Part 1. Assessment for intentional teaching
Introduction
Part 2. Introducing assessment practices
Introduction
Part 3. Gathering information about children’s learning
Introduction
Part 4. Multiple perspectives
Introduction
Part 5. Learning stories
Introduction
Part 6. Narrative assessment techniques
Introduction
Part 7. Responding with intentionality
Introduction
Part 8. Assessment and intentional teaching in daily practice
Introduction

Introduction

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In the first half of this course, we introduced key principles for extending and enhancing learning in early childhood related to intentional teaching and early childhood assessment practices. We explored:

  • Intentional teaching as a process in which teachers are deliberate and thoughtful in actively planning interactions and actions to extend children’s thinking and development
  • Formative assessment as a practice for developing an understanding of children’s learning that is used to inform and support further teaching and learning

With careful and sensitive assessment, children’s interests and intentions for their own learning can be recognised and enhanced within a context of supportive intentional interactions that guide and extend children’s learning and development.

In Part 5, we are going to look more deeply at how assessments of learning in early childhood education can be presented to learners, their families and others using the learning story format. This format also enables teachers to communicate the ways in which their assessments will support them to teach in more intentional ways. 

We are aiming to:
  • Gain an understanding of the potentials and limitations of learning stories
  • Identify high and poor quality practices in relation to learning stories
This will involve:
  • Reading about the learning stories assessment approach
  • Reflecting on the important features of effective assessment documentation
  • Watching a video in which teacher Susan Hildred describes how assessment tools inform learning stories and intentional teaching at Hokowhitu Kindergarten
  • Relating your learning to practice by using a rubric to analyse the quality of a learning story from your setting

You can also find suggested further reading on the topic of intentional teaching at the end of this section, and there is an option to discuss intentional teaching practices in the online forum.

Revisit your learning so far

In what ways does having a range of perspectives on assessment information support the validity of your assessment?

Considering a range of perspectives on an observation of a child’s learning helps to develop more secure judgments (validity) when these are corroborated by others, or simply opens up a space for alternative interpretations, highlighting the uncertainty of any one interpretation of assessment data and the importance of maintaining an open mind as to what might be happening for a child. 

Once you have collected some interesting and rigorous assessment data on a child’s learning, and begun to consider what it means from a range of perspectives with the help of other people involved with the child, it is important to be able to communicate this information in an engaging way in order to stimulate further assessment and intentional teaching. The learning story is an effective vehicle for this. A learning story comprises careful reporting of assessment of children’s learning as demonstrated through their activity, environment, and interactions. It involves reflection on that assessment through processes of describing, recognising, and analysing learning, and planning intentional responses. Although there are a number of ways that assessments can be communicated, our focus in this course is the learning story. We offer a range of reasons why learning stories are so commonly used in early childhood education, but the processes and strategies for producing learning stories described here will be common to other effective assessment approaches and various forms of pedagogical documentation.

Read

Read the following introduction to learning stories, noting the benefits and issues raised with this form of assessment as you read.

Why use ‘learning stories’

Assessment in early childhood needs to reflect the complexity of children’s learning and development, and the context of their interactions with people, places, and things. Less standardised forms of assessment are often the most appropriate for assessing complex learning in context. Qualitative and interpretive methods that focus on showing the learner and their achievements in the contexts of relationships and environment are better able to capture multiple and less pre-determined outcomes.

Learning stories are narratives created from structured observations, designed to provide a cumulative series of pictures about a child’s learning. They are observations that are reinterpreted as stories, then analysed and used as the basis for planning. Teachers collect ‘critical incidents’ or moments which seem significant for a child. By analysing several of these through narrative, teachers can come to understand the path of the child’s learning and the pattern of their learning dispositions. Several consecutive narratives can be pieced together to make a fuller picture, while remaining open for other pieces to be added.

A series of learning stories is often kept in a portfolio alongside examples of children’s work. This enables teachers to review learning and identify continuity and opportunities for development. Developing stories over time and space (in other words, linking separate stories or adding extra ‘chapters’ to existing stories) enables assessment documentation to show the development of dispositions in different situations, and enables better understanding of the learner in action. When the same sort of learning story appears in different areas of the curriculum, the disposition can be considered more robust.

