Barb+Sharkus

1. Learn more about LRE. 2. How to share this information with other co-workers. 3. How to implement these ideas into my current classroom

I can contribute; 1. Experience in a co-teach program. 2. Typical child development.

3. How can we make this all work for all students?

Chapter: Assessing Young Children This chapter talks about assessment of children (my least favorite thing to do in my classroom). It talks about the many factors that make assessment so difficult in young children (their constantly changing development and getting an accurate picture of each child in a variety of situations). It talks about a child's growth starting inside and then being expressed externally and how it is hard to know a child's full growth especially if it is not expressed. This chapter discusses the purposes of assessment and some tools and techniques that can be used. The section on observation was particularly interesting to me and it gave bulleted examples of situations in which to observe each child to get a full picture of that child. It also talked about how interviews can help to show what a child is like in situations outside of the classroom. I plan to try to use this list to help guide my observations and documentation for each child's behaviors next year. I always struggle with the idea that I do not know each child well enough and hopefully this will help to guide my knowledge of kids in my class. The chapter went on to discuss standardized tests and gave good definitions of terms involved with this testing. It also talked about other assessment procedures such as work samples and how that can show growth throughout the year (we do portfolios, that our parents seem to like. They are always amazed at how much children's work changes from the beginning of the year to the middle and the end of the year.) The chapter ended with special considerations for assessment of children with special needs. This whole book was really easy to read and each chapter had numbered ideas that can be used. It would make for easy reference for finding information quickly for all areas of a child's development.
 * Session 3 (on-line)**
 * Book Title: __Inclusion Strategies for Young Children__-Second Edition by: Lorraine O. Moore**


 * Session 4 (on-line)**

I like how this resource is set up. I like how it shows a continuum from the least intrusive to most intrusive, and I was excited to see that I use many of the least intrusive ideas in class. This will help me in the future to go along the continuum instead of jumping to adult assistance. This will be a good resource to share with my classroom team to provide us with more options for children who may need some adaptations to our classroom routines.
 * Resource Title: __Cara's Kit - Creating Adaptations for Routines and Activities__**


 * Session 7 (on-line)**


 * How would you use __Cara's Kit - Creating Adaptations for Routines and Activities__ with a child you know?**

Many of the adaptations in the environment and activity sections are already in place in my classroom. One area I thought provided some thought for me was the children not listening to teachers or each other in large group discussions. The environment adaptation suggests having children help you create rules for this. I do this with other classroom (safety) rules, but never really thought of it with this area. I think this coming year I will have children come up with rules for talking in a large group and then will write them and illustrate them with the class. We could then review these rules before group times(beginning of the year) or as needed later in the year. We could make laminated picture cards for the rules that could serve as reminders or cues for turn taking in discussions. These could be used as needed with the whole group or some children who are challenged by this social classroom skill. I also plan to print and laminate the mini posters as an easy reference and reminders throughout the room.


 * Session 7 (on-line)**


 * Book Title - __The Power__ __of Observation__ by Jablon, Dombro, Dichtelmiller**
 * Chapter 4 & 5**
 * Chapter 4 talks about guidelines for observation. It discusses doing observations in a variety of situations.**
 * Some of them are: interacting with family members, playing and working with materials, during daily routine times, listening while they talk with others, asking questions and listening to their responses, and studying their work. It also talks about observing over time and how you can start to see patterns and the growth of a child. It makes reference to including the time of day, the social setting or how many others are involved with the child, the child's preferences, the child' degree of choice in the activity (child initiated or teacher directed activity), and the level of the child's competence.**
 * This chapter talks about the challenges of observing while you are involved in the action and that you do not need to separate yourself from the action. It was nice to see that the authors understand how busy teachers are. They talked about reflecting at the end of the day and gave quick items to consider in your reflections.**
 * Chapter 5 talks about the actual observations and the many techniques that you can use. It talks about planning observations and putting what you want to find out into a question. This helps you to focus on 1 thing and can help you to be more objective. This chapter gives many ways to record observations (complete with visuals). These include a variety of ways to write brief notes, anecdotal notes and running records. It also gives examples of matrices, rating scales, and tallies. It talks about the use of photographs and videos.**
 * The chapter goes on to describe different ways to organize all of your gathered information and again gives some visual examples of each.**
 * I liked these two chapters because it gives me hope that I can become a better observer. I liked how it gave so many examples of ways to record information and that some ways are good for 1 situation and other ways are better for another situation. One method is not always the best way to try to record an observation. It also gave me some good ideas to store all of the different methods of observation so that keeping them organized will make using them that much easier.**