PEDAGOGICAL DOCUMENTATION PD UTILIZING DOCUMENTATION OF STUDENT LEARNING

PEDAGOGICAL DOCUMENTATION (PD): UTILIZING DOCUMENTATION OF STUDENT LEARNING AS A WAY TO PROMOTE COMMUNICATION AND REFLECTION • PD is a way to make students’ thinking visible through photos, video, audio data, and written notes for the purpose of understanding students’ thinking and planning educational experiences (Tarr, 2011). • In the Reggio approach, PD is described as the expression of a pedagogy of listening • PD is about making learning visible. . . (Dahlberg 2012; Fyfe, 2012)

Pedagogical Documentation (PD) • is an ongoing cyclical process of making student learning and thinking visible through various formats including audio, video, and written notes in order to facilitate growth and improvement (Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, 2012).

Research Questions • We asked: How does making student thinking and learning visible provide opportunities for students to reflect on, share, and build on peer and self-learning? • Secondly, how does this process provide opportunities for educators to learn from the student work?

Case Study – An Elementary School • In this study, the culture-sharing group of educators in elementary schools were particularly interested in the cognitive development of students and the role that pedagogical documentation plays in understanding and acting upon current learning to improve teaching and learning.

Data • Fifteen educators including principals, classroom teachers, and early childhood educators formed a purposive sample. • Data Collection = focus group sessions, semistructured individual reflection journals, and pre - and mid-point questionnaires. • Coding - As themes surfaced in an inductive fashion, they were considered for possible conclusions and to detail participants’ experiences with pedagogical documentation.

Quote • “The entire process of documentation has helped me truly understand how everything we do must begin with the students’ learning. We cannot be great educators unless we greatly understand student learning first” (A 3 Reflection, 2014).

Five themes emerged • a) PD connects all stakeholders, bringing forth multiple perspectives throughout the process; • b) PD is a process of ongoing and recursive learning, serving multiple purposes and audiences; • c) PD promotes communication as it builds on, connects, and extends thinking; • d) PD fosters metacognition as it facilitates thinking about thinking that is embedded as a part of the teaching and learning process; • e) PD makes the thinking process visible to shape next steps for teaching and learning through feedback and goal-setting.

Quote • Sharing with other educators gives me a different perspective and the ability to plan next steps. By sharing PD with various partners that contribute to a child's learning, it provides a forum by which those partners can discuss and share in the student's learning as well as celebrate the progress that child has made. It also allows for all partners to have a voice and share ideas, strategies and resources that can assist that child in moving forward. (P 2 Reflection, 2014)

Digital Tools for PD • “I’ve tried to make digital documentation a part of every math lesson. The students can ‘play’ their thinking for all to hear and then elaborate or take questions from the rest of the class” (P 9 Reflection, 2014). • This approach also “. . . permits students to become co-learners and co-assessors, learning, not only from the teacher, but from each other” (A 2 Reflection, 2014).

Reynolds, B. , & Duff, K. (2016). Families’ perceptions of early childhood educators’ fostering conversations and connections by sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation. Education 3 -13, 44(1), 93 -100. • families consider the sharing of documentation fosters family conversations about the children's learning experiences and helps to create stronger connections between the centre, home and extended family. • Children gain pride and a positive sense of identity when their documented work is shared with families.

Strategy • Documentation has been a useful strategy to communicate with parents. I had one opportunity where documentation aided in explaining how effective their child communicates in math. We also had an opportunity to see what concept that child was struggling with. I found the student was so engaged in our conference and the parents knew exactly what their child's next steps were. (P 8 Reflection, 2014)

Video = Learning • It impacts my own learning about student learning often. This is because many times I only see the final product of an assignment. Watching a video clip of a student working through a problem or collaborating with others gives me so much more information about how they learn or think through their work. (P 3 Reflection, 2014)

Perspective • When students view the documentation, it is much easier for them to see themselves as learner, which is our goal: to develop life-long learners. They see a purpose for both their learning and the time and effort that they are putting into an activity. Thus, they are participating fully and the learning is deepened. This success in learning leads to more attempts/risks being taken. It's an exciting cycle! (P 8 Reflection, 2014)

Learning for and as. . . • PD has the potential to promote communication and reflection by educators and students throughout the assessment for and as learning process in Ontario elementary classrooms.

Openness = Development • As educators reflect openly about where they are on the continuum of learning in the process of engaging in documentation with their students and with other educators, they build trust as ask one another how to improve in their practice.

References • Dahlberg, G. (2012). Pedagogical Documentation: A Practice for Negotiation and Democracy. In The Hundred Languages of Children, (Ed. ). Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini, and George Forman. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. • Fyfe, B. (2012). The Relationship between Documentation and Assessment. In The Hundred Languages of Children, (Ed. ). Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini, and George Forman. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. • Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. (2012 a, October). Pedagogical documentation. Capacity Building Series (Secretariat Special Edition Research Monograph #30) • Reynolds, B. , & Duff, K. (2016). Families’ perceptions of early childhood educators’ fostering conversations and connections by sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation. Education 3 -13, 44(1), 93 -100. • Ryan, T. G. , & Goure, C. (In Press). Pedagogical Documentation: Utilizing Documentation of Student Learning as a Way to Promote Communication and Reflection. The Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly, 9 (1), 02 -15. • Tarr, P. (2011). Reflections and shadows: Ethical issues in pedagogical documentation. Canadian Children, 36(2), 11 -16.