However, other assessment strategies may also be required in addition to learning stories which do not provide the measurement tools required by the Ministry of Education for identifying specific difficulties or indicating the need for early intervention. Learning stories have also been criticised for a lack of validity, for focusing on one teacher’s observations and analysis rather than drawing on a range of colleagues’ input, for not demonstrating continuity and change in learning over time, for being produced infrequently, and having limited value in different contexts such as school. These are important concerns that can be addressed by embedding effective assessment strategies within the practice of learning stories.

Strengths of a learning story approach

• Encouraging involvement: Stories are generally more engaging and interesting to read than more objective accounts of observations. Using narrative and photographs, which are emotionally appealing and affirming, learning stories can act as a ‘conscription device’ inviting families and children to participate in assessment practices by engaging with the stories, and helping to interpret and plan from them. Learning stories also allow families a window into the practices and purposes of the ECE setting, and draw attention to the kinds of activities which lead to the development of learning dispositions.

• Ability to account for the complexity of learning in early childhood: Learning stories encourage detailed observations and analysis of learners, seeking connections and affirming complexity as an integral part of early childhood learning. By providing rich descriptions, learning stories convey the intensity and complexity of events. They also provide description of the environment and teaching interactions that accompany and support the learning. Stories might say as much about teaching as they do about learning, and therefore they can provide a source of validation for teaching.

• Generative of multiple meanings and interpretations: Learning stories can have various meanings depending on teachers’, children’s, families’ and community values. Learning stories recognise and value the ways in which teachers’ lenses are shaped by their own realities, histories and cultures. By adding other perspectives, including children’s and families’ views, Māori as well as other cultural perspectives, and the values and influences of the wider community, learning stories generate diverse interpretations and ongoing possibilities for sharing, negotiating, revisiting, developing and changing meanings. Such diversity makes space for the uncertainty that should accompany the complexity of learning in early childhood, as development is not standard or linear. Also, the integration of different voices in the assessment process addresses issues of objectivity or validity, so that a more robust analysis of children’s actions can be presented.

• Enabling children’s voices: Learning stories have the potential to develop children’s metacognition, in helping them to think about their knowledge, skills and learning. Inviting children to make their own self-assessments opens spaces for children’s voices and for crucial connections between their everyday realities and the curriculum, which might otherwise go unseen and unknown.

• Constructing competence: ECE assessment in the curriculum document Te Whāriki is underpinned by notions of promoting each child’s growing competence to participate in, and learn about, the world. Learning stories are congruent with this aim in both supporting children’s sense of competence and helping to construct competencies. Learning stories aim to recognise and strengthen children’s learning dispositions, and to create affirming stories that identify children as strong and capable in various roles and contexts. A portfolio collection of learning stories celebrates the child as a competent individual and acknowledges the child’s strengths.

• Enabling continuity: Learning stories can also document interconnections between stories, and aspects of children’s learning, by making links backwards (to previous events) and forwards (to potential plans, the outcomes of which are then documented). This recognises learning as continuous and open to development. Learning stories support ongoing continuity in learning, by identifying connections between and across interests and strengths, and by providing the materials to take learning in new directions.

• Supporting transitions: New Zealand and international research shows that negative impacts of transition to school can be overcome when effective communication channels are established between schools and ECE settings that enable assessment information to be shared and discussed. This sharing and use of assessment information highlights learning and progress over time, and enhances the links between learning that has taken place at an ECE setting and that which occurs at school, and helps children see themselves as competent, confident learners, making transition more likely to be successful. Assessment information empowers children with a strong learner identity as they enter school and, in connecting knowledge of home and the ECE setting with that of school, fosters children’s sense of belonging and engagement.

Click here to read the full version of this research review with references.

Reflect

How convinced are you of the value of learning stories? Are there other forms of narrative assessment that could provide the same advantages as learning stories, as listed in the reading? What might seem to be the important features of a documented assessment? 

So let’s consider how learning stories connect with what we’ve learned about the varied assessment tools that are important for really gaining a full picture of children’s learning. The use of multiple tools for assessment go some way towards addressing the perceived limitations of learning stories, in ensuring that learning stories are based on robust and trustworthy information that is collected and discussed by teachers working as a team, instead of a solo teacher’s perspective, and that therefore involves teachers in making comparisons to determine change and continuity in learning for children. We need a range of assessment tools to help us be really specific about what is happening for children, but equally, we need an engaging format in which to present this information to children and families. Learning stories are going to be more engaging and interesting to read than an objective account of an observation, or a list of the areas visited during a time-sample, or a list of words spoken while wearing a Go-Pro. Let’s look at the way one teaching team integrate assessment activity into assessment and planning records.

