After Kindergarten Education Program Guidelines (KEPG) was issued by Ministry of Education of China in 2001, Developmental Assessment in the perspective of new curriculum reform has become the direction of our efforts. When we are planning to carry out the curriculum-embedded development assessment in 2011, The Work Sampling System (WSS) - Work Sampling in the Classroom, A teacher’s Manual entered into our views. So we learn from this system to carry out the relevant research.
The seven domains of WSS based on the curriculum standards of the United States can not be directly used in the Kindergarten of china. So we carried out the localization of these contents firstly. We have developed 5 domains based on KEPG and 3-6 Year Old Children's Development Guide of China, which are Motor Development, Language Development, Emotion and Sociality Development, Mathematics, Arts. WSS contains three interconnected systems: Developmental Guidelines and Developmental Checklists, Portfolios, and Summary Reports. We use the three systems to form the Curriculum-embedded Developmental Assessment System (CDAS) suitable for 3-6 year old children of China.
In CDAS, the three systems play different roles. Development Guidelines are a set of reasonable expectations for children's performance and achievements at different ages. Developmental Checklists are aimed at checking what children can do. Portfolios are aimed at checking how children do. Summary Reports is a statement of each child's performance, progress and aspects in particular need of attention.
In general terms, CDAS has 6 implementation steps. (1)Selecting a domain, and be familiar with Developmental Guidelines and Developmental Checklists of the domain; (2)Determining 2 core objectives for collecting Portfolios; (3)Planning and carry out educational activities; (4)Reviewing all observation data and complete formal grade level; (5)Improving teaching by collecting and analyzing works; (6)Completing Summary Reports according to Developmental Checklists and Portfolios.
