Fieldwork: Brigance Assessment (BA) and the GOLD Assessment

Fieldwork
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Introduction
The fieldwork was conducted in a classroom at Head Start Spring Valley, a universal program kindergarten school. The observation took place for ten hours, where I actively listened and observed the teacher’s assessment techniques. I recorded notes while assisting the teacher with simple and basic activities as directed. The teacher utilized both formative and diagnostic assessments. These included the Brigance assessment (BA) and the GOLD assessment. The assessment was used to monitor progress for each child in the classroom. Under each assessment strategy, specific classroom events and occurrences were recorded. This paper will explore and analyze my experiences in that classroom, including what I observed, the events documented, and the outcomes.
Brigance Assessment (BA)
Albert Brigance came up with BA to assess young children’s developmental skills. The BA tool checks the skills and abilities of a child in a kindergarten classroom. These skills include but not limited to language development, motor ability, and social and emotional wellbeing (Trent, 2019). In language development, the tool checks the ability of a child in a classroom context to conceive and take in thoughts in clarity. Additionally, the tool checks whether a child can understand what is being said. Secondly, in terms of motor ability, BA checks whether the child can coordinate their muscles during strenuous physical activities such as running and jumping. It also checks the cooperation and coordination of small muscle networks when a child is engaged in performing simple tasks such as drawing, holding/catching, and manipulating objects. BA also assesses social and emotional skills by checking a child’s capability to interact with peers, be part of group play, and follow the set guidelines and rules (Shires, 2017). Finally, the assessment tool informs about the child’s capability to manage and express emotions appropriately.
In the observed classroom set-up, the teacher utilized BA as a guide to understand each child’s strengths and identify their weak areas; where they might need additional support. The teacher applied an integrated approach which included direct observation, hands-on activities and one-to-one interactions. In direct observation, the teacher observed the children during routine classroom activities such as physical education and outdoor learning in order to obtain individual data on social interaction, motor ability, and language development. In one-on-one interactions, the teacher interacted with the children on an individual level to assess language