Watch a video

In this video, Susan Hildred from Hokowhitu Kindergarten talks about the way that she and her team are exploring the use of multiple assessment tools to improve their learning stories, assessment practice, and intentional teaching. Susan has been teaching with the Ruahine Kindergarten Association for the past 15 years, and for the last 8 years she has been a kaiako at Hokowhitu Kindergarten. In her time with the RKA she has been involved in a range of professional learning and research projects. Within these learning opportunities she has learnt new data collection tools and strengthened her knowledge and skills with assessment practices. She has also worked with other kindergarten teams to support them on their journeys of new growth.  

Using a range of assessment tools to promote children’s learning

We have a vast range, our main one being learning stories, which we all know have been around for a number of years, and we have adapted ours over the last few years to make it more meaningful and effective.  Each teacher has got a camera, which they take photos of children, the learning they’re doing, the people they’re interacting with.  We also will use the video on those cameras to capture the learning and the interactions, and we can put those on our online portfolio for parents to see.  As a team, we sit down and we go through a child reflection sheet, which looks at the children’s current interests, and where we believe they might sit within Te Whāriki – their dominant strand.  For our priority learners, we use embedded instruction strategies, which break down their big IEP goals into smaller steps.   We have child profile forms which we fill out before we look at any data, really to see how much do we know about our children.  We’ve started using the Go-Pro.  This has come from a research project, and we’ve seen the benefits of what we can capture: their interactions, their language development, where are they spending their time.  At planning meetings each fortnight, we will use a planning form, which has set questions that we fill in, and that brings all of these tools together, and fills in our notice part of our planning form.  From time to time we will use formal observations, to collect data on children: where are they playing, what are they doing, who are they interacting with.  For us, that’s a tool for us to go: we know our child better, we’ve sat down, we’ve gathered data, and we know them better.  So, that’s our vast range.  Some of them, we use regularly.  Some we’re trying to implement and get more efficient at.  Some of them are very time-consuming, so it’s working out how is this going to best work so that we can have equal discussion on all children.  So, yeah, it’s a work in progress, and it will always change, but they are our main tools that we use for our assessment practices here at Hokowhitu.

How has using a range of tools influenced your use of learning stories?

They’ve all, on their own right, had a big impact.  Previously, in years gone past, we were very – probably orientated to just describing the activity the children were involved in, but by gaining a bigger picture through the things like Go-Pro, and seeing where they’re playing, who are they playing with, what language are they using, their social connections – we’ve been able to get to know children better, and so within our learning stories, we’re now identifying the key learning that’s happening, rather than the activity. We’re now able to say, this is what they’re learning, and by doing that we’re also identifying that learning in different spaces.  So, it’s not, hey, they’re in the sandpit,  they’re at the flying fox.  It might be, through these gross motors, you are building your muscle control and your coordination.  So, rather than seeing it as an activity, we’re seeing learning happening in all the whole environment.  So, that’s been our really big shift for us, and in regards to when we do our child reflection, we kind of do our planning a bit different where we know all children fit into every strand of Te Whāriki, but, in our team, we believe a child will be in a dominant strand or maybe two dominant strands.  So, for our team, we will discuss and identify what strand they’re in, and that will be our focus when we write stories. We’re going, right, your story is about contribution, because that’s where we believe you are.  This has made identifying the learning also pinpointed, rather than having it so broad that you’re ticking this box, this box, this box, and that box, where we’re bringing the focus in for the child.  When we feel that it’s time to move to a new strand because they’ve developed those skills, they’ve got them down pat, and it’s now moving them to another one, we’ll write a transition story.  So, our transition story will reflect all the learning that’s happened in that strand, and it might be that we go: those skills you’ve learned here are now supporting you here.  So, for us, the learning stories just show that we know our children.  For our learning stories now, when a child is on the planning cycle, we are actually mentioning their planning in the stories.  So, we might talk about, hey, as teachers we have sat down, and we discussed you at our planning meeting where we’ve seen through some data that we’ve collected, or some information that we’ve collected, that you were doing this, this, and this, and today I have seen you doing the same thing.  So, I guess, we’re just bringing in that language into our learning stories, to say: this is what we’ve seen you doing, this is what you were doing, this is how we’re supporting you, and this is where you might go.

