Educating children require a teacher to observe them for a multitude of reasons. Teachers innately observe how a child grows, engages in learning, and communicates/interact with others to determine how to best meet a child’s needs and promote their growth, development, and learning. To effectively accomplish those goals, you will need to be able to describe the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development that happens from early childhood through adolescence and the influence on learning.
your findings that could be used by a school district to inform decisions on children’s overall developmental levels and needs.
Assessment Deliverable
Potential needs of the school district’s students provide important information related to the typical and/or expected developmental characteristics and the actual and/or observed characteristics of children at different developmental stages. This information will help the school district determine the influence of children’s development of learning and what types of developmental supports and services may be needed.
Your report should include the following information with supportive examples from your observations:
Describe each educational setting you observed, including:
School information and the time of day the observation took place
Activity the children were doing at the time and their level of engagement
Developmental stage of children observed (i.e., early childhood, middle childhood, or adolescence)
Describe the developmental characteristics you observed in each educational setting for the following domains:
Physical Development
What was the range of physical characteristics in the classroom related to height and weight differences and body proportionality?
Did most of the children seem to have typical fine and gross motor skills? Were there any who seemed advanced or delayed?
What specific influences did the children’s physical development seem to have on their learning?
Cognitive Development
What was the range of cognitive characteristics in the classroom related to language, communication, and attention span?
Did most of the children seem to have typical literacy and thinking skills? Were there any who seemed advanced or delayed?
What specific influences did the children’s cognitive development seem to have on their learning?
Social/Emotional Development
What was the range of social/emotional characteristics in the classroom related to peer interactions and self-regulation ability?
Did most of the children seem to demonstrate empathy and sympathy or possess typical moral reasoning abilities? Were there any who seemed advanced or delayed?
What specific influences did the children’s social/emotional development seem to have on their learning?
Potential learning supports or services the school could provide for each educational setting. The potential supports or services should be based on your observation of children struggling (e.g., trying to keep up, not understanding something, unable to do an activity, generally frustrated, etc.) and connection to physical, cognitive, and social/emotional development.
