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[music]
>> DR. JEFFREY TRAWICK-SMITH: You hear a lot these days about the importance of observing
young children in early childhood settings. I know you may be thinking,
"I'm always observing; what's new or different about that?" Well, watch while early childhood
educator Dr. Sudha Swaminathan reveals how to get some really useful results from your observations.
>> DR. SUDHA SWAMINATHAN: Observation is a very important part of an early childhood
classroom. Teachers are constantly observing, and sometimes they're observing just to
make sure everything's okay, children are safe and everything's going right.
>> Teacher: Hey, Annaliese and Ty, everybody ok? Yeah? Ok.
>> PATTY GARDNER: What I 'm trying to do is make sure the children are safe in the
classroom, and I am constantly paying attention to things that are going on, and make sure
they're doing activities that are furthering their learning and social development.
>> Teacher: We're going to head to music.
>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Spontaneous observations, like what Patty just did, occur in the classroom
all the time. But there are other times when teachers pre-plan their observations. They
take the time to decide: What is it I need to observe for each child? And they set the
time and the environment, and they plan for it.
The more intentional a teacher is, the
more pre-planned she is, the more she focuses on what she needs to learn about each child
ahead of time, and then goes to the classroom with all the necessary tools to observe the child.
Then they learn much, much more about the child.
>> Teacher: You're working hard there, Matt.
>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: When teachers pre-plan their observations, they usually have a specific
goal in mind. They may have noticed that a certain child has some kind of trouble in
the classroom. This could be trouble interacting with other children, so they want to observe
and document to see how they could help that child.
Or it could be a child has trouble
learning a particular skill, so they're going to focus on observing the child and
tailoring their instructions to help the child. Or they could do a formal assessment of the
child so that they could incorporate that assessment into the portfolio to share with
the parents and administrators.
Let's take a look at how three teachers go about planned
observations with specific goals in mind.
>> KATHY PIQUETTE: We have this one little boy this year who is 4 years old, who is very,
very good at the computer, but his social interactions are a little bit delayed. He
preferred to play mostly by himself.
>> NARRATOR: Through her thoughtful observations, Kathy realized what was needed to help improve
Joey's social interactions.
>> KATHY PIQUETTE: So what we did is we would set up situations at the computer where there
was always another child with him.
>> NARRATOR: Kathy devised this intervention after observing Joey in a variety of situations.
Once he started using the computer with other children, he became more comfortable interacting
during free play and at other times as well.
>> NARRATOR: Sofia conducts weekly writing workshops with her preschool class and is
especially interested in the progress of children who will be going to Kindergarten in the fall.
Earlier she noticed that Marissa was having trouble grasping the pencil, and so today
she has planned to observe Marissa and to give her extra instructions on how to hold the pencil.
>> SOFIA CORTEZ-GOMEZ: With this specific child I am observing her at the writing workshop
a little bit more because I want to be sure she is able to do this, and she's able to
grab the pencil a little bit better...
>> NARRATOR: Over the next few weeks Sofia continues to observe Marissa and notices that
the instruction has helped Marissa improve her writing ability. Now, Marissa is ready
for Kindergarten.
>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Our last example is a formal assessment. Teachers are expected to
assess their children, to document their learning in all the different domains of development.
This is expected by administrators, and this is also something they share with the parents
of the children. Planned observation is the core of all formal assessments.
>> NARRATOR: Teacher Nancy Hines has been casually observing 4-year-old Salvatore for
the past few weeks to see if he is ready to read. Today she has prepared a well planned
observation to formally assess his reading ability.
>> NANCY HINES: I'm looking at Salvatore and I'm interested in how he looks at books
and print. What I would do is pick a particular book that I know Sal's familiar with. I
would have some props there for him to see if he can retell the story. And then Sal would
read the book and retell the story for me.
>> Child: The three little pigs...
>> NANCY HINES: I would look at the benchmarks, which is what we use for our assessments.
If he follows through and does all the things that I'm hoping that he does, hopefully
he'll probably be at the end of the benchmark, meaning he's ready for the beginning stages
of reading.
>> NARRATOR: While Nancy had a sense of Salvatore's reading readiness, she knew that these informal
observations needed to be backed up with concrete evidence. By planning and carrying out these
observations, she can now confirm with confidence that Sal is learning to read.
>> Child: The three little pigs...
>> NARRATOR: Nancy is using her systematic observations of Sal's reading progress as
assessment data for his portfolio. Planned observations can produce data that become
part of the child's portfolio for school records and to share with parents.
>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Observing children and documenting their growth is a very integral
part of early childhood education. So all caregivers should focus on planning their
observations and documenting children's growth, because ultimately, that's what's
going to help them learn what the child is capable of doing, what the child has potential
to grow into, and how they as a teacher can help that child reach their potential.
[music]