Why use more than one approach to assessment and observation?

When we filled out our child profile on a child – and we fill this sheet out before we look at any other data or any other information that we’ve gathered on the child, and we’ll fill it out – and we’d filled it out, and we kind of went, well, he’s kind of a floater. He doesn’t really fit anywhere, but he floats, and he’s happy to float.  But when we looked at the data, we went, actually, he’s initiating relationships – we’ve got that on camera. Here he is able to join this group, and he’s actually co-constructing with those children, where beforehand, we just felt like he floated.  So, it was able to – the Go-Pro showed that our formal observations also back that up that we went, hang on – the moments we’ve seen him floating, he’s transitioning from group to group, or he’s transitioning from activity to activity.  So, it was really good to go, actually, what we filled out here isn’t what matched here.  So, yeah, we got to know him a lot better, and our teaching strategies and the activities we were able to put out for him meant it was specific for him.

How do the different assessment tools/methods help inform your planning and intentional teaching?

I don’t see planning as one dimensional.  To me, if it’s one dimensional, your focus is so broad, where if you used lots of little components that build the bigger picture, then it brings the focus into a narrow – the child is the centre point. Just what you can get from all those different components.  One example was, we had a little chap, going back into the research project, who we knew he self-talked to himself – he sat there and he talked to himself, but we could never hear it.  He’d stop if we came near. And to hear on the camera what he was saying, and trying to encourage himself to play nice, and play kind, and be good – it was just mind-blowing.  So, without those extra components, we would never know what was being said.  So, I think, to make planning meaningful and specific, you need a broad range of tools.  

Each tool is a piece of a picture, and when you put it all together, you get the big picture of a child.  They help us, like if we’re doing a plan for a child around language, they give us those examples of the words they’re using. Are they putting one or two words together? Can you understand the sounds that they’re making?  So, when we come to our planning meeting, our planning form … sits down, and all of those tools, we’re able to say: this is what we’ve noticed for the child. This is our notice section – we ping them all in going through the observations, we’ve noticed Joe is doing da-da-da-da-da.  You know?  Then, we can bring in, we’ve seen in the video clip that he is playing with three children 50 per cent of the time, or he’s playing on his own most of the time, but he’s looking and he’s watching what others are doing. The child profile matches what we’ve seen, so we know our child – this is our philosophy, this is where it fits.  So, our planning form also includes links to our philosophy, because we want that language in our planning.  It just builds that bigger picture so it’s meaningful, it’s specific, and we can come back and go, we’ve met this plan, because they are now doing this.  Sometimes, we will put the Go-Pro back on after the planning cycle, just to see, has there been a change?  To me, planning is always a revolving system. There’s no, we’ve got the right thing here – we’re sticking with it.  It’s always going to change when you learn new techniques, and new information comes along, but it all just feeds our intentional teaching.

What kind of support do teachers need when introducing new forms of assessment to their practice?

A big leap of faith – stepping out of your comfort zone.  For me, I’m a creature of habit, and I don’t like going out of my comfort zone, but had I not been challenged and taken that leap of faith, I wouldn’t have learned all the exciting things I have through the different research projects I’ve been in.  Having a supportive environment where the team work collaboratively together, they have buy-in – I think that’s so important, because you can bounce ideas off each other.  If you’re not sure of something, you can ask the person next to you.  Just that continuous encouragement to keep going.  

Delve deeper

At Hokowhitu Kindergarten, they find careful and varied assessment approaches to be highly important for writing effective learning stories. As their learning stories are increasingly based in a broad range of evidence, rather than on anecdotal observations, teachers find their stories have shifted from simple description of children’s activities to a more learning-focused story that recognises the link between children’s activity across a range of learning areas. By compiling several different pieces of assessment information, teachers can connect key moments of a child’s learning to, for example, their deepening work in gross motor development. This becomes a theme of analysis across several events recorded in the child’s portfolio, and builds up a strong picture of continuity in learning across time (we will talk more about this in Part 8). Learning stories also mention the planning that has been happening for a child, and the different ways that teachers have been collecting information about their learning. Teachers might write ‘this is what we’ve noticed’, ‘this is what we’ve seen in the information we’ve collected’, or ‘this is what we have discussed in our planning meetings for you’. In this way, teachers’ varied assessment methods and intentionality for each childr is made clear.

