Week 3 Reflection

What is Documentation?

Documentation is a record of a child's progress. Whether that be in the format of photographs, comments written by the teacher, transcripts of children's discussions, or explanations of activities. Documentation allows teachers to see what children are doing and doing. There are two different formats of documentation that we learned in class. 

1. Documentation Panel 

    --> A documentation panel is a tool used to showcase how and what student's in your classroom are learning. These allow for children's learning to become visible. 

2. Portfolio

    --> A portfolio is a collection of evidence of a child's learning and work. It is collected over time and it demonstrates a child's efforts, progress, or achievements. 

Conventional vs Reggio Emilia vs Project Style...

Conventional Documentation: The conventional approach is a summative form of assessment, that is in a report card format. It allows parents and/or teacher to see the overall of a child's learning. 

Reggio Emilia Documentation: The Reggio Emilia documentation approach is formative. It shows learning as the process of construction. Children's interests drives the curriculum through careful observation of the classroom. 

Project Style Documentation: Through project style documentation, there is an in-depth exploration of a certain topic that may be child or teacher initiated. 

Reggio Emilia

Future Classroom...

Within my future classroom, I hope to be able to use many different styles of documentation. I love the set up of portfolios and documentation panels. I think both of these ways to documents students learning is very creative and a great way to help teachers see what children are learning and doing! I do not want to continue to use the same styles for documentation, I would like to mix it up to see what works for my classroom. For example, I will possibly be utilizing both paper portfolios and also digital portfolios. I believe that having different ways to view and utilize the different documentation styles is so important!