Teachers Developing Assessments of Early Literacy: A Community of Practice Project

Abstract

Our project offered general and special education teachers guided and sustained opportunities to design and implement assessments of young children's reading and writing that reflect contemporary approaches to literacy instruction. Fourteen teachers met 10 times over 15 months (April 1997-June 1998) to critically examine their current assessment practices, and to consider and design alternatives that they experimented with in their classrooms between meetings. This paper describes teachers' perceptions of the efficacy of our participatory approach to professional development, their learning, and changes in their assessment practices that reflect their learning. Overall, teachers valued opportunities to learn from one another, to set their own professional development agenda, and having time to plan, experiment, and reflect on their assessment practices. Teachers produced high quality assessments to reflect their teaching-learning contexts, and gained confidence in their ability to make professional judgments about children's learning.