Susan talks about the way her team approaches the writing of learning stories only after they have compiled and interpreted the information from their different assessment tools. They begin with a ‘Child Reflection Sheet’, which offers a series of prompts and helps the team to see what they know and don’t know about a child’s learning. This is useful for ensuring a comprehensive picture of a child’s learning over all five strands of Te Whāriki, and enables teachers to plan further observation types to help them fill any gaps in their knowledge. For example, they might plan to undertake some more formal or structured observations, or they might have the child wear a Go-Pro. They find that different tools offer different perspectives, and that careful use of these tools helps them to confirm or reconsider the assumptions of children’s learning that they might have gathered from more anecdotal evidence. For example, one child who appeared to be ‘floating’ from group to group, and not really engaging with particular activities or peers, was found actually to be initiating relationships with peers and co-constructing activities with them. Imagine the learning story that might have been written without this additional assessment evidence! 

One choice the teachers at Hokowhitu Kindergarten have made is to analyse children’s learning according to the dominant strand within which they believe a child is learning. This becomes the focus for the learning stories they write – the stories will be connected and refer to the child’s progress and activity within this dominant strand. Making a choice to focus their continued assessment and teaching around this strand helps teachers to be highly intentional, and leads to learning stories that are connected and coherent. Again, initial assessments, and teachers’ collective reflection, discussion and shared decision-making around these, improve the quality of the learning stories that are written.

Relate your learning to practice

Read this learning story exemplar, which consists of three connected learning stories written over two months. The children involved are four and four-and-a-half years old.Using the rubric provided below, analyse the learning story. Alternatively, if you are experienced with learning stories, you might like to analyse one of your own recently written learning stories. Complete this interactive table to analyse the story. This exercise will help you to get a sense of the important features of an effective learning story. Check a box for each of the statements to represent your assessment of this story, then print the page or save the file as a PDF from your browser.

Look at your findings. Which criteria does this story meet well? What are key areas to improve? How might these have been addressed (for example, what more information or discussion is needed)?

In addition, if you analysed one of your own stories, do you think this story would be representative of the quality of most stories for this child and across your early childhood setting? How well does the story demonstrate or identify intentional teaching, and in what ways was it used to inform future practice? What actions could you put in place to address areas where improvement is needed?

Summary

The key points covered in this part of the course are:

  • A learning story approach to assessment in ECE has several strengths. These include capacities for:
    • assessing learning in context, 
    • encompassing a range of holistic learning outcomes, 
    • inviting and integrating many perspectives, including those of children, families and whanau,
    • engaging others and encouraging their involvement, 
    • constructing images of children as competent and capable, 
    • reinforcing what is valued, 
    • supporting transitions, and
    • enabling and documenting continuity in learning.
  • Learning stories are often richer, deeper, and more meaningful when based on a broad range of assessment evidence, which is compiled and discussed by teaching teams working together.
  • Important aspects to include in a high-quality learning story relate to content (context, breadth, richness), analysis (working theories, dispositions, links to Te Whāriki, diverse interpretations), planning (participation of children and families, reflection, intentional practice), and continuity (reference to prior learning, alignment with centre priorities).

Discuss online

If you wish, use the Part 5 forum to discuss:

  • What are some of the common challenges with learning stories (or other assessment formats you use) in your early childhood setting?
  • Which aspects are difficult for you or your team to achieve?

Further reading

Read Early childhood assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand: Critical perspectives and fresh openings (sciendo.com), which  helps situate early childhood assessment practice in New Zealand within a range of traditional and contemporary approaches to assessment, and argues that the learning stories have potential to provide assessment that is credible, rich, responsive and morally responsible. 

Read our guide to the features of high-quality assessment in early childhood.  This resource shows how ensuring learning stories are of high quality means attending to issues of content and coverage, analysis, curriculum, learning priorities and links to Te Whāriki, accessibility, and collegiality.

Read the Education Review Office’s 2007 report which details their findings regarding quality practices for assessment in ECE, and has been used in the construction of our learning story evaluation rubric in the activity for this part. 

Finally, you might like to read more about Hokowhitu Kindergarten’s experiences with using a variety of data assessment tools to inform their learning stories. Note that the paper refers to a CEOS, which stands for Child Experience Observation System, and involves the use of a tablet with software enabling the user to code basic information about different types of play and interaction, such as (for the focus child discussed here) who the child is playing with.