an isolated event, but as an ongoing, reflective process embedded within her teaching to help understand and respond to a child.
Understanding Educator Agency in Assessment
Educators’ agency is reflected in the everyday choices they are able to make to support children’ s learning( Cong-Lem 2021; Leighton et al. 2024). This could include
› Modifying a task to meet a child’ s individual strengths and areas for growth
› Using student work to guide instruction
› Implementing a new assessment tool or process to respond to individual students’ progress
› Expanding the types of assessments they use
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