Assessment for Learning in Aotearoa

June 17th, 2009 Filed under: University | Tags: assessment, children, education, new zealand, University

Historical Influences on Assessment Within New Zealand

Since the late 1980′s, many historical events have influenced the way we as educators assess the children in our New Zealand early childhood centres. In this essay, I will highlight three such influences and discuss how they have affected the assessment of children in early childhood centres to the present day. The historical events I will examine are the publication of three government documents; ‘Te Whāriki He Whāriki Mātauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa Early Childhood Curriculum’, ‘Kei Tau o te Pae Assessment for learning: Early Childhood Exemplars’ and ‘Revised Statement of Desirable Objectives and Practices’. I will discuss the theories behind these documents and how they differed from what was previously being used in centres as well as some major ways in which they impacted on the role of assessment.

The introduction of Te Whāriki in 1996 greatly influenced assessment as we know it in the present day. Before it was released as New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum, assessment focused around Piaget’s developmental views that development precedes learning. This meant a discontinuous development model where children would be grouped into different developmental stages by age (Berk, 2003). Educators would test children’s abilities and check them off a predetermined list for their age group. Any tasks that the children were unable to complete to the predetermined standard were highlighted as areas that needed to be improved and worked on. This lead to an assessment process of ‘deficit value’. Te Whāriki on the other hand is more influenced by Vygotsky’s developmental views that learning precedes development.This results in a continuous development model where each child is looked at individually and their learning is scaffolded by a more knowledgeable other (Berk, 2003). In other words, educators work closely with children in areas that interest them, always trying to help the child take the next step towards being more competent. This leads to an assessment process of credit value. This can be seen in how Te Whāriki defines assessment; “The process of obtaining and interpreting information that describes a child’s achievements and competence. The purpose of assessment is to provide pertinent information to contribute and improve learning opportunities for children. (MOE, 1996, p.99) and else where states “assessment of children’s learning and development involves intelligent observation of the children by experienced and knowledgeable adults” (MOE, 1996, p.29).

Te Whāriki was also built around the ecological systems theory of Bronfenbrenner. Bronfenbrenner’s theory suggests that the environment a child grows up in will impact on their development, therefore said child’s whole environment must be taken into consideration while being assessed (Berk, 2003). Unfortunately, educators were confused on how best to document this environmental impact as well as the minute by minute assessment of children which Te Whāriki supports; “assessment occurs minute by minute as adults listen, watch, and interact with an individual child or with groups of children.” (MOE, 1996, p,29). To help, the Ministry of Education later released a set of books Kei Tua o te Pae Assessment for learning: Early Childhood Exemplars in 2005. “Kei Tua o te Pae will help teachers to develop practices that integrate assessment and quality learning experiences and to engage with children, parents and whānau about children’s learning and progress” (MOE, 2004, Book 1, p.15). These exemplars showed a new approach of documenting assessment in a narrative form through learning stories. Learning stories reflect and protect the quality and complexity of learning by using a narrative approach (Carr, 2001). This meant that educators could now assess children’s development based on their relationships with people, places and things within the child’s environment (Carr, 2006), thus supporting Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. It also showed the use of multiple perspectives from educators, caregivers and the child themselves within the learning stories, further showing its dedication to involve as many aspects of the child’s environment as possible during assessment. Long gone were the assessments involving forms full of check-boxes that only looked at the abilities of the child rather than at the child as a whole including their ecological system.

The Desirable Objectives and Practices (DOPs) were first introduced in 1990. They were put in place to enforce standards among chartered early childhood services within New Zealand. These standards were used to show educators what is expected of them and their centres. This document was then revised in 1996 to link closely with the newly published Te Whāriki resulting in the Revised Statement of Desirable Objectives and Practices (DOPs). The importance behind this is that while it is not mandatory for all chartered New Zealand early childhood centres to follow Te Whāriki, it is for them to follow DOPs. This was a clever government work around to help ensure that Te Whāriki would start being used in centres as soon as possible, as it is much quicker and easier for a government to edit a previous mandatory document than it is to introduce and pass legislation on a new one. DOPs’ close ties to Te Whāriki and the Vygotskian developmental theory of a continuous development model can be seen in the following exert, “identify learning goals for individual children, and use this information as a basis for planning, evaluating and improving curriculum programmes” (MOE, 1998). It also ties in with Kei Tua o te Pae and it’s exemplars of learning stories that incorporate relationships with people, places and things; “Educators should implement curriculum and assessment practices which reflect the reciprocal relationships between the child, people and the learning environment” (MOE, 1998), as well as with the introduction of multiple perspectives; “Management and educators of chartered early childhood services, in partnership with parents/guardians and whānau, will promote and extend the learning and development of each child” (MOE, 1998).

In conclusion we can see how the documents; Te Whāriki, Kei Tau o te Pae and DOPs, have been linked together to allow a relatively swift transformation in the way assessment is carried out within New Zealand early childhood centres in the present day. Introducing new developmental theories by Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner to help push assessment towards focusing on the achievements of the whole child and their place within, and interactions with people, places and things in their environment. Providing a good guideline on how assessment can be done while leaving it open enough to allow for individual centres’ philosophies and environmental impacts to be taken into consideration. I doubt assessment would be as it is today if any of these three documents had not be published to help support the other two.

References

Berk, L., (2003). Child Development. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Carr, M. (2001). Assessment in early childhood settings. Learning stories. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Carr, M. (2006). Learning dispositions and key competencies: A new curriculum continuity across the sectors? Early Childhood Folio, 10: 2006, 21-26.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: Early Childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education (1998). Quality in Action; Te mahi whai hua. Wellington: Learning media.

Ministry of Education. (2004). Kei Tua o te Pae. Assessment for learning: early Childhood Exemplars. Wellington: Learning Media.

---