“It has to work fast and with assurance”: Challenges in implementing assessment of children’s learning and well-being in one preschool

• Published in: Netla
• Main Authors: Jóhannsdóttir, Linda R., Ólafsdóttir, Sara M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2020
• Subjects: early childhood education; assessment; documentation; learning; well-being; leikskólastarf; mat; skráningar; nám; vellíðan; Reykjavík; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/netla/article/view/3133; https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2020.4

The article describes a collaborative action-research process conducted in a preschool setting in Iceland. The study is part of a larger project, Assessment of Children’s Learning and Well-being in Preschools, conducted in collaboration with the Center for Research in Early Childhood Education (RannUng) at the University of Iceland and the five neighbouring municipalities of Reykjavík. Participants in this section of the study were three preschool teachers working with children aged five to six years, along with the school’s headmaster and the authors of this article.According to the Icelandic National Curriculum for Preschools, teachers in each preschool shall develop a variety of methods to gather information on children’s learning and well-being, focusing on their abilities, strengths and interests. The aim of the study was to support the preschool teachers in their first steps of developing their documentation methods through learning stories or pedagogical documentation. The study also sheds light on the preschool teachers’ ideas as to what assessment is, what kind or kinds of documentation should be conducted in preschools and what is important to document and assess in children’s daily activities in the preschool. The data generation was in the form of individual interviews and group conversations over the course of one school year.The participants were introduced to the learning stories approach and pedagogical documentation, as a way to gain insight into the social and emotional factors of learning by focusing on the learning taking place as children construct knowledge when participating in play and creative activities. The participants perceived that the learning stories approach was more difficult to comprehend in the beginning, so they decided to start their journey with pedagogical documentation.The findings show that, in the beginning, the participants’ ideas about the assessment of children’s learning and well-being were unclear. The teachers thought that social competence and good